Paul DePodesta Introductory Press Conference

Paul DePodesta Introductory Press Conference

and in Oakland that that was lacking for sure, you know, that first spring training. And then it sort of evolved to um hey, we think we can compete with these guys. And then it evolved to um hey, we think we can, you know, compete with anybody, like even the best teams. And then it evolved to we know we can win. It doesn’t matter who’s in the other dugout. And that’s a process, right? And it does take time. I’d love to speed it up like as quickly as we could. Um, but I do think you have to sort of hit each stage in that process. And not each one is a year. You know, sometimes th those things happen over the course uh uh of an individual season. But um look, I I don’t want this to take, you know, a bunch of years. I’m I’m anxious to get going and and, you know, as Walker said at the beginning, you know, start showing some progress right away and and move to where we want to be. Um but I I think we’ll I think we’ll start to feel it before it necessarily shows up. and uh we’ll start feeling that that progress toward that fundamental change of state. You’ve worked for the evil empire working against challenges. Yeah. I mean, you know, when I left the Dodgers, I went to the Padres’s, so it was, you know, I’ve been in the I’ve been in this boat before. Um I’ve also been in, you know, New York when I was the Mets and they were the Yankees like right across the street. Even with the A’s, the the Giants were right across the street and had some great teams. I just don’t get caught up in those things. I think we have to worry about ourselves um and not worry about what anyone else when anyone else in the division is doing. There are some great teams. There are some really really competitive teams in this division. Uh that’s okay. We plan to, you know, hopefully be one of them uh at some point here relatively soon. Um you know, I also started back in the day where they were eight playoff teams. Like they’re now 12. There’s room for all of us. So I I think for uh you know my goal is we got to be playing in October and uh I’ll take my chances against anybody once you get there. Christian Lionel first then we’ll go ahead. Uh Lionel Benu Denver 7. Uh this question is for Dick. Uh Dick with the Walker as executive vice president and now Paul as president of baseball operations. What were you what specifically will your role be on the baseball side of the operation moving forward? I think they’re sort of pushing me out. Doesn’t it feel that way? No, I mean, hey, uh, much has been said about what I do and don’t do. Uh, I’m here to support Walker. I’m here to support Paul. I’m here to support everybody in this building. And, uh, you know, we we have to have the the resources to make all this work. And that sort of always has been part of my responsibility, too. But I I’m here to support people. I’m I’m not as bad as anyone thinks I am. Uh I I do care. I think that’s where it sort of gets foggy. I care about, you know, winning. I care about our players. I care about our, you know, the entire staff that work here. They work extremely hard. And so, you know, I defend them and I support them. And but you know really it’s Paul’s job, it’s Walker’s job and and I’m there to support him and like I tell people I’m the overhead around here. Christian, uh Paul Christian size, DNVR sports. Uh you talked about one of the biggest decisions facing you being a managerial decision. What are some of the qualities you’re looking for in a manager? What are you hoping to get from a successful manager in this hiring search? You know, I’ I’ve always believed that I think the most important job a manager has is just being a great relationship manager. Um, relationships with the players, relationships with the rest of their staff, relationships with the front office, etc. Um, look, it’s a hard job. I mean, it’s it’s unbelievable everything that they have to deal with on a daily basis. Um, but I I think that’s at the core of it. Are are there other things that are important? Sure. I mean, you know, game strategy and whatnot. Um, but I I think there are a lot of people that are capable of doing some of those types of things, but I think the people that are exceptional relationship managers, they’re they’re harder to find. Uh, Paul, I’m Owen Perkins from the Tellurad Times. Um, do you as there’s a lot of concern about 2027 and labor? Um, and as you’re putting together, you know, a rebuild of the organization, how much do you look to that? How much does that come into your thinking on putting things in place now with that looming in your mind or do you have to kind of ignore that aspect? You know, I’d say this at least as we sit here today. Um there’s so much right in front of us, you know, that we need to tackle between now and the middle of February that that that’s really what’s on my mind more so than anything that’s, you know, a year away or more than a season away. Um, obviously at some point, you know, from a strategic standpoint, we need to be, you know, thinking through possibilities, but right now it’s not really not really part of the the calculus. John Tree, 9 News. Dick, in order to make big changes, you have to take big swings. How much do you want Paul to take those big swings and risks? Yeah, I mean, we’ve taken big swings before. Uh, Paul’s taken big swings before. uh you know, you calculate those risks and you know, if if the worst possible thing could happen, are we all right? And so, you know, you just have to weigh those risks. Um, you know, we all, you know, we understand where we’re at. As Walker said, we we fit in a group of about 15 teams that, you know, are not as resourceful, let’s say, as you know, the top five or eight teams. So, you know, we know where we live, but uh risk, you know, we’re up for risk just like anybody else. Paul, Scotty Gains, 9 News. Welcome to Denver. In your last position in Cleveland, you received a lot of blame for the Deshun Watson trade that objectively was a failure with that organization. Is that fair? And if so, how can you be assured that you won’t do something like that again here now in Colorado? The previous question was about big swings, huh? Uh yeah, risk. Yeah. You know, I I was also calling plays for the Browns, you know, and uh no um look, I and I’ve said this before, I think whenever you have a significant player decision, whether it’s trade, big free agent signing, number one draft pick, whatever it is, like those are organizational decisions, right? Um those are done collaboratively, like a lot of people on board and and if you’re a senior leader of that organization at that time, uh then you own that decision. I mean, you do. We we all do. Um so that’s the way I feel about that and I and it’s the way I feel about sort of almost all the decisions we made there in Cleveland. I absolutely, you know, own them all. And look, I I’ve said this now for probably 25 plus years. Like um I lost my no hitter a long time ago. Like a long long time ago. Like I’m not perfect. I haven’t been perfect. I won’t be perfect going forward. Like we are definitely going to miss again. Um, but hopefully we learn from that and we learn from both the successes and the failures and you know we get better the next time we need to make uh a significant decision and I do feel like I’ve been able to do that through the course of my career. I feel confident that I’m a lot better today than I was 5 years ago or 10 years ago or or 20 years ago and I hope five years from now I’m a lot better than I am sitting here today. Hey Paul, right in front of you, Brandon Crystal, Gorilla Sports. Now that Scotty asked a football question. Uh, I think a lot of people want to hear about Shador Sanders and if he’s ever gonna get on the field, but we can do that another time. Um, I’m curious because you Pat started to talk about the uniqueness of Korsfield. What are your thoughts on the dimensions and potentially changing them to not make it the biggest outfield so that singles become doubles and doubles become triples and the wall that was added in right field that Jeff Brightage put up? Any thoughts to changes to the dimensions? No, not immediately. Right. I mean, I think I have certainly have a sense for how the ballpark plays because I’ve obviously been here a bunch as um as a part of the visiting team. Uh but no, I don’t have sort of immediate thoughts on that. There are look, I’ve been a part of parks that have changed. Petco changed when I was there. Uh City Field changed while I was there. Um so I think you need to be open-minded about that as you get data and sort of understand how everything plays. And I know there have been some changes here, you know, over over the time. But um my my sort of more immediate concern is how um how we’re going to play given the current situation, right? And at some point if it makes sense to change something, I’m sure we’ll we’ll look at that. But um but right now I’m just focused on what it’s like today. Hi Paul. Susie Hunter, Guerilla Sports. You’ve mentioned you’re excited to tackle the very unique challenges here in Colorado. Is there any one aspect of that that was most exciting to you when approaching this role? Um, I don’t know that, you know, playing at altitude obviously is a is a huge deal. I’m not sure that it’s like this for any other sport. Um, forget about baseball, like just any other sport. The the impact that the environment has on the actual play of the game, you know, not necessarily just the condition of the players, but actually the way the game is played, the way the ball moves, you know, etc. Um, so I just think, you know, intellectually I think it’s fascinating. Um, it’s a real challenge, you know, for our players. Um, but you know, I’m again sort of excited to learn even more about it. I have a lot of theories, but I’m I’m afraid some of them are probably naive because I’ve been on the outside looking in, and I know there are a lot of things that have been tried here over the course of the past 30 years, and I’m anxious to learn about those, too. I don’t want to uh I don’t want to try something that someone already tried and it didn’t work, right? But I so I want to learn from those things. But um but I do think there are probably some things that we um we will have to do differently than everybody else. Um when I left Oakland and I went to the Dodgers, look, I was really young and I and I was, you know, pretty naive at the time. I was we were we were so successful in Oakland that I thought, okay, I’ll be able to forklift out what we were doing doing doing in Oakland and drop in Los Angeles and we’ll be even more successful because we have more money and more resources, etc. Well, I quickly learned that that’s actually not the way things work. You know, every organization is different. Every environment is different. It has its own strengths. It has its own obstacles. Um, and again, this is unique in that sense. Um, so I I’m under no illusion that you can build a team the same way here that you would anywhere else. Um, but again, that’s part of the um that’s part of the intrigue that I’m really looking forward to. Uh, this is kind of a question for both Walker and Paul. U, there’s been a lot of discussion about a possibility of there being a lockout in 2027 from both hiring a personnel perspective and also, you know, signing players. Does that change your approach to hiring people, the possibility of there being a lockout in 2027? You know, from our standpoint, and this this really comes from from Dick here, but um you know, we we look at it as something that could potentially happen down the road. Um it’s not something that’s that’s uh going to be a roadblock. It’s going to be a you know, a speed bump potentially at some point. But um really I mean we’re not looking at it with the lens of holding back anything right now. We’re we’re looking at it um with a lens of efficiency, right? I wouldn’t say we’re trying to bring on too many people, but if we can um you know evolve our operation in a way that uh provides again a great return in the form of wins, um we’re open to anything. Yeah. And I would say, you know, it just um like it is what it is in terms of the time frame, but it’s a bit of an artificial time frame. I think my time frame is much longer than just, you know, 2027. I think we we want to build something that’s uh robust and lasting and and uh that’ll certainly extend well beyond 2027 one way or the other. Paul Mark Kudson, Mile High Sports. The one job that has been mentioned today is general manager. Can you tell me what kind of person you’re looking for? Is it somebody you’ve worked with previously? somebody with some new ideas exactly when that job might get filled. Sure. Um, so, uh, I’m not sure exactly how it’s going to like how it’s going to evolve. And the reason I say that is because I’m I’m a huge believer in building teams as opposed to just, you know, picking individuals. And, you know, I I want to find someone who can help fill in some of my gaps, but also maybe help fill in some of the gaps in the rest of the organization as well. Um, and even as we look to build out sort of the, you know, the senior leadership team with people that are already here, maybe people that I bring in, um, it truly is a team. So, um, if if there’s someone that we hire in one spot or if there’s some capabilities that are already here in the building, that may impact how I look at what we’ll need out of a general manager. So, um, I’m not dead set on anything right now in terms of the actual person or exactly what their background might be. uh because it’ll I think it’ll really depend on how that piece fits into sort of a larger hole of our you know call it senior leadership team. Sean, Sean Keeler, Denver Post. For for Walker and Paul, uh Paul, you’ve addressed this a little in the last couple days, but with the Chris Bryant contract when you talk about big swings and about resources and allocation of those resources, how does that affect your ability to kind of reshuffle things? and just for both you guys and to get a clean slate and to build something going forward with that contract there and the financial obligations on the table. First, sure. I mean, I think it’s it’s, you know, it’s an obligation that we have, right? But I think what, um, we’ve done leading into the end of last season, um, whether it be at the trade deadline, um, or, you know, since then, over the past month, um, what we what we’ve tried to do is is free up additional resources, right? And so, um, you know, he’ll have a he’ll have an opportunity to allocate what we do have available, right? And I think he’ll have an opportunity to, you know, convince us that there needs to be more available. Um, so it’s really about just, um, you know, you work within what you can and, uh, we feel like we have opportunity to to change things up and and to do things a lot different in in a variety of areas. Yeah, I don’t I don’t have too much to add other than to say that, you know, there are always some guaranteed contracts on the books that, you know, again, when you take over one of these spots that um that’s just what it is. You it’s not an expansion team. You don’t start from zero, right? So, um you know, I I think that’s that’s fine. And like I said, I think we feel like we’ve got uh we’ve got plenty of room to do some things, not just this year, but over the you know, over the coming years. We have a lot of flexibility. All right, I think that’s all the questions we have. So that’ll uh conclude today’s press conference. Uh thank you again for everyone for being here and Paul congratulations and welcome to Colorado. Thanks very much. Thanks everyone. [Applause]

The Colorado Rockies introduce the new President of Baseball Operations, Paul DePodesta, to the local media at a Coors Field press conference.

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