The Colorado Rockies finished with the worst record in baseball last season. And while Colorado avoided becoming the worst team in MLB history, the 119-loss campaign convinced the franchise to start fresh.
The Rockies’ haven’t reached the playoffs since 2018. They’ve had seven straight losing seasons and three straight 100-loss campaigns. The team’s failures are magnified by the success of Denver’s other professional sports franchises.
The Denver Broncos reached the playoffs in Bo Nix’s rookie season and they’re off to a blazing 10-2 start in 2025. The Nuggets won the NBA Finals in 2023 and the Avalanche captured the Stanley Cup in 2022.
New Rockies GM Josh Byrnes hopes the team can join in their success. “The excitement around those teams in Denver who are winning, you can feel I am sure. And we want to be part of that without a doubt,” Byrnes said, per The Denver Post’s Troy Renck.
The Rockies reboot after historically bad season
“That is the challenge. The big challenge. I wouldn’t come here without some optimism and confidence that we can get there,” Byrnes added.
The Rockies tabbed Paul DePodesta to run the team. DePodesta is best known for his role with the “Moneyball” Oakland A’s. He helped introduce analytics to the sport and saw success in Oakland during the early 2000s.
However, DePodesta has been out of baseball for a decade. He made the move to the NFL in 2016, joining the Cleveland Browns as chief strategy officer. Unfortunately, DePodesta didn’t find much success in football with just two winning seasons in nine years with the Browns.
DePodesta hired Byrnes as the Rockies' new general manager. And Warren Schaeffer was promoted to full time manager after he took over on an interim basis when the club fired Bud Black.
The group has work to do. The Rockies were historically bad in 2025. Colorado reached an all-time low with a -424 run differential. The team broke the previous modern era run differential record of -349, which had stood since 1932.
