They say “it’s the hope that kills you,” but hope isn’t exactly something that’s been widely felt at 20th and Blake over the last seven years.
Honestly, you could argue hope has been in short supply for most of the Colorado Rockies’ soon-to-be 34 years of existence.
There have been plenty of other emotions, many of which aren’t good: anger, frustration, sorrow, and, worst of all, growing apathy have dominated the discourse surrounding a team that’s been digging itself deeper and deeper into a hole
in terms of how they run things.
Rocktober–that glorious 2007 playoff run ending in a crushing World Series defeat almost 20 years ago–seems a distant memory.
The situation at Coors Field had become so dire that even the relatively recent 2017 and 2018 wild card runs seem fleeting. Since the extra innings heroics of Scott Oberg and Tony Wolters—both of whom are now retired and members of the player development staff—the Rockies have endured seven consecutive losing seasons capped by three straight campaigns of more than 100 losses and a historically miserable 2025.
“What they’re doing is right,” a Kyle Freeland on the verge of tears said after a loss that brought the Rockies to 6-31 in early May. “What we’re doing is wrong. We’re not winning baseball games. It’s as clear as day. We’re playing a bad brand of baseball, all around — pitching, fielding, hitting. It’s bad.”
Freeland aptly summarized the state of the Colorado Rockies, yet at the same time, he barely scratched the surface of the many woes plaguing the organization. The insular, confounding, miserable Rockies were utterly broken at every level.
Under owner and CEO Dick Monfort, a front office packed with lifers and loyalists helmed an organization staunchly opposed to innovation or change. At the start of the 2025 season, the majority of the front office had been with the Rockies for at least 20—and sometimes more than 30—years. The Rockies pushed back against new tools and analytics, closed itself off to new ideas, and baffled other organizations with its insularity in the name of stability while the rest of Major League Baseball left them behind.
“The entire operating model was do what we tell you to do, be loyal,” one former employee told Jake Mintz of Yahoo Sports. “And we don’t even care if you’re competent. We just want to keep things exactly as they are.”
The Rockies weren’t stable: They were stagnant. They were a draft-and-develop team that couldn’t develop the talent they drafted and couldn’t compete with modernized clubs—and didn’t seem to mind that so long as seats were full.
“They’ve diversified the business in a way that I think is actually shrewd,” another former employee told Mintz. “There’s not really an incentive to win. Then the baseball part just becomes this old guys’ fantasy team, basically.”
A former Rockies player framed it more bluntly.
“As long as the bottom line is good, [Monfort] doesn’t give a s***.”
The brokenness of the organization culminated in a historic 43-119 season in 2025. Instead of hope from the Rockies faithful, there was desperation. “Surely something has to change after this kind of national humiliation?”
A spark–a glimmer—of hope was buried in the ashes of the season–when general manager Bill Schmidt and assistant general manager Zach Rosenthal resigned from their positions in October. New executive vice president Walker Monfort, the son of the owner, announced that the Rockies would be seeking outside help to lead their front office into a long awaited rebuild.
However, Rockies fans had been promised this before, and the spark was seemingly extinguished when rumors of a fraught hiring process and meddling from Dick Monfort culminated in two promising candidates removing themselves from contention just before the general manager meetings.
Suddenly the dying ember roared back to life.
The Rockies hired a president of baseball operations from outside the organization in Paul DePodesta. While it was an odd hire–he had spent the last decade working in football instead of baseball–he did meet the criteria Rockies fans had been clamoring for.
DePodesta comes from outside the organization and has no previous ties to the Rockies. He is also a proponent and utilizer of analytics, having once been a pioneer in the field during his early days as a baseball executive. DePodesta would also be allowed to fill out his front office with his own hires, including a general manager.
That general manager came from an extremely unlikely source. The Rockies poached Josh Byrnes—senior vice president of baseball operations—away from the Los Angeles Dodgers. After a decade of winning, including three World Series titles with some of the biggest stars in baseball, Byrnes was reunited with an old friend in DePodesta to take on the daunting challenge of Rockies baseball.
It’s also worth noting another hire the Rockies brought in from outside the organization. Nicky Schmidt was hired away from the Cleveland Guardians to serve in a newly created position as the Rockies’ chief revenue and strategy officer. Schmidt spent 14 years with the Guardians working in business analytics and organizational strategy. She has overseen ballpark and front office transformations and played a pivotal role in the organization’s extensive re-brand to the Guardians in 2022.
Her role with the Rockies will be a potentially compelling one as the team looks to shake off stagnation and local apathy from the beleaguered franchise.
Through multiple press conferences and interviews–another refreshing change after years of silence–the new front office is quick to acknowledge the challenges ahead of them.
“Obviously 119 losses, there’s no sugar coating that,” said Byrnes on the eve of this year’s Winter Meetings. “There’s a lot of work to do creating winning standards and getting the right talent top to bottom in the organization.”
Even Walker Monfort–who increasingly appears to be taking charge of the Rockies organization–admitted to the prior shortcomings of the operation.
“I think one thing that I would attribute to the past half-decade that we’ve been through, we’ve probably lost sight of innovation and lost sight of just continuing to evolve our process,” he told DNVR in a recent interview.
The new front office is already making significant changes in the early days of the off-season. Long-time pitching coach Darryl Scott has departed the organization, and several roster moves that would have been unheard of under the watch of Dick Monfort and Bill Schmidt have taken place. The Rockies have parted ways with multiple young players–former top prospects with plenty of team control left–such as Michael Toglia, Drew Romo, and Warming Bernabel.
Even manager Warren Schaeffer, fresh off of having his interim tag removed, has bought in to the new vision.
“I like the establishment of a direction,” Schaeffer said at the Winter Meetings on Monday. “Paul’s got a different process than what we were previously used to, and it’s a good process. It’s something that we can all get behind.”
Whether or not this rebuild will be a success–or if Dick Monfort will continue to allow such organizational upheaval–remains to be seen. However, the Colorado Rockies are stoking the embers of hope by saying and doing all the right things after years of doing the opposite.
Long-suffering Rockies fans have had precious little to be positive about over the last few years. Is it time at last for them to have faith that brighter days may soon be coming? Is it okay for Rockies fans to finally have hope?
Although the returns are early, it would appear so.
The events of this week’s Winter Meetings–including the announcement of additional coaching staff and player transactions–will help further set the tone of the rebuild ahead and provide fans with more much-needed certainty.
Patrick Saunders discusses newly named manager Warren Schaeffer’s press conference at the Winter Meetings. Fresh off of having his interim tag removed, Schaeffer is excited for the new vision Paul DePodesta and Josh Byrnes are bringing to the organization, as well as their plans to pursue all avenues to improve the team. Schaeffer’s full press conference can be viewed here.
Embracing Innovation, Rockies to hire Leichman as pitching coach (sources) | MLB.com
On Monday evening, multiple outlets reported that the Rockies would be hiring Alon Leichman—a former assistant pitching coach for the Cincinnati Reds and Miami Marlins—to be their major league pitching coach for the 2026 season. Leichman has coached in professional baseball since 2019 and he would mark the first pitching hire since the organization largely cleaned house this off-season with the departures of Flint Wallace, Darryl Scott, Dustin Garneau, and Doug Linton. The move has not been confirmed by the organization at time of writing.
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