Paul DePodesta is headed back to Major League Baseball.
The Browns’ longtime Chief Strategy Officer is expected to join the Colorado Rockies as their next head of baseball operations, per Ken Rosenthal, Zac Jackson, and Brittany Ghiroli of The Athletic.
DePodesta, 52, was hired by the Browns in 2016. He spent the preceding two decades in a variety of front office roles around the MLB, starting with the Cleveland Indians in 1996. DePodesta is perhaps best known for his stint as the assistant general manager of the Oakland Athletics from 1999 to 2004.
During that time, he was a pioneer of sabermetrics and helped bring data analytics into the sports mainstream. He later introduced analytics into many aspects of the Browns organization. He was one of the main individuals featured in Michael Lewis’ bestselling book, “Moneyball,” and Jonah Hill earned an Oscar nomination for playing a DePodesta-based character in the film adaptation. DePodesta was hired in 2004 to be the general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, but was fired after just two seasons. He then spent five years each with the San Diego Padres and the New York Mets in top front office positions before making the leap to the NFL with the Browns.
The Browns went 3-13 in 2015, their worst record since 2000. They fired general manager Ray Farmer and hired DePodesta as CSO and future general manager Andrew Berry as the vice president of player personnel. General counsel Sashi Brown – now the team president of the Ravens – became the vice president of football operations and de facto general manager. The team then went 1-31 over the next two seasons; Brown was fired and John Dorsey took over as general manager in December 2017.
Having amassed a lot of draft capital, including back-to-back No. 1 picks that they used on Myles Garrett and Baker Mayfield, the Browns dug themselves out of the AFC North cellar to finish third in the division in 2018 and 2019, albeit with losing records. Dorsey was replaced with Berry, and new head coach Kevin Stefanski led the 2020 squad to an 11-5 record, the best finish since the team was re-established in 1999.
A step back in 2021 inspired the Browns to move on from Mayfield and trade three first-round picks to the Texans for Deshaun Watson. Watson was then handed a fully guaranteed five-year, $230MM extension. The move, driven in part by DePodesta, drew criticism at the time and has not aged well.
Watson was suspended for the first 11 games of his Browns tenure, and the team went 7-10 that year. An 11-6 finish and playoff berth in 2023 offered a glimmer of hope, but Cleveland has won just five games since. Watson suffered back-to-back season-ending injuries in 2023 (shoulder fracture) and 2024 (Achilles tear) and now appears to be out of the team’s future plans, though his contract will still be on the books for a few more years.
An 11-6 record and a playoff berth in 2023 offered a glimmer of hope in Cleveland, but the team has won just five games since. They now appear to be looking for their next franchise quarterbacks in the next two drafts, for which they should have ample draft capital. The Browns will now continue their seemingly endless rebuild without DePodesta guiding the team’s high-level roster strategy.
The Rockies’ present situation is strikingly similar to the Browns’ when they hired DePodesta. The Rockies went 43-119 in 2025, tied for the third-most losses in Major League Baseball history and their third straight season with at least 100 losses. They have not made the playoffs since 2018 and have never won their division, the National League West.
DePodesta will now be charged with turning the hapless franchise around after precious few successful seasons since their inception in 1993. Owner Dick Monfort has been roundly criticized for a lack of financial investment in the team’s roster and management infrastructure, making DePodesta’s ‘Moneyball’ history particularly relevant. However, his track record since leaving Oakland – in essence, the performance of the teams he has helped run – is not very encouraging.