{"id":273706,"date":"2025-11-09T17:56:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T17:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/273706\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T17:56:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T17:56:13","slug":"rockies-to-hire-paul-depodesta-to-run-baseball-ops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/273706\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockies To Hire Paul DePodesta To Run Baseball Ops"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nov. 9: DePodesta is aiming to hire a general manager and other front office personnel by the time of the winter meetings, according to Jon Morosi of MLB Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nov. 7: The Rockies formally announced DePodesta as their new president of baseball operations today.<\/p>\n

\u201cPaul\u2019s previous work in MLB set the foundation for many aspects of the way the game is analyzed today and we are thrilled for him to be a key figure in our future,\u201d executive vice president Walker Monfort said within today\u2019s press release. \u201cUnder his leadership, we will evolve the Colorado Rockies into what we know will be an exciting new era. Hiring Paul is an essential first step to the evolution of our baseball department and we\u2019re confident that he will not only maximize our current personnel but will also bring in additional leaders from outside the organization to help lead us forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nov. 6: The Rockies are reportedly in agreement with Paul DePodesta to run baseball operations. The team has yet to announce the hire, nor whether he\u2019ll be the general manager or president of baseball operations. In any case, it\u2019s a stunning move that brings DePodesta back to baseball after a decade.<\/p>\n

DePodesta has worked with the NFL\u2019s Cleveland Browns since January 2016. He has not been the general manager. His relatively vague title has been chief strategy officer. DePodesta has worked under a few GMs in Cleveland \u2014 the past five of which have come under executive vice president and GM Andrew Berry. He has seemingly held a high-ranking scouting\/player acquisition position without ever having the top spot in football operations.<\/p>\n

The Browns have made the playoffs twice in the past eight years and are coming off a 3-14 season that had them in last place in the AFC North. They\u2019re currently 2-6 and at the bottom of the division as they\u2019re amidst another rebuild.<\/p>\n

Before his move to the NFL, DePodesta was a high-ranking baseball operations executive. He\u2019s probably most famous for his time as the assistant general manager with the A\u2019s under Billy Beane. That\u2019s due largely to the success of\u00a0Moneyball, the Michael Lewis book chronicling the A\u2019s being at the forefront of using more advanced player metrics to succeed despite significant budgetary constraints. That was adapted into an acclaimed 2011 film in which Jonah Hill played a composite character that was largely based on DePodesta.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

While\u00a0Moneyball\u2019s popularity makes DePodesta most associated with the A\u2019s, his highest-ranking MLB position came when he accepted the general manager job with the Dodgers in 2004. DePodesta was just 31 years old at the time. He held the role for two seasons, winning 93 games and the NL West title in 2004. The team stumbled to a 71-91 showing the following year, and the Dodgers fired him at the end of the \u201905 campaign. DePodesta worked as a high-ranking assistant with the Padres and Mets for the next decade before making the jump to the NFL.<\/p>\n

Now 52, DePodesta returns to baseball almost 20 years since his last GM job. He\u2019s facing a monumental challenge. The Rox are coming off a 43-119 season that is tied for the third worst of the modern era. Their -424 run differential was somehow even worse. They were the first team since 1899 to be outscored by more than 400 runs. They scored the second-fewest runs in MLB despite playing half their games at Coors Field. They allowed 122 more runs than the next-closest team.<\/p>\n

Despite the abysmal state of the major league roster, the Rockies don\u2019t have the kind of high-end farm system that one would expect from a club that has finished fourth or fifth in the division in seven straight years. Baseball America<\/a> credited them with two Top 100 prospects on their latest update in August: recent top five picks Ethan Holliday<\/a> and\u00a0Charlie Condon<\/a>. As a result of those consecutive lottery picks, the Rockies are prohibited by the CBA from picking any higher than 10th in the 2026 draft.<\/p>\n

There aren\u2019t many buildings blocks on the MLB roster. Shortstop\u00a0Ezequiel Tovar<\/a>, center fielder\u00a0Brenton Doyle<\/a>, and starting pitcher\u00a0Chase Dollander<\/a> have the best chance to be key pieces of a long-term contender. They\u2019re all coming off underwhelming seasons. Hunter Goodman<\/a> was the team\u2019s best player in 2025. He was one of only four primary catchers to hit 30-plus homers, but he\u2019s a 26-year-old coming off a breakout season in which his strikeout and walk profile was poor. He\u2019s probably more of a good complementary player than someone who\u2019d be one of the three to five best position players on a contender.<\/p>\n

On top of all that, the front office faces the unique challenge of building a pitching staff that can succeed at altitude. They\u2019re always likely to face heavier pitch counts and workloads over the course of a 162-game season at MLB\u2019s most hitter-friendly park. Colorado hitters need to adjust to different pitch movements at home and on the road. They\u2019re in a division with the two-time defending World Series winners. The Padres have won 90-plus games in two straight seasons. The Diamondbacks and Giants have been around average of late, but both teams have the kind of impact position player talent that the Rockies have not developed since the\u00a0Nolan Arenado<\/a> and\u00a0Charlie Blackmon<\/a> heyday.<\/p>\n

DePodesta will be the surprise choice to turn things around. The Rockies had seemingly settled on Diamondbacks assistant GM Amiel Sawdaye and Guardians AGM Matt Forman as the finalists last week. Bob Nightengale of USA Today<\/a> writes that Sawdaye rejected Colorado\u2019s offer, while Forman took himself out of consideration. That led them to go well outside the box for DePodesta.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Colorado\u2019s first external GM hiring in more than a decade. They\u2019d stayed internal with the promotions of Jeff Bridich and Bill Schmidt. DePodesta\u2019s first task will be the final managerial decision of the offseason. Interim skipper Warren Schaeffer has been in limbo since the team moved on from Schmidt at the end of the regular season.<\/p>\n

Thomas Harding of MLB.com<\/a> first mentioned that DePodesta was a strong candidate for the position. ESPN\u2019s Jeff Passan<\/a> mentioned that they were nearing a deal, while The Athletic\u2019s Ken Rosenthal, Brittany Ghiroli and Zac Jackson<\/a> first reported the agreement was in place.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Ken Blaze, USA Today Sports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nov. 9: DePodesta is aiming to hire a general manager and other front office personnel by the time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[152035,64,63,99375,591,158916,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-273706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-amiel-sawdaye","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-matt-forman","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-paul-depodesta","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}