Renck: Rockies nail it with hiring of GM Josh Byrnes, but it doesn’t mean anything yet. He must prove it.

Let s keep it When a franchise loses games in three consecutive seasons it gets no benefit of the doubt Become competitive Less embarrassing Show us progress Embrace innovation Give fans players worth cheering for prospects they can believe in a process that makes sense a reason to go to the Coors Field beyond fireworks nights Accomplish these moves Walker Monfort and Paul DePodesta then anger and suspicion will nudge toward appreciation As it stands anyone who knows anything about baseball does not trust anyone employed on Blake Street But long pause clearing of throat blinking twice the Rockies made a good move Wednesday that should help change the beliefs Josh Byrnes a -year-old who has worked for every group in the National League West but the San Francisco Giants is back Intelligence and analytics are in DePodesta and Byrnes are the polar opposites of predecessors Greg Feasel and Bill Schmidt who judged their performance not on how players were producing but their own brown-nosing of Dick Monfort Byrnes is the new general manager After a -loss season that highlighted incompetence at every level of the organization it appears Walker Monfort has convinced his father that the focus must change and that the baseball brain trust has to lead the dramatic pivot When the Rockies hired DePodesta who has spent the past decade with the Cleveland Browns it only made sense if he could add executives to fill in for his baseball absence and complement his skillset Byrnes does that He is not the perfect candidate but his resume looks good doesn t it He has spent the past years with the Los Angeles Dodgers as their senior vice president of baseball operations where he ran the club s scouting and sportsman maturation You know the two things the Rockies are horrible at During this time the Dodgers posted the best record in baseball They won three world championships and eight division titles The Rockies have never won a division title This means nothing Unless it means something The Rockies are not the Dodgers The only thing they share in common is roughly the same number of blue-clad fans who attend games at their stadiums every season The Rockies are trying to create their version of Moneyball DePodesta and Byrnes during their time in Los Angeles a decade apart were part of More Moneyball with the Dodgers But finding prospects and turning them into impact big leaguers is a skill and Byrnes preparedness and attention to detail helped produce positive outcomes for the likes of Corey Seager Wil Smith Cody Bellinger Walker Buehler Dustin May and Gavin Lux He also strongly recommended Dave Roberts as the manager Perhaps no organization incorporates analytics better than the Dodgers without losing a feel for the fact that baseball is played by humans Byrnes himself set records for home runs and RBIs at Division III Haverford College in Pennsylvania and remains a sharp pickleball performer He can live in both worlds as part of the geek squad and the pick-up group It wasn t as if he was riding coattails like a skateboard around Chavez Ravine He s been intimately involved with the Dodgers success over the last years and he s been a big engine behind a lot of their successes A lot of people there have made vital contributions but I think his are particularly critical DePodesta reported The Denver Post For all of those reasons I m excited to have him In terms of the pairing with me I would tell you that I have known him for years now and I feel like I get smarter every time I talk to him And that continues the present day Byrnes benefited from working for the Dodgers allowing him to excel and improve in the shadows After stints with Cleveland the Rockies and Red Sox where he won a ring in he served in a general manager s role for the Arizona Diamondbacks - and San Diego Padres - He helped guide Arizona to the National League Championship Series in losing to the Rockies And with the Padres he acquired three starters Ian Kennedy Tyson Ross and Andrew Cashner and a closer Huston Street in a roster-shaping commerce There were plenty of misses too In a three-way deal in Arizona he shipped Max Scherzer to the Tigers for Kennedy and starter Edwin Jackson And replacing the popular Bob Melvin with A J Hinch who had never coached at any level was a tragedy leaving Byrnes panned for pushing the term organizational advocacy in marrying the manager to the front office In San Diego he was doomed by an ownership change becoming a convenient fall guy for delusional former Miami Dolphins executive Mike Dee In his third crack at this job Byrnes will have the advantage of experience of a decade of success in Los Angeles and four years of working at altitude two decades ago He must nail the draft hit on international signings invest in pitching advance and analytics staff specialized for Coors Field while trading for more controllable assets for this massive rebuilding project The Rockies did not lose games by accident Related Articles Is current club great like Broncos Or lucky like Kansas City Chiefs Renck Bo Show remains a hit especially in clutch but Broncos cannot keep winning this way Renck File Rockies Paul DePodesta keeping Warren Schaeffer looks bad But here s why it makes sense Renck Von Miller will invariably be a Bronco even if playing for Denver again unlikely Renck Barb Paton s Holiday Huddle brightens season for selfless kids from Boys Girls Clubs of Metro Denver DePodesta and Byrnes in multiple approaches are connected DePodesta was too young to succeed with the Dodgers Byrnes was too bold too soon in Arizona These two know what they don t know They have been humbled And yet not discouraged They have been friends since they were kids sharing a passion for baseball Both have lived in the San Diego area for years That in and of itself inspires confidence in a weird way in Byrnes Who leaves baseball s best organization while living in one of the greatest ZIP codes to work for the Rockies It is like a reverse midlife dilemma And makes it clear how much Byrnes if not DePodesta are determined to make this work Let s be clear Byrnes was part of the Dodgers dynasty but he was not the guy making the biggest decisions And his record as a GM is a mixed bag There are no guarantees this will work The Rockies have given us no choice but to demand two words when they make these kind of moves prove it But at least in DePodesta and Byrnes they have hired people who are capable of doing just that