![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1763088790_738_87056681007-usatsi-27483028.jpg\"\/)
![\"play\"](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/appservices\/universal-web\/universal\/icons\/icon-play-alt-white.svg\"){kind=icon}
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Alex Rodriguez explains why the Dodgers are good for baseball<\/p>\n
USA TODAY’s Ralphie Aversa chats with MLB legend Alex Rodriguez about the dominant nature of the Dodgers roster.<\/p>\n
Sports Seriously<\/p>\n
LAS VEGAS \u2014 The shock is starting to wear off, but the disbelief was still permeating The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas hotel Tuesday night like cigarette smoke hovering in the air at the craps games and poker tables.<\/p>\n
There he was, 10 years after he last set foot at the Major League Baseball General Manager meetings, in a room with peers having heard of him, but precious few knowing him.<\/p>\n
Paul DePodesta, who spent the last 10 years with the NFL’s Cleveland Browns<\/a>, was holding court with the national media for the first time, with everyone having the same question:<\/p>\n What in the world is he doing here as the new president of baseball operations for the Colorado Rockies<\/a>?<\/p>\n There wasn\u2019t a single GM who called DePodesta\u2019s hire an \u201cinsult,\u2019\u2019 like former manager Joe Maddon said<\/a> about the San Francisco Giants\u2019 hiring of college coach Tony Vitello to be their manager, but still, no one had an answer.<\/p>\n Hiring DePodesta, 52, isn’t like hiring a reliever who retired two years<\/a> ago to manage, like in San Diego, or a 33-year-old getting a managerial job<\/a> in Washington. He had 20 years of MLB experience and was once the GM of the Los Angeles Dodgers.<\/p>\n Still, when you\u2019re away from the game for a decade and are wearing a headset and studying a clipboard on Sundays, folks are curious.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t wait to talk to him,\u2019\u2019 said Alex Anthopoulos, Atlanta\u2019s president of baseball operations. \u201cI\u2019d love to hear about his experience in the NFL.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n The only National League GMs even around when DePodesta departed the New York Mets for the NFL were A.J. Preller of the San Diego Padres and Andrew Friedman of the Los Angeles Dodgers.<\/p>\n No one believed they\u2019d ever see DePodesta in baseball again.<\/p>\n Besides, when the Browns go 56-99-1 under your watch as the Browns’ Chief Strategy Officer, and you\u2019re directly involved in the disastrous Deshaun Watson trade \u2013 sending three first-round picks and giving Watson a five-year, $230 million contract \u2013 a whole lot of folks tend to lose your number.<\/p>\n Well, not the Rockies \u2013 with former Rockies GM Dan O\u2019Dowd running interference \u2013 who selected DePodesta after Arizona Diamondbacks assistant GM Amiel Sawdaye was offered the job, and rejected it, because of family reasons.<\/p>\n Now, here DePodesta is, after failing to obtain the next Holy Grail of sports and lead the Browns to their first Super Bowl championship, he\u2019s trying to get the Rockies their first World Series title.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m rooting for both,\u2019\u2019 DePodesta says. \u201cI\u2019ll actually take them in either order, as long as they both happen pretty quickly\u2026”<\/p>\n What would be the biggest miracle?<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll ever see that day, but I hope it\u2019s the Browns,\u2019\u2019 said Peter Bendix, the Marlins’ president of baseball operations and a Cleveland native. \u201cI\u2019m just very happy for him. When I first got this job (two years) ago, Paul didn\u2019t know me, but he was extremely supportive. He gave me calls, texts, and said, ‘Let me know if I can be helpful.’ And he meant it. He had no reason to be that way and he was. That\u2019s just who he is as a person.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n Certainly, DePodesta needs all of the help he can get considering he\u2019s taking over a team that lost an MLB-worst 119 games last year, lost 100 or more games three consecutive years, finished last or next-to-last seven consecutive seasons, and has never won the NL West in the franchise’s 33-year history.<\/p>\n And you thought that the Browns, with three winning seasons since 2002, have their troubles?<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a sucker for a challenge,” DePodesta said.<\/p>\n He\u2019s at the base of Mount Everest wearing flip-flops trying to get the Rockies to even a playoff berth in the monstrous NL West.<\/p>\n So really, why come back?<\/p>\n He received a few calls in the first five years of his departure from baseball, but said there never was a compelling reason for him to walk away from the Browns. He was ecstatic in 2020 that he was responsible for helping hire a new GM and new head coach, and received a five-year extension. It was only the last few years where he felt the itch of returning to baseball one last time.<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a situation where I was like, looking to leave by any stretch,\u2019\u2019 DePodesta said, \u201cbut over the last couple of years I had thought about at least the possibility of coming back, you know, what might be next. But it really would have to be sort of the right situation. That right situation includes challenge.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n Certainly, it helped that the Rockies had several folks like O\u2019Dowd, Sandy Alderson and Billy Beane lobbying for him. He spent years in the NL West working for the Padres and the Dodgers. And he lived in La Jolla, California, and was willing to move to Denver.<\/p>\n Now, he has the burden of trying to get back up to speed in a game that\u2019s dramatically changed the last 10 years. Batting average is out, OPS is in. Strikeouts are accepted, home runs are awesome. Launch angle and exit velocity are the new talk, while complete games and .300 hitters are obsolete.<\/p>\n \u201cI was always trying to keep abreast of what was happening in baseball,\u2019\u2019 DePodesta said, \u201cmaybe not to the extent that I was when I was working full-time, but I was still interested in everything that was going on.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n Now, he\u2019s responsible for taking a pitching staff that yielded an MLB-worst 6.65 ERA, a lineup filled with kids, and a $182 million albatross in Kris Bryant, and expected to miraculously compete with the Dodgers.<\/p>\n Watson may win the Walter Payton Man of the Year award before the Rockies ever topple the Dodgers.<\/p>\n The Rockies aren\u2019t going to ever out-spend the Dodgers. They aren\u2019t ever going to have more talent than the Dodgers. But, hey, when you spend a decade with the Browns, you get a few ideas.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll say this, I\u2019m very willing to experiment right now and try different things,\u2019\u2019 DePodesta said. \u201cI don\u2019t have all of the answers by any stretch. But I\u2019m pretty relentless when it comes to trying to find them. \u2026<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to be willing to try some different things.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n He will canvass the thoughts of all those that went before him, those that are still in the organization, those that have been fired and run over, and plans to make it a shared vision.<\/p>\n Some ideas will work, some will blow up in their face, and some will be catastrophic, whether it was the Bryant signing or the Watson trade.<\/p>\n \u201cMost decisions when it comes to significant player decisions\u2026\u2019\u2019 DePodesta says, trying to explain the Watson trade, \u201cI consider those to be organizational decisions. So anyone who is within the sort of senior leadership group, we all own those decisions. Every one of them. \u2026<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot we can\u2019t share publicly, but there was an incredible amount of diligence that goes into every one of our decisions over the last 10 years, and ultimately, we got to the place where we did.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n DePodesta insists he\u2019s in this for the long haul. There were plenty of Sunday nights when he wished he had stayed in baseball, but never did he feel like quitting, or feel that he made a mistake. He\u2019s taking the same approach now.<\/p>\n \u201cI purposely went back to the learning curve,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cWhat was really hard at the beginning was I went from 20 years in baseball where you\u2019re not necessarily great at what you do, I\u2019d been through the cycle enough where I felt confident.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then to go to the NFL where I felt decidedly incompetent, and that was going to last for awhile. That was hard to get through. But at no point (did) I want to bail on that and say, ‘Oh, I should just go back to where I\u2019m comfortable.’ No, this is sort of the growth and challenge I was looking for.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n Now, here he is again, 10 years later. There will be plenty of cool nights in the Rocky Mountains where he\u2019ll feel incompetent again, wonder if he made the wrong decision returning to baseball … and realize every day that this may be the greatest challenge he\u2019ll ever encounter in his life.<\/p>\n Time will tell whether he made the right decision.<\/p>\n And time will tell whether the Rockies will regret hiring him.<\/p>\n Buckle up, this should be one turbulent ride.<\/p>\n