With the competitive heartbeat of the Rockies growing fainter with each loss, it’s time to pull the plug on general manager Bill Schmidt.

So why wait another day?

Crossing the 100th-loss threshold or the finality of the season’s final out isn’t required to declare Schmidt doesn’t have any meaningful answers to what ails the worst team in the major leagues.

The Rockies are a team without a clue or a plan.

If franchise owner Dick Monfort is serious about getting a fresh perspective on how a baseball team that plays at 5,280 feet above sea level can be competitive in a division ruled by the Los Angeles Dodgers, he should give two options:

Resign immediately.

Or be fired.

If Walker and Sterling Monfort want to be taken seriously as trusted custodians of major-league baseball in Colorado for the next generation, then they need to persuade their father to hire a new director of baseball operations sooner rather than later.

Why delay the inevitable?

When the Rockies sent both third baseman Ryan McMahon and reliever Jake Bird to New York during the final days and hours before the July 31 trade deadline, at least one person within the Yankees organization was given the distinct impression those deals would be among Schmidt’s last significant moves as the general manager in Colorado.

We can only hope that’s true.

Under Schmidt’s misguided management of this roster, the Rockies are doomed to lose at least 100 games in three straight seasons, crushing all franchise records for futility.

After longtime manager Bud Black was fired in May when Colorado stumbled to a 7-33 start, the team initially demonstrated more competitive fire under his replacement, Warren Schaeffer.

With the bat and glove of shortstop Ezequiel Tovar, who missed more than five dozen games during the first half of the season due to hip and oblique injuries, back in the lineup, Colorado has ceased to look like the worst major league team of the past 125 years.

But heading into Tuesday’s scheduled date in St. Louis, the Rockies had lost eight in a row, including a 45-6 drubbing in a three-game series at home against Toronto.

And know what’s worse? Outside of Tovar, it’s hard to find five players on the current roster that should be considered legit building blocks to the team’s rebuilding process.

The Rockies might have something in outfielder Brenton Doyle, catcher Hunter Goodman and starting pitcher Chase Dollander … but counting on all of them to develop into key contributors to a playoff contender should be regarded as overly optimistic.

If Schmidt’s home isn’t already up for sale, it should be.

Where do the Rockies go from here?

Well, even a knucklehead like me knows this much: There’s no time to waste.

The new leader of baseball operations should be in place no later than Sept. 1, in order to thoroughly evaluate all aspects of the Rockies on and off the field before the team hangs up its gloves and racks the bats for the winter.

While the Monfort family seems prepared to give somebody a chance to thoroughly re-evaluate the template for this team’s success, ownership also seems entrenched in the idea that first-hand knowledge about the challenges of baseball at altitude is a prerequisite for any architect of the Colorado roster.

So the best we can hope for is that Monfort doesn’t make the mistake of bringing back a former associate of Dan O’Dowd or Jeff Bridich to repeat their errors.

It almost goes without saying this franchise needs to join the 21st century in its approach to analytics and make a deeper financial commitment to developing talent within the organization.

But know what might even be more essential traits for a front-office executive that wants to turn around the Rockies’ fortunes?

The next director of baseball operations will require the people skills to gently ease Dick Monfort into retirement from day-to-day operations, while also having the patience to mentor Walker and Sterling with insight as to what actually makes the difference between winning and losing when spikes are in the dirt.

When Coors Field crackled with so much electricity when 100,000 spectators went out to see the Savannah Bananas last weekend, it was a reminder of how alive the ballpark could be if playoff baseball returned to LoDo.

What the Rockies need even more than new ideas on how to build a championship contender is a voice that Dick Monfort and his sons will trust enough to shed the family’s old ways of doing business.