As much as the wretched Rockies would like us to believe Paul DePodesta is a ninja tasked with taking down the L.A. Dodgers’ evil empire, the truth is far less ambitious and not nearly so glamorous.
He’s a glorified nanny.
DePodesta was hired away from a pro football laughingstock to babysit the sons of Rockies owner Dick Monfort.
“I think they are sort of pushing me out. Doesn’t it feel that way?” Dick Monfort said Thursday, when DePodesta was introduced as the team’s new front-office guru.
At age 71, the head of the Monfort family baseball clan insists he is finally taking a big step away from day-to-day operations of a team that has lost at least 100 games in three straight seasons.
While that news might be sweet music to the ears of long-suffering Rockies fans, the patriarch of the Monfort family business is going to work in the shadows as DePodesta becomes the face of a last-place team.
The Rockies aren’t playing to win in 2026.
The real battle doesn’t begin until next season mercifully ends.
During a press conference appropriately held in the basement of Coors Field, I asked DePodesta how long it would take for him to pull the Rockies from the National League West cellar to wage battle with the Dodgers, winners of back-to-back World Series titles.
“I don’t want this to take a bunch of years,” replied DePodesta, his poker face unable to hide the obvious fact that this man is hedging all his bets while holding weak cards close to his vest.
But the real nitty-gritty of the Rockies’ plan to become relevant again in the baseball world could be found not far from where the spotlight shined on DePodesta as TV cameras recorded his every word.
Relaxing on a chair, off to the side of the purple-clad dais set up for the press conference, I spied Charlie Monfort, the younger brother of Dick and the nearly silent ownership partner despite his huge financial stake in the Rockies.
“We need a new economic system … the system sucks,” Charlie Monfort told me, advocating for the Dodgers to stop hoarding their wealth.
“We obviously need a better economic system. We need the other owners to buy into a revenue-sharing, with a salary cap and floor. But revenue-sharing is really the bottom line.”
The message is crystal clear.
Hiring DePodesta will allow Dick Monfort to focus on his real passion for the next 18 months: Waging war with the Yankees and the big spenders in baseball’s biggest television markets.
He will serve as a chief negotiator in a looming contract dispute with the players’ union that could well result in a lockout and an ugly, lengthy shutdown of the sport in 2027.
I’m not sure if this will make you feel any better, but DePodesta was hired in no small part thanks to a glowing recommendation of former Rockies general manager Dealin’ Dan O’Dowd, who was asked by the Monfort family to vet many candidates on a list of at least 20 applicants to replace Bill Schmidt.
That’s not exactly a bold, new direction.
It’s more like recycling the same, old, tired advice.
But should we hold it against DePodesta, just because he has never won a championship ring as a baseball or football executive since entering sports management in 1995? His personal championship drought is almost as long as the Rockies’ generation of frustration.
DePodesta admits he has yet to formulate a plan on how to win at 5,280 feet above sea level.
But he has jokes.
“I also called plays for the Browns,” said DePodesta, laughing off his role in a football-ignorant and morally bankrupt decision to trade for quarterback Deshaun Watson during his decade as chief strategy officer for Cleveland’s awful NFL team.
I’m quite certain DePodesta is a brilliant man, for one reason alone.
Unable to leverage his pencil-pushing acumen for crunching numbers into a shiny championship ring, he has made a career of telling rich guys what they want to hear.
If DePodesta could fool Browns owner Jimmy Haslem, sweet-talking Dick Monfort and his sons, Walker and Sterling, should be kids’ play.
His sons, both in their 30s, have been promoted to key roles on the baseball and business side of the Rockies organizational chart.
Sounds to me a little like Dad doubling down on the mess his family has made of the team.
A proud father, however, doesn’t see it that way.
Watching Walker serve as the master of ceremonies for the introduction of DePodesta felt like a passing of the same torch Dick took from the family meat-packing business a generation ago, when his dad (Kenneth) fell ill back in 1989.
“He said: ‘I hate to turn this all over to you, but I just can’t go forward.’ Dick recalled. “And I said: ‘I can handle it.’ I was like 35 years old. So when Walker came to me and said: ‘I can handle it,’ I thought, well (bleep), I thought the same thing back then. It ended up OK. What the hell?”
Kindly allow me to be the umpteenth person to mention DePodesta was portrayed by actor Jonah Hill as a spunky young Oakland A’s executive in a beloved 2011 movie about whether the math confirms a walk really is as good as a hit.
“I’m a big Jonah Hill fan,” Dick Monfort said.
Well, if the Rockies resemble a movie, it ain’t “Moneyball.”
The current situation in Colorado reads more like the script to “Mrs. Doubtfire,” a family comedy of errors.
DePodesta won’t be required to wear make-up, but has been assigned to put lipstick on this pig of a major league franchise.
DePodesta could also be regularly asked to hide Walker and Sterling Monfort behind his skirt, when the same slings and arrows of criticism that have wounded their father inevitably begin to fly.
“I’m not going to muck this up,” Dick Monfort, telling me he wants to let Walker serve as DePodesta’s boss. “No matter what anybody might think, I’m a good guy.”
While he’s busy geeking out on yet another sabermetric analysis of baseball at altitude, DePodesta might be the last one to figure out the score.
He wasn’t brought to Colorado to win a World Series ring.
DePodesta’s job is to spoon-feed Walker and Sterling basic baseball knowledge until they’re ready to take over the Monfort family business.