Following the "resignation" of longtime general manager Dan O'Dowd, the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday introduced their new general manager, Jeff Bridich, who at 37 becomes the youngest GM in the sport. He had been the team's senior director of player development since 2011, and it seems that part of his qualifications are playing catcher at Harvard (or backup catcher) and going to Harvard. That apparently makes him smart, and every team wants a smart general manager these days.

Considering O'Dowd and co-GM Bill Geivett had just resigned, the Rockies obviously just decided to promote from within rather than actually conduct a search for the best candidate. Maybe that search would have resulted in Bridich getting the job anyway, but it's kind of strange that owner Dick Monfort wouldn't at least consider an outside candidate. (It seems unlikely the Rockies could have kept an outside search completely quiet.)

Anyway, our Rockies Zingers blog does a great job covering the team. Richard Bergstrom had an initial reaction to a somewhat bizarre news conference:

It is also a little fair to wonder, as insular as the Rockies can be, what is Bridich’s exposure to ideas outside of the organization? If the biggest thing on his resume, besides a stint in the main MLB office, is spending ten years in a losing organization, does he have a good idea on what makes franchises successful? Ordinarily, I might be a bit more skeptical and say "Nah, he doesn’t," but this is kind of where social media helps because of his evident popularity outside of Denver. And to be fair, every so often the Rockies do try innovative things such as the four man rotation (not to mention the two general manager system), so they are outside-the-box at times, though it is unclear who gets the credit (or blame) for that.

The Rockies were extraordinarily patient with O'Dowd. He had been the GM since the 2000 season, and while he presided over two playoff appearances, including a trip to the World Series in 2007, the team never won a division title under his watch and had just four winning seasons in 15 years. The last four years the Rockies lost 89, 98, 88 and 96 games in 2014. It was definitely time for a change.

What's interesting is that, despite all that losing, Rockies fans have remained supportive. They ranked 10th in the majors in attendance this season, ahead of playoff teams Washington, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Oakland and Kansas City. The Rockies appear to know what they're doing from a marketing perspective. Now they need to figure out the baseball side of things.

The first task for Bridich won't be an easy one: Do you try to trade Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki this offseason?