DENVER — Cincinnati Reds bench coach Freddie Benavides was a minor-league coordinator when Walt Jocketty left the St. Louis Cardinals to join a Reds front office in 2008 for an organization that hadn’t seen the playoffs in more than a decade.
Benavides knew what was next.
“He comes in from winning a World Series with the Cardinals (in 2006), stepping in with instant credibility,” Benavides said. “He started putting those teams together. Signing guys. And wasn’t afraid to trade.”
Two years later, the Reds won their first division title since 1995 — the first of three playoff teams in four years.
“Great man. Great person,” said Benavides, who first worked with Jocketty when Benavides was a player with the Rockies in the 1990s and stayed in touch over the years.
“It was tough to hear the news today.”
Jocketty, one of the most respected front office figures in baseball for decades, died Friday night after a long illness. He was 74.
The Colorado Rockies, who brought Jocketty as an assistant general manager in 1993, planned a moment of silence before Saturday’s game against the Reds.
“He came in here and we won. We were in a drought and he brought us the playoffs,” longtime clubhouse manager Rick Stowe said. “He was a great boss. He’d take us out to dinner, wanted to get to know us better, knew everybody’s families.
“He could really read people. He knew people. He was great.”
Jocketty served as the Reds’ president of baseball operations from 2008-2016 and has been an executive advisor to the owner since.
One of his first moves with the Reds was hiring future Hall of Fame manager Dusty Baker. A year later he traded for future Hall of Fame third baseman Scott Rolen. He signed homegrown slugger Jay Bruce to a six-year extension as he reached arbitration. And made Joey Votto the highest-paid player in franchise history with a 10-year deal, all but assuring Votto would spend his entire career as a Red.
“When I got here Walt was still pretty involved,” said pitching coach Derek Johnson, who joined the staff from Milwaukee after the 2018 season. “Just a guy that everyone had a ton of respect for.
“As I got to know him, it was pretty clear the guy had seen a lot, done a lot, and really meant a lot to the Reds. He’s definitely going to be missed.”
Jocketty, who was born in Minneapolis and went to the University of Minnesota, began his professional baseball career in 1980 as owner Charlie Finley’s director of minor league operations and scouting for the Oakland A’s. He’s credited with overhauling the farm system that produced much of the talent on Tony La Russa’s Bash Brothers playoff teams later in the decade.
After joining the Cardinals as general manager during the 1994-95 labor shutdown, he brought La Russa to St. Louis and built teams that won seven division titles, two NL pennants and a World Series during a 13-year run in St. Louis – assuring his place in baseball history.
“If you’ve been around baseball at all for the last 30 or 40 years, you know Walt’s had a pretty big impact on the game,” Johnson said.
With the Reds, he earned The Sporting News’ Major League Baseball Executive of the Year award in 2010, his third time earning that honor (also 2000, 2004).
“He was a good solid guy and a good baseball guy,” said Reds bench coach Brad Mills, who had known Jocketty since managing in the Rockies minor-league system, and who stayed in touch over the years, including recent phone conversations.
“He loved the game,” Mills said. “He loved watching guys improve. He loved signing guys and getting them in to play.
“I really thought the world of Walt.”