The Colorado Rockies Are Once Again A Perfect Mess

What an odd, delightful offseason for the NL West's worst team.

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The most interesting aspect of the Colorado Rockies’ offseason was the moves the team made within its front office. Colorado relieved general manager Bill Schmidt of his duties and brought in Paul DePodesta from the Cleveland Browns to be their new President of Baseball Operations. It’s the most interesting move the franchise has made in years. 22 years ago, the Los Angeles Dodgers made DePodesta the fifth-youngest general manager in the sport’s history. After nearly a decade in professional football with the Browns, DePodesta is back in baseball in a division he knows all too well, with stops in Los Angeles and San Diego, with a franchise in desperate need of a jolt. Maybe DePodesta is that jolt.

It’s going to be challenging, though. Since the franchise’s inception, Colorado has never won the NL West. They haven’t won more than 75 games in eight years. The division is extremely competitive, even behind the Dodgers. The San Francisco Giants, San Diego Padres, and Arizona Diamondbacks could all be playoff teams this year. They are set up so that all three teams could be playoff teams the next couple of years, too. While it’s a strategy I full-heartedly endorse, the Rockies can’t only draft former Tennessee Volunteers stars like Chase Dollander, Jordan Beck, and Seth Halvorsen and expect to escape the basement of the NL West.

That help is also unlikely to include Kris Bryant. The former MVP was placed on the 60-day IL this week for continued back issues. Since signing with the club in March of 2022, the four-time All-Star has never played more than eighty games in a season. His WRC+ has dropped from 79 to 64, and then all the way down to -4 over the last three seasons. It’s all just a bummer for the former No. 2 overall pick that was one of the game’s biggest stars a decade ago. It would have been a lot of fun to see Bryant rake at Coors Field for the remainder of his prime, but that, unfortunately, is not how things unfolded for both sides.

DePodesta was the biggest move the Rockies added this offseason, but, man, the addition of former Baltimore Orioles pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano is right up there. The Rockies do not play in a pitcher-friendly park, as you all know. The 35-year-old workhorse finished second in Baltimore in innings pitched last season behind Dean Kremer. He also had a 15.6 HR/FB last season and a 5.36 FIP.

The first starting pitching rotation of the DePodesta era is one of the oddest in all of baseball. The Rockies have four projected starters who will be 33 or older this season, and then there is Dollander, who is nearly 10 years younger than Kyle Freeland. The projected five-man rotation looks like this: Freeland, Michael Lorenzen, Jose Quintana, Dollander, and Sugano. Four of the five starters are projected to have an ERA north of 5 in 2026, which could be a major problem for Colorado this season.

This is because the Colorado Rockies’ offense is in bad shape. You assume there are some Brad Hawpe’s somewhere in that order lineup most years in Colorado, but there aren’t this year. At least there are not any projected to be – Hunter Goodman has the highest projected WRC+ in the lineup at 105, slightly above league average. Seven of the nine starters have a projected WRC+ that falls below 100. Colorado’s lineup needs an infusion of young talent, which, if you’re a Rockies fan, includes Charlie Condon and eventually Ethan Holliday.

So things are weird, as they always are in Colorado. The Rockies’ lineup lacks juice. The Rockies’ rotation is oddly older. The team needs help in so many different areas. The club has the 23rd-best farm system in baseball, per The Athletic’s Keith Law, a spot you don’t want to be when you’ve been so bad for years.

By bringing in DePodesta, though, Colorado is finally signaling that it is open to trying a different approach. It doesn’t mean it will work, but nothing has worked for a long time now. I am quite fascinated to see how everything unfolds for the Rockies this season, and the next couple after, for the first time in a long time, that’s for sure.