The man Jonah Hill portrayed in the movie Moneyball, Paul DePodesta, is now running the Colorado Rockies. The Athletic reports that the Rockies will hire the current Cleveland Browns executive to become the head of baseball operations in Denver.
DePodesta, who is an analytics whiz credited with changing the game of baseball, has spent 10 brutal seasons with the Browns as their chief strategy officer. In that time, the team has arguably been one of the few both worse and more embarrassing than the Rockies. They’ve gone 56-99-1 and made a cripling trade for Deshaun Watson after multiple allegations of sexual assault had come up, then subsequently gave him the highest guaranteed contract in NFL history at five years and $230 million.
But DePodesta is best known for his role with Oakland, which supercharged his career and made the entire sports world more data-driven. He next became the general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, a job he only held for 20 months before getting fired. He made some swing-and-miss trades and let Hall of Famer Adrian Beltre walk from the franchise. After LA, he was a special assistant for the San Diego Padres and vice president of player development for the New York Mets. He has also worked for the Cleveland Guardians.
The Rockies were very much against the wall. The team has suffered seven straight losing seasons, three of which have been 100-loss campaigns, including last year’s a major-league worst 43-119 record. Still, Colorado did not let general manager Bill Schmidt go until after the season, and earlier this week, both finalists, Arizona Diamondbacks assistant general manager Amiel Sawdaye and Cleveland Guardians assistant GM Matt Forman, bailed. Now, with the general managers’ meetings beginning next week in Las Vegas. The Rockeis’ bad situation was somehow even worse.
But Dick Monfort and Walker Monfort held to their word of hiring from outside the organization. DePodesta’s most notable Rockies ties are some time spent in Cleveland with former Rockies boss Dan O’Dowd. And DePodesta’s manager in Los Angeles was former Rockies skipper Jim Tracy.
It’s the child, Walker’s first big move in charge of the Rockies. And the nepotism son that has risen through the club’s ranks quickly has seemingly turned to the movies and pointed at that guy to run his father’s team. A move anyone with no training would suggest.
It’s a bold choice for the Rockies. They hire a man who helped change baseball 20 years ago, but one who has floundered elsewhere, including extremely spectacularly for the Browns. His new challenge is tackling something that has lacked a solution to this point— sustaining success at Coors Field.
