Rockies fire Bud Black after brutal start, name Warren Schaeffer as interim manager
The Colorado Rockies fired manager Bud Black and bench coach Mike Redmond on Sunday. Third-base coach Warren Schaeffer is now the interim manager, and hitting coach Clint Hurdle will serve as the interim bench coach.
'Our play so far this season, especially coming off the last two seasons, has been unacceptable. Our fans deserve better, and we are capable of better,' said Rockies owner Dick Monfort. 'While we all share responsibility in how this season has played out, these changes are necessary. We will use the remainder of 2025 to improve where we can on the field and to evaluate all areas of our operation so we can properly turn the page into the next chapter of Rockies baseball.'
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The Rockies gave Black a nice sendoff with a 9-3 victory over the Padres on Sunday, but this season has been a complete disaster. The Rockies lost 21-0 to the Padres on Saturday, and after losing 103 games in 2023 and 101 games in 2024, they seem primed to break the 2024 Chicago White Sox's record (41-121) for losses in a season after starting the season 7-33.
Schaeffer joined the Rockies as a third-base and infield coach during the 2023 season after spending 10 seasons as a coach and manager in the team's minor-league system.
'I believe that Warren is the right person to lead us forward for the remainder of this season, develop our young talent at the major-league level and get our club back to playing a better brand of baseball,' said General Manager Bill Schmidt. 'He has a great ability to connect with both veterans and young players and is an excellent communicator.'
The Rockies installed Hurdle as the team's hitting coach on April 17 after firing former hitting coach Hensley Meulens. Hurdle managed the Rockies for parts of eight seasons (2002-09). The team went 534-625 during his tenure and made its only World Series appearance in 2007. Hurdle also managed the Pittsburgh Pirates from 2011 until 2019, going 735-720.
Black's firing comes almost a decade after the Padres dismissed him as manager. On June 15, 2015, San Diego general manager A.J. Preller, who had inherited Black the previous summer, relieved the veteran manager of his duties after a 32-33 start. Black, the 2010 National League Manager of the Year, finished his Padres tenure with an overall record of 649-713. He later declined a reportedly below-market offer to manage the Washington Nationals — the job instead went to Dusty Baker — before joining the Rockies the following offseason.
The Rockies went 544-690 under Black, who managed the team to a wild-card loss in 2017, his first season as manager, and then won a wild-card game before the Rockies got swept by the Brewers in the 2018 National League Division Series. The Rockies have not made the postseason since.
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Black, who pitched in 15 major-league seasons and began his big-league coaching career as the Anaheim Angels' pitching coach, oversaw a Rockies pitching staff that finished the 2017 season 17th in the majors in ERA despite playing half its games at notoriously hitter-friendly Coors Field. The next year, the Rockies ranked 20th in ERA on their way to another playoff berth. In five of the next six seasons, they finished last or second-to-last in ERA.
'I think our guys are still playing hard, and that's what I look at,' Schmidt told the Denver Post before Saturday's historic loss. 'Guys are working hard every day, they come with energy, for the most part. I don't think we are (at that point of firing Black). Guys still believe in what we are doing and where we are headed. We are all frustrated.'
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