Isotopes are back in town with a renewed focus on winning
Local storylines add to intrigue of 2022 season
Warren Schaeffer is excited to be back in Albuquerque.
But baseball wasn’t the first thing on his mind Saturday.
Before the 37-year-old, second-year manager of the Albuquerque Isotopes got to the ball park on Saturday for his team’s first workout of the season in their home stadium, he had one piece of business to tend to.
“Before I came to the ball park, I went to El Paisa (Taqueria) and got some real Mexican tacos,” Schaeffer told local media for the first time since leaving at the end of last season as the skipper of the Colorado Rockies’ Triple-A minor league affiliate.
“Everyone in Albuquerque should check out El Paisa.”
With his fix of tacos putting a smile on his face, he had another message Saturday night for his half-the-year fellow Albuquerqueans: Checking out some Isotopes games this season could be a pretty good experience, too.
Schaeffer and the team — or most of what will be the Isotopes’ opening-day roster on Tuesday in Oklahoma City — took to Rio Grande Credit Union Field on Saturday for a brief preseason media session and a practice that was open to season ticket holders under the stadium lights.
As always with a minor league team, the roster, though not officially set as of Saturday, is expected to be a mix of veterans (at least 14 there Saturday have Major League experience) and up-and-coming prospects (at least two of the Rockies’ top 10 minor league prospects according to MLB Pipeline were suited up Saturday).
And Schaeffer — considered a rising star in his position who often manages with the same fiery intensity he played with for in six seasons as a gritty infielder in the Rockies organization — said that while this level of baseball is still known for player development, he’s pumped that the bosses up the road in Denver have his back on something else often overlooked at this level: Winning games.
“We’re trying to get all these guys
— pitchers and hitters — to the big leagues, and they all individually have stuff to work on, but we’re looking to specifically win more games,” said Schaeffer, whose team went 58-72 in 2021. “And I think the town of Albuquerque will be excited about that. It’s been a focus of our organization this year going forward.”
While it may sound obvious to most, winning isn’t always the focus at the Triple-A level where the players are paid by the MLB team and developing them to help that big league roster is key, sometimes shifting priorities away from game outcomes.
But Chris Forbes, the Rockies Director of Player Development has made no secret that teaching players to win is as much a part of the big league plan as anything.
“We need to put an emphasis on Minor League wins,” Forbes told MLB.com in January. “Groups of players that win on the way up, that’s a key.”
That’s music to Schaeffer’s ears.
“It’s great (to hear),” Schaeffer said. “And nobody loves it more than the players; the players want to win.
“We’re still going to develop. That’s our job. We have all day long to develop. But at 6:35 (p.m., typical start times for games at Isotopes Park), it’s time to win.”
Familiar faces
In addition to the returning players and staff, Isotopes fans will see some other familiar faces at the yard this season.
Most notable for many will be the return of Jordan Pacheco, the La Cueva High graduate and former UNM Lobos great who hung up the cleats on a successful professional playing career last fall and was hired as the Isotopes hitting coach.
He and Schaeffer are plenty familiar with one another since their minor league playing days in the Rockies organization.
“He was a great teammate and he’s the same exact same person as a coach,” Pacheco said about Schaeffer. “He works hard. He comes to the field every day and comes prepared. He’s gonna teach me a lot on how to handle these guys on and off the field, so I’m really excited about this season.”
Other familiar faces include former New Mexico State University infield specialist L.J. Hatch in his second season with the team and, though he wasn’t officially on the roster Saturday, former Lobo slugger D.J. Peterson is expected to be with the team next week, trying to restart a once promising career that hit a setback with an injury when in the Seattle Mariners’ organization.