The Chronicles of Bridich

[Edgy MD]

Rockies GM and vice president Jeff Bridich is out in Denver, resigning in a mutual parting after a tenure that can best be described as "rocky."



Bridich led the team to the post-season as recently as 2017 and 2018 (the only time in history they've had back-to-back appearances), and then signed Nolan Arenado to a superstar deal, promising to build the team around him, but things avalanched fast, with the team unable to finance the imports he wanted, the imports he settled for not prospering, and a very public falling out with Arenado before dealing him off this winter, selling low following a lousy 2020.



The tenure was undermined by communication issues, with parties rankled by terse press statements, and sometimes a general absence from public view. He's been replaced on an interim bases by Rockies exec Greg Feasel, who despite putting me in mind of Fogle from Superbad, has no baseball operations experience, which seems oddly unprepared, seeing as this has been a long time brewing.



In higher ed and other industries, there are a handful of experienced presidents who come in as interim presidents from the outside during turnover crises, have no intention of pursuing the job longterm, last a year, make a bunch of painful decisions that the successor doesn't want on his or ledger, and moves on. Baseball might need a couple of these folks. In fact, I initially kind of thought that Sandy Alderson was going to be one of those folks for the Mets, even though he was never an interim.