A current favorite pastime of Colorado Rockies fans is trying to divine how president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta and general manager Josh Byrnes might approach building the 2026 team.
We know
from DePodesta’s comments last week to Kevin Henry that the focus for the coming season will have two components: building infrastructure and evaluating players.
As DePodesta put it:
We definitely want to get to know all of our own players a lot better. We all know them to some degree, but we know them all from the outside looking in. Members of our front office have scouted these players or our coaches have faced these players before. So we all have an idea of maybe what they are, but I think we’re all anxious to get to know them better from the inside and get to know their strengths, get to know them as people, and then really try to figure out how we can help them become the best player they can possibly be.
I don’t think we’re at a time at this point where we’re ready to make determinations about our own guys. That’ll be an ongoing process. That won’t even be done at the end of spring training. That’ll be something that I think we continue to focus on throughout the course of the entire 2026 season, not just at the big league level, but throughout the minor leagues too.
What might they be looking for in the players they evaluate during the course of 2026? (It is, after all a project that will probably take all season.)
For that, I’ve been thinking about a largely overlooked book published in 2022, Pedro Moura’s How to beat a broken game: The rise of the Dodgers in a league on the brink.
Moura, now with FOX Sports, spent several years as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat writer for The Athletic, and in How to beat a broken game, he explains how the Dodgers became a juggernaut.
Because Josh Byrnes has spent much of the last 19 years with the Dodgers, I was curious as to what he and his Dodgers history might bring to the Rockies as they work through the evaluative process. For that, I have two passages I’d like to focus on.
Here’s the first one:
For one team in one modern draft, it is triumphant to descry even two regular major leaguers. In 2016, the Dodgers found many more. In one way, they did it like Oakland did it in the 2002 draft chronicled in Moneyball, using historical draft classes as a guidepost for what prospects could become. Only the Dodgers bored further than betting on collegians instead of high schoolers, as the Athletics attempted. By 2016, most teams prized position players who were close to MLB ready and already excelling, ideally in college, thereby reducing their bust risk. Perennially picking in the back half of the first round, the Dodgers deprioritized fixable elements of players’ profiles. By necessity, they focused on prospects who managed despite clear flaws and appeared amenable to guided instruction. In assessing tractability, two traits were key: athleticism, creating the possibility of improvement; and aptitude for focused practice, to actually enact prescribed changes. A statistical model attempted to account for it all. [Emphasis added.]
First, I’m sure the Moneyball reference is not lost on anyone, but in terms of evaluation, I’m more interested in the Dodgers’ notion of tractability (or “teachability”). The Dodgers looked for players who were athletic and willing to work intensely in making recommended changes.
Second, Moura provides an example of a player who did not meet these criteria for the Dodgers: Jeren Kendall, their 2017 first-round draft pick. The Vanderbilt Commodore had power and speed that were attractive but also a tendency to chase that scared off other teams. Moura explains:
The Dodgers tried a variety of tactics to reduce the weirdness and induce more contact. They began by letting him struggle his way, figuring it would render him more open-minded. It didn’t. Kendall accepted instruction, but not without his own input. “It’s a two-way street,” he said in June 2018, a year after he was drafted. “I have my opinions, and they have theirs. I have an idea of what my career is going to be, and what I want it to be, and so do they.”
Things did not change for Kendall. “The Dodgers declined to protect Kendall from the 2020 Rule 5 draft,” Moura writes. “No other team was willing to carry him on their roster for a year to control his rights for the next five. He spent the 2022 season with Double-A Tulsa, the highest level he reached in the Dodgers’ farm system. Kendall retired from baseball at the end of that season.”
Moura is more interested in the Dodgers’ draft strategy occasionally failing, but I’m caught on Kendall’s unwillingness to trust the organization’s development strategy. (And Moura places Kendall in contrast with Gavin Lux, who was a player willing to make prescribed changes.)
So in considering how the DePodesta/Byrnes-era Rockies might approach player evaluation, I am thinking about which players might be most amenable to instruction and one who wasn’t: Michael Toglia.
Back in February 2024, Patrick Saunders wrote of the then-struggling first baseman, “Toglia, 25, said he will never give up being a switch hitter, despite some dramatic splits. Last season, he slashed .109/.146/.109 with no home runs vs. left-handers and .189/.260/.368 with four home runs vs. righties. Toglia also said he would continue his aggressive approach at the plate.”
In April 2025, Saunders wrote of the Rockies former first baseman, “Toglia has a long swing and ‘long levers,’ so he is strikeout-prone. I do believe he’s stubborn, especially when it comes to shortening his swing and altering his two-strike approach.”
Such comments do not suggest a player who is open to change.
During the season, manager Warren Schaeffer essentially put Toglia on a mini-sabbatical as he attempted to rework his swing mid-season.
However, ultimately, that plan failed, and Toglia finished the season in Triple-A before being DFA’d. Whether that was due to a lack of ability or an unwillingness to change, we don’t know. However, Saunders’ comments suggest a resistance on Toglia’s part.
Contrast that with the attitude of shortstop Ezequiel Tovar. As Skyler Timmins wrote back in 2023:
Toglia’s teammate Ezequiel Tovar was originally a switch-hitter prior to his quick rise through the system. Early on the Rockies coaches and staff advised him to hit right-handed as he showed greater power potential and a shorter swing and it helped simplify his development. It has eventually paid off as he is now having a very solid offensive rookie season with the Rockies.
It’s only one example — and a lot of conjecture on my part — but I suspect tractability is a personality trait DePodesta and Byrnes will be looking for as they work through the Rockies’ roster. How readily will pitchers accept changes to their approach and, perhaps, Alon Leichman’s calling pitches from the dugout?
After all, DePodesta has assembled a team of Mile High baseball nerds to take on the problem of playing baseball all at elevation. The players will need to show themselves as willing to experiment as the coaches and front office staff.
Which players pass this test will be something to watch in the coming season.
2026 MLB predictions: One stat to make or break every NL team | ESPN
For the Rockies, David Schoenfield correctly points to the needs to improve on 119 losses. Then he adds this: “The new front office won’t be able to turn things around overnight. What might be realistic expectations for 2026? Since 2000, 18 other teams have lost at least 106 games in a season. Leaving aside the 2019 Tigers and Orioles, since the 2020 season was the COVID-shortened one, the other 16 teams improved by an average of 14 wins the following season. That would get the Rockies up to 57 wins. Feels about right. There’s no way they can be so bad again … right?”
Every MLB team’s biggest remaining roster hole entering the New Year | Bleacher Report
Joel Reuter suggests the Rockies consider signing Nathaniel Lowe to play first base.
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