Flattering the Time Bomb in Colorado

As you might know, we here at JoeBlogs are always at the ready to offer our services to:

1. Politicians who want to talk about sports without sounding ridiculous.

2. Commissioner Rob Manfred before he says, er, anything.

3. Anyone in sports who decides, for whatever reason, to issue a press release or statement that guarantees mockery.

Well, today we offer this bit of general advice to sports owners and general managers everywhere:

Do not give votes of confidence. Ever. No exceptions.

For the latest proof of this ironclad rule, we go to Colorado, where the Rockies are playing, perhaps, the worst baseball any team has ever played … a rather sobering thing considering that last year’s White Sox lost 121 games. The White Sox and Rockies play a three-game set in Denver over Independence Day weekend, and Mike Schur and I are talking about getting there for this bit of epic baseball history. I mean, when Halley’s Comet is streaking across the sky and on course to hit the moon — or when there’s a solar eclipse over Coors Field and Pope Park at the same time* — you have to make plans.

On Saturday afternoon, Rockies general manager Bill Schmidt was asked about manager Bud Black. It was a fair question: Black has been with the Rockies for nine years, and for the last seven, the team has been dreadful. This isn’t really Bud’s fault — no more than it was Derek Shelton’s fault the Pirates were awful. It’s funny how we ask the people most responsible for a team’s failure what they think about the manager.

Still, fair question. And the correct answer is always a non-answer, always something like: “We obviously think the world of Bud. We’re all disappointed with how the season has gone — Bud is as disappointed as anyone — and our focus is entirely on turning things around.”

And when the inevitable follow-up comes — “Does that mean you’re thinking about firing Bud Black?” — the follow-up answer should be even more vague: “We’re only thinking about how to get better, and that’s true across the organization.”

The wrong answer is to give your manager a vote of confidence.

“I think our guys are still playing hard, and that’s what I look at,” Schmidt told the Denver Post (which, I imagine, was the only outlet that cared enough to even ask). “Guys are working hard every day, they come with energy, for the most part. I don’t think we are [at the point of firing Black]. Guys still believe in what we are doing and where we are headed.”

A few hours later, the Rockies lost to the Padres 21–0.

The next day, Schmidt fired Bud Black.

If it feels like this happens all the time — a coach or manager gets fired within 72 hours of receiving a vote of confidence — that’s because it does happen all the time. And there’s a reason for it: Votes of confidence are stupid, pointless, and self-fulfilling. The people giving them absurdly think it will ease the pressure, that saying “We still have faith in our guy” will make the questions go away.

But that’s not how it works. Once people start asking when you’re going to fire the manager, the bomb has already been armed. The only thing that defuses it is winning. That’s it.

You can’t talk to the bomb.

You can’t flatter the bomb into deactivating itself.

You can’t stare the bomb down and say you’re done answering questions.

Team wins? The bomb is defused.

Team doesn’t win? The bomb goes off. Every time.

Bill Schmidt actually committed a double whammy. In addition to saying he wasn’t at the point of firing Black (which all but guaranteed that he was), he also leaned into my least favorite bit of pseudo-praise: the team is playing hard.

I’ve written so much about this over the years — especially when it comes to the Cleveland Browns. Saying a terrible team is “playing hard” means one of three things:

A) It’s a lie.

B) You’ve built a hopelessly bad team.

C) Both A and B.

It’s also completely beside the point. What does playing hard even mean? If an outfielder runs full speed after a fly ball, dives, and the ball still lands two feet in front of him and rolls to the wall for an inside-the-park homer — sure, he’s playing hard. So hard. So what? “Playing hard” might be the most overrated trait in sports.

Playing smart? Crucial.

Playing hard? Whatever.

I always think of Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez’s response to a young receiver who bragged about how hard he practiced: “Everybody practices hard,” Tony said. “That’s the bare minimum.”

That’s exactly how I feel about playing hard. It’s the bare minimum.

When you start praising a team for playing hard — or, worse, a coach or manager for getting a team to play hard — you’ve lost the plot.

After Bill Schmidt gave the vote of confidence and praised Bud Black for having his team play hard, the end was inevitable. I mean, sure, the Rockies probably would’ve lost 21–0 and fired Black no matter what Schmidt said. But he could have looked a lot less ridiculous.

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