Paul DePodesta knows what his long-term mission is as the Colorado Rockies’ new president of baseball operations.
But in the short term, wins are likely to be in short supply. Rebuilding the Colorado Rockies properly is unlikely to be a task completed in two or even three years.
And perhaps that’s why when he spoke about the challenge and goals as he assumes the reins, he didn’t just speak of winning, but creating what he referred to as “salient moments,” as he told Thomas Harding of MLB.com and Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post on Monday.
“One of the things that I talk about all the time in professional sports: Certainly we’re in this to win and all those sorts of things, but what we’re really in it for is creating these salient moments for our fans, right?” DePodesta said.
“These moments that will live on in their lives, their families’ lives, etc., where it just makes this indelible impact.”
#Rockies new president of baseball ops Paul DePodesta on why he welcomes the challenge of trying to fix the Rox. pic.twitter.com/pSMLJQvWVD
— Patrick Saunders (@psaundersdp) November 11, 2025
One thing, of course, truly creates such an impact.
“That’s because you won something, right?” DePodesta continued.
“But to be able to do that in Denver, where the Rockies just have such reach with their fans, and to do it in that environment, I just think would be incredibly special.”
Indeed, despite finishing with the fourth-highest loss tally in Major League Baseball history last season — a catastrophic 119 defeats — the Rockies still had a higher average attendance than 15 other clubs. Some of that is a testament to Coors Field as a summertime destination, another portion is attributable to Colorado being a destination for transplants from other markets.
But there remains a core of passionate baseball enthusiasts craving something — anything — to give them tangible reason to hope. The fire has burned brightly before — as recently as the late 2010s; it surely can again.
“I think it’s a unique challenge for a lot of different reasons,” DePodesta said. “Certainly people have talked about the ballpark and the altitude and things like that, but for me, one of the things that’s the most interesting about it is just the impact it can have on so many people.”
DePodesta’s statement is not quite at the level of “Maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way.”
But it’s fair to say that the only impact Rockies fans want to experience is the memories that come with victory; they’re uninterested in any more character-building memories from defeat.
They’ve had enough of those to sustain them for a lifetime.
