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Paul DePodesta came prepared with more than remarks.
The Colorado Rockies president of baseball operations offered a grin and then a joke and then a laugh. Why not? He’s eager to see what kind of stamina he has; or how much is still there.
The 53-year-old remembers how long a season can be. The spring training. The games. The travel. The scouting. The deadlines. The hours.
But recollections — after spending the past decade working for the NFL’s Cleveland Browns — and actually experiencing all those things aren’t the same. DePodesta knows that. He’s still excited by all of it.
“It’s been really good to be back,” DePodesta said Thursday. “Not only in the big league stuff, but the minor league stuff and some of the amateur scouting stuff. … Looking forward to getting through the calendar, at least one full time, and I think it’ll slow down for us.”
But right now? Well, there isn’t any time to stop. There’s too much to do and too much to see. Players, coaches, farm system coordinators. There are already plans to log plenty of miles. And not just in terms of altitude.
Along with the Rockies’ base in Denver, there have been — and will be — trips to Albuquerque, where DePodesta was on hand Thursday to see the Isotopes rally for a 9-5 comeback win over Oklahoma City. A day game that saw Vimael Machín drive in three runs, reach base three times and score twice, Blaine Crim hit a game-tying single in the seventh and Adael Amador knock a season-high three hits, including the go-ahead single in the eighth.
Along with Albuquerque, DePodesta is planning visits to Connecticut, Washington state, California, Arizona and even Boca Chica in the Dominican Republic to see the organizations’ other farm system teams.
It’s part of the rebuild DePodesta, the man who rose to prominence during the Oakland Athletics’ Moneyball era, has been put in charge of to align the Rockies with Denver’s other major professional teams.
It’s a large task, and a difficult one.
While the Denver Nuggets and the Colorado Avalanche have each won a championship in the past five years, and the Denver Broncos were on the cusp of a Super Bowl appearance this past season, the Rockies have been stuck in a quagmire. One Colorado seems unable to get out of.
All this comes while playing home games a mile above sea level and in the same division as the free-spending Dodgers — according to the MLB commissioner’s office, the Dodgers spent a record $515 million in its World Series-winning 2025 season — as well as the San Francisco Giants, San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks, each of whom have had spurts of success.
DePodesta has his work cut out for him as he takes over a franchise that seems to have plenty of drawbacks and certainly detractors. The Rockies, after all, had the worst run differential (-424) and starting pitcher ERA (6.65) in the majors last season.
The Rockies are coming off three straight 100-loss seasons. Last year’s 119 tied the 2003 Detroit Tigers for the third most in the modern era. In its 33 years of existence, the franchise has pulled together three consecutive winning seasons only one time: 1995-97.
“I think we have to be ourselves,” DePodesta said. “If you look at those different situations around our division, they’ve all done it a little differently and yet, they’ve all been pretty successful teams. We have to focus on ourselves ultimately.
“… But there are things that we’re going to have to do that will be unique to Denver, unique to playing in altitude, that will ultimately help us be successful.”
How quickly that uniqueness comes to fruition, or what it will look like will be determined by the “groundwork” DePodesta is trying to set. Really, it’s a philosophy that sees the entirety of the organization moving in a singular direction no matter the level, no matter the players, no matter the coaches.
In other words, everything is intertwined and needs to be treated as such. It certainly couldn’t hurt to try and the Rockies don’t have a lot to lose.
“That’s actually what we want it to be is one organization, from the big leagues down to the Dominican, and even into all of our scouting operations,” said DePodesta, who views a big league roster as 50 to 60 players deep. “We’re really looking for it to be a unified operation. So the way we do things in Denver is going to be the way we do things in Albuquerque and the way we’re going to do in Boca Chica. And that’s something I think is really important for us to try to get right.”
It’s why the trips to the various minor league affiliates — like he did with Albuquerque on Thursday — to check on things and communicate has been and will continue to be important.
The Rockies know something different needs to happen. DePodesta just needs to see it through. It’s just a matter of how quickly all that past stamina comes back.
Oh, and how quickly the tangible results present themselves in Denver.
“That’s what everybody’s after is trying to find good young players,” DePodesta said. “Those are foundational players for the organization. We feel like we have that opportunity here with some of the players we have coming through the system, even with some of the players already in Denver. But we still need to actually make that happen.”
David Glovach covers New Mexico United and other sports for the Journal. Reach him at [email protected] or via X @DavidGlovach
Continue reading...
The Colorado Rockies president of baseball operations offered a grin and then a joke and then a laugh. Why not? He’s eager to see what kind of stamina he has; or how much is still there.
The 53-year-old remembers how long a season can be. The spring training. The games. The travel. The scouting. The deadlines. The hours.
But recollections — after spending the past decade working for the NFL’s Cleveland Browns — and actually experiencing all those things aren’t the same. DePodesta knows that. He’s still excited by all of it.
“It’s been really good to be back,” DePodesta said Thursday. “Not only in the big league stuff, but the minor league stuff and some of the amateur scouting stuff. … Looking forward to getting through the calendar, at least one full time, and I think it’ll slow down for us.”
But right now? Well, there isn’t any time to stop. There’s too much to do and too much to see. Players, coaches, farm system coordinators. There are already plans to log plenty of miles. And not just in terms of altitude.
Along with the Rockies’ base in Denver, there have been — and will be — trips to Albuquerque, where DePodesta was on hand Thursday to see the Isotopes rally for a 9-5 comeback win over Oklahoma City. A day game that saw Vimael Machín drive in three runs, reach base three times and score twice, Blaine Crim hit a game-tying single in the seventh and Adael Amador knock a season-high three hits, including the go-ahead single in the eighth.
Along with Albuquerque, DePodesta is planning visits to Connecticut, Washington state, California, Arizona and even Boca Chica in the Dominican Republic to see the organizations’ other farm system teams.
It’s part of the rebuild DePodesta, the man who rose to prominence during the Oakland Athletics’ Moneyball era, has been put in charge of to align the Rockies with Denver’s other major professional teams.
It’s a large task, and a difficult one.
While the Denver Nuggets and the Colorado Avalanche have each won a championship in the past five years, and the Denver Broncos were on the cusp of a Super Bowl appearance this past season, the Rockies have been stuck in a quagmire. One Colorado seems unable to get out of.
All this comes while playing home games a mile above sea level and in the same division as the free-spending Dodgers — according to the MLB commissioner’s office, the Dodgers spent a record $515 million in its World Series-winning 2025 season — as well as the San Francisco Giants, San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks, each of whom have had spurts of success.
DePodesta has his work cut out for him as he takes over a franchise that seems to have plenty of drawbacks and certainly detractors. The Rockies, after all, had the worst run differential (-424) and starting pitcher ERA (6.65) in the majors last season.
The Rockies are coming off three straight 100-loss seasons. Last year’s 119 tied the 2003 Detroit Tigers for the third most in the modern era. In its 33 years of existence, the franchise has pulled together three consecutive winning seasons only one time: 1995-97.
“I think we have to be ourselves,” DePodesta said. “If you look at those different situations around our division, they’ve all done it a little differently and yet, they’ve all been pretty successful teams. We have to focus on ourselves ultimately.
“… But there are things that we’re going to have to do that will be unique to Denver, unique to playing in altitude, that will ultimately help us be successful.”
How quickly that uniqueness comes to fruition, or what it will look like will be determined by the “groundwork” DePodesta is trying to set. Really, it’s a philosophy that sees the entirety of the organization moving in a singular direction no matter the level, no matter the players, no matter the coaches.
In other words, everything is intertwined and needs to be treated as such. It certainly couldn’t hurt to try and the Rockies don’t have a lot to lose.
“That’s actually what we want it to be is one organization, from the big leagues down to the Dominican, and even into all of our scouting operations,” said DePodesta, who views a big league roster as 50 to 60 players deep. “We’re really looking for it to be a unified operation. So the way we do things in Denver is going to be the way we do things in Albuquerque and the way we’re going to do in Boca Chica. And that’s something I think is really important for us to try to get right.”
It’s why the trips to the various minor league affiliates — like he did with Albuquerque on Thursday — to check on things and communicate has been and will continue to be important.
The Rockies know something different needs to happen. DePodesta just needs to see it through. It’s just a matter of how quickly all that past stamina comes back.
Oh, and how quickly the tangible results present themselves in Denver.
“That’s what everybody’s after is trying to find good young players,” DePodesta said. “Those are foundational players for the organization. We feel like we have that opportunity here with some of the players we have coming through the system, even with some of the players already in Denver. But we still need to actually make that happen.”
David Glovach covers New Mexico United and other sports for the Journal. Reach him at [email protected] or via X @DavidGlovach
Continue reading...
