Five People to Watch in 2026: Paul DePodesta, Savior of the Rockies?

Mr. Moneyball. That analytics guy. Google boy. Call him what you want, but Paul DePodesta is now the Colorado Rockies president of baseball operations, and we’re here to see what happens…as much as we can stomach, anyway. Last season’s 119 losses were a hard slog.

Barring an all-time turnaround, it will probably be difficult to watch the Colorado Rockies in 2026, giving Denver fans all the more reason to train their eyes on DePodesta. The longtime sports executive — known for his role in book-turned-movie Moneyball — was hired by the Monfort family in November to turn around the Rockies. A hefty task for DePodesta, who didn’t come to Denver with infallible credentials. But who would? 

We’re talking about a team with one World Series appearance that hasn’t seen a winning season in five years or a playoff series victory since 2007. A team that routinely sends great homegrown players to more esteemed franchises, only to sign less-talented, more injury-prone players to similarly large contracts. Colorado was never bagging a spotless golden boy to run the show, but we got someone with a little gravitas. Bailing on in-house talent is still likely under the Monforts — one of the few MLB owners who aren’t billionaires, just hundred-millionaires — but maybe DePodesta can hold ownership away from another Kris Bryant signing. 

DePodesta was part of an early wave of Ivy League-trained brains who helped reshape how pro sports are run. Using sabermetrics, a form of data-driven baseball analysis, the Harvard grad relied more on advanced math than traditional MLB scouts — a much bolder proposition in the ’90s than it is now. Those methods helped DePodesta land an assistant GM gig with the Oakland A’s, which quickly overachieved, and the Moneyball story was born. He was the fifth-youngest general manager ever in MLB history when the Los Angeles Dodgers hired him in 2004. Then things got a little bumpy.

DePodesta was fired the next year by the Dodgers’ former owner, Frank McCourt (who, to be fair, doesn’t have the best reputation in baseball) after his big-money players got hurt. He then served in front-office roles for the San Diego Padres and New York Mets before surprising the sports world in 2016 by jumping to the NFL as chief strategy officer for the Cleveland Browns. He had mixed success, with rosters that were viewed as talented but rarely produced a winning record. His most famous transaction was facilitating a 2022 trade that brought in quarterback DeShaun Watson, to whom the Browns then signed a fully guaranteed deal of $230 million. Since then, Watson has been a mix of injured and whack. But before that, he was also an alleged creep, accused by multiple Houston-area massage therapists of sexual crimes and misconduct. (Watson has denied any wrongdoing but has settled with twenty women who claimed the quarterback engaged in sexual misconduct.)

As in L.A., DePodesta’s boss and team owner in Cleveland, Jimmy Haslam, isn’t known for being traditional or smart with his payroll on the field. That should help him in Denver, where the Rockies are viewed as the least favorable and most incompetent franchise in a city that is getting used to the playoffs in professional basketball, football and hockey. In his short time at the helm, DePodesta has focused on filling out the coaching and front office staff after the team named Warren Schaeffer the full-time manager. So far, he seems to be looking for young, analytically-driven talent (sound familiar?) and a connection to the Dodgers, hiring Josh Byrnes as GM and Brett Pill as hitting coach, both of whom come from the MLB defending champs. Those moves and the hiring of bench coach Jeff Pickler, previously on the Red and Twins, received praise. Now it’s about getting players, and DePodesta is confident in who the Rockies will attract in free agency and via trades.

“There are people who have proactively reached out to us, saying, ‘We want to play there.’ They see certain opportunities, not just because of playing time, although that’s certainly part of it. But fortunately, just within the last couple of weeks with what we’ve been able to put together off the field, I think people are excited and there are some players who want to be a part of that. There are some players who want to be tutored by some of our pitching guys. There are hitters who I think would be excited to come over and be part of what we’re going to try to build here. It’s been good, and I think it’s been really positive so far,” DePodesta recently told the Denver Gazette. “Now, I’m not Pollyannaish. I understand that we still need to bid for players accordingly in the marketplace, and we need to be competitive in that marketplace. But, so far, we’ve been encouraged by the interest people have in being a part of what we’re trying to build.”

Forgive us for not being Pollyannaish about next season, either. But at least we’re interested.