BREAKING: Rockies hire longtime front office executive Josh Byrnes as new general manager

BREAKING: Rockies hire longtime front office executive Josh Byrnes as new general manager

[Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat. [Music] What’s up everyone? Welcome in to this emergency podcast here on the DNVR Rockies. It’s an emergency edition of the DNVR Rockies podcast brought to you by New Built Restoration and Construction. Uh if you’re in a fix, you got snow issues, you’ve got any problems with your homes, be sure to check out our friends over at Newbuilt Restoration. Uh, this is a big day and this has been a big big big little week for us here in Colorado for for Rocky stuff. We just had Walker Manford on the show yesterday and he says, “Hey, our timeline for hiring a GM is is still in place. We’re going to be moving forward with this new GM hopefully before winter meetings which happen next week.” And you wake up today, find out Josh Burns hired as the Rocky’s new general manager working alongside Paul D. Podesta. What do you think about this one, Spencer? What do you think about this move? Well, I love the move. Uh, I’ve seen a lot of things online that it’s like an internal higher, which we’ll get to in a second, but it just [ __ ] it’s annoying me already, annoying me with um the reaction that some people have had. But let me put it this way. When we interviewed Walker yesterday and he told us, you know, things from what they what they started doing in the past couple months and and hiring a GM and and hiring the president of baseball operations and all these different positions like everything time will tell, right? Well, time is here. This is literally one of the things he told us yesterday was I wouldn’t put a I wouldn’t put it past the timeline that he will be hired by the weekend which would then lead us into winter meetings on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. And it’s already coming true. It’s it’s already coming like he did not lie to us. He he told us the truth. He had like the comment said, uh, Walker had a little smirk on his face, a grin, and he was, he knew what was like, he couldn’t tell us, but he knew that something was coming down. And, uh, my prediction of a Thursday afternoon pod wasn’t exactly correct, but his prediction that to that timeline was still on the books was completely correct. And now we’ve got a a new GM, a longtime GM from the NL West and worked in many different, you know, four World Series rings on his fingers. Rockies will make it the fifth here in a couple years. And then he’s got a, you know, a long resume. We got a president of baseball operations. We got a new chief revenue and strategy offic. Like it’s turning up Rockies. This is all turning up Rockies for us right now in this off season where I woke up this morning at 6:00, had to plow my entire driveway, snow, and all I can think about is Rocky’s baseball at the moment. What a day. What a day. Um, yeah, it’s it’s exciting and we don’t have a lot of time, so I don’t want to kind of dive I don’t want to dive we can’t dive too deep because we’ve got a ton of other shows happening today. So, we’ve only got about 15 minutes or so, but uh I wanted to give some insight into to who he is. this Josh Burns character. Um, I I understand that people are going to see that he worked for the Rockies back in 1999 to 2002. I was a toddler back when that actually happened. So, it was a long time ago. Barely, barely. I had just came out of my mother’s womb and he was working for the Rockies. So, yes, I understand he has connections to the Rockies, but it’s been decades that he’s been out of the Rockies world and he’s been working for teams that have been successful. He went in 2003. He got hired as the assistant general manager with Theo Epste and the and the Red Sox, the Boston Red Sox, and they won a World Series the very next year. Theo Epste actually said he’s a key voice in player personnel. He’s got as much of a feel for evaluating and statistical analysis as anyone in baseball. And we’re talking one of the best front office per front office individuals in the history of baseball. And Theo Epstein saying that about Josh Burns. So, on paper, I think this is as good of a hire as the Rockies could ever have expected. And I also think the combination of Paul D Podesta being this analytic-minded, very intelligent president of baseball operations, combined now with a guy who has a a focus, an emphasis in Josh Burns on the the ins and outs of the players and the personnel, the trades, all of those kind of things. I think it’s a great combination. I think the Rockies, for all of their faults over the last decade and beyond, have absolutely crushed so far this off season starting this rebuild. We had Walker on the show yesterday. He talked about it. He gave us some insight and now they’re backing it up with action. They’re saying, “Hey, we want to go out and we want to find people who can make a difference because, you know, the Manforts making the decisions, Dick Manfort making the decisions in the past hasn’t worked out for the Rockies. Obviously, it’s what’s led to the Rockies being where they are today. And so Walker comes in and says, “We need to we need to hire people. We need to hire baseball minds who can fix this for us.” And you hired Paul Deodesta, a guy who has a a movie made about him back in the day. And now this Josh Burns guy who’s got decades of experience. He’s worked in the NL West. He’s won World Series with the Dodgers with with uh the the Red Sox. Like it feels like a perfect storm. I have on paper zero issues with this hire from the Rockies. A million%. And uh you know during the whole season when we talk about when the Rockies are playing the Dodgers and we talk about the Dodgers which we like to do um very you know we even talked about it in the president of baseball operations church when we heard the two names that had dropped out of the candidacy. We obviously never heard Paul’s name in the search but we were like hey maybe they’re waiting for somebody from the Dodgers because they’re still in the World Series and why is this taking so long? And now their new GM comes directly from basically the best, yes, the money helps, but the best built baseball team in the last 10 years, and it’s not even close. And with uh Josh’s experience overseeing the club’s, this is from Thomas Harding’s uh little quick article here, he oversaw the club’s scouting and player development. Is there a better team in the world than at this at scouting and player development than the Los Angeles Dodgers? I’ve talked about it on the podcast before. I went down this rabbit hole a couple months ago and looked at Dodgers drafts um from the past five, six, seven years and there’d be turds one through se 17, 18, 19 and then all of a sudden at 26 they’re picking Alex Verdugo or they’re picking any of these all-star level major league baseball players at 27, 28 because their scouting is so good and their development is so good. And this is I yeah I don’t see this as anything but a win. You take it you take a you’re taking a piece away from your direct competitor. I know a lot of people don’t consider the Rockies a competitor of the Dodgers right now, but the fact of the matter is and that’s true, but the fact of the matter is they’re in the same division. So, you’re going to have to in order to get to the playoffs and win a World Series one day, you’re going to have to beat the Dodgers at some point. So, they’re taking a huge piece away from that team, putting it on your team. You got Harvard squared at the top of president of baseball operations uh in DPodesta now Burns both Harvard guys at the top of your roster or at the top of your uh front office running your roster and making roster decisions. I I couldn’t be more hyped for this. Like this isn’t grabbing the guy from the Pittsburgh Pirates that have had a 100 loss season or you know thinking about trading Paul Ske because they’re not good enough. This is from the Los Angeles freaking Dodgers. their vice president taking him right and and becoming a GM and he’s been a GM with the Diamondbacks. He’s been a GM with the Padres’s. He’s been a GM assistant GM with the Red Sox who won a World Series as you mentioned earlier. I mean, you if you’re if you’re poo pooing this higher in any way, shape, or form, now I’m not saying this means you’re going to win a World Series. Don’t get me wrong here, but I’m saying in this moment, if you’re poo pooing this higher, you just want to be pissed off. And I’m sorry for you. Like I I feel bad for you because this is this is for a lack of a better term a home run hire from the Rockies to get a guy from the Dodgers. And we’re not the only ones saying it. Go look around the rest of Rocky’s meeting, even people who are really critical of the Rockies. Troy Rank um with the Denver Post, who’s a columnist who has been very outspoken about the Rockies and all of the issues that they have had. I I mean he said this was a home run hire. Patrick Saunders, who covers the the Rockies with the Denver Post, said, “My opinion,” who, and he doesn’t really give his opinion very often because he’s not a columnist, but he said, “My opinion.” This is a really good hire from the Rockies. Uh Bud Black even spoke in. I saw Patrick just posted this. Bud Black uh came in and jumped in and said, “I have known Josh for 30 years and worked closely with him in Cleveland and San Diego. He has an immense passion for baseball and knows what it takes to win. Paired with Paul D Podesta, they will be formidable.” Like look, again, I I’m not saying just like Spencer said, I’m not saying that this is going to change the the the course of next year and that the Rockies are going to go to the playoffs next season, but this is a good step in the right direction. We talk all the time about taking a step forward. This is a step forward for the Rockies. You needed to get your front office fixed before you even thought about signing free agents. before you even thought about getting a pitcher on your roster that actually knew how to throw at elevation. Like before any of that took place, you had to fix your front office. We knew that was the biggest focal point for this off season. Now you’ve done it. You’ve got your your president. You’ve got your GM. You’ve got your chief revenue and strategy officer. If you want to go on the business side of things, I I think the Rockies are set up now with winter meetings coming up next week. We can turn our attention to who are they going to sign? how are you going to actually get this product fixed for the the team so that starting in 2026 things start to look better. Um but you know again the front office this is a step in the right direction. This is good. I’m excited man. I I’m really excited. We’re going to probably get to talk to Josh coming up here in a couple days when we are in Orlando. And so uh this this should be a lot of fun. I I don’t mean to cut us short. I’ve got another show in 15 minutes that I’ve got to jump on. Um, so this was, like I said, this was going to be really quick, but we’ll keep your coverage going on DNVRy’s Twitter. So, if you want to keep following us at on Twitter, we’ll get more quotes. We’re going to be reaching out to people, talking to as many people as we can, getting as much information as we can on this hire, and uh, and we’ll keep you guys posted. So, thanks for watching. U,, we’ll see you guys next week on our show. We’ll have coverage continuing right here on the DNVR Rocky’s podcast. [Music] [Applause] We all sitting like the mayor.

The Rockies have finalized their front office by hiring front office veteran Josh Byrnes as their new general manager. Christian Saez and Spencer Smith discuss on the DNVR Rockies podcast.

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