The Rockies have a new head of baseball operations.
Colorado hired longtime sports executive Paul DePodesta for the job as the franchise looks to turn its fortunes around, noti.group’s Joel Sherman reported Thursday.
DePodesta, who spent nearly two decades in front offices across the big leagues, has worked for the NFL’s Browns as their chief strategy officer since 2016 after making the shocking jump from baseball to football.
He served stints in front offices for the then-Indians, A’s, Dodgers, Padres and Mets, for whom he was the vice president of player development and scouting from 2010-16 under general manager Sandy Alderson.
DePodesta is perhaps most famous for being a major character in Michael Lewis’ best-selling book “Moneyball,” when he served as A’s GM Billy Beane’s right-hand man during the dawn of the sabermetrics era in baseball. Jonah Hill’s Peter Brand character in the movie version is partially based on DePodesta.
He will now have a tall task in Denver with the struggling Rockies.
Colorado hasn’t had a winning season since 2018 and is coming off one of the worst three-year stretches in recent MLB history, losing 101 or more games all three years.
Last season, the Rockies lost 119 games, which tied for the third-most losses in a single season since 1961, the year MLB went to a 162-game season.
Executives have long had a tough time putting a winning squad on the field with the Rockies’ mile-high digs.
Since debuting as an expansion franchise in 1993, the Rockies have made the postseason just five times.
The situation isn’t all that different from the Browns, who had endured eight straight losing seasons when DePodesta joined the franchise in 2016.
It hasn’t gotten much better in Cleveland with DePodesta in tow, though, having put up just two winning seasons in eight full seasons since.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
