{"id":830233,"date":"2026-10-15T21:39:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T21:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/830233\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T21:39:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T21:39:17","slug":"rockies-fire-pitching-coach-alon-leichman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/830233\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockies Fire Pitching Coach Alon Leichman"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rockies have parted ways with pitching coach Alon Leichman, according to The Athletic\u2019s Ken Rosenthal and Keith Law<\/a>.\u00a0 Leichman held the position for just one season, as the Rox only hired the 37-year-old last December.<\/p>\n

On paper, the quick hook isn\u2019t necessarily a surprise given that Colorado\u2019s pitching staff finished last in baseball in ERA (5.59), SIERA (4.58), strikeout rate (17.5%), WHIP (1.52), and opponents\u2019 batting average (.283), plus last or close to last in multiple other categories.\u00a0 As is the case with any coaching firing, however, it is fair to wonder how much of the blame can be played on a coach for the shortcomings of a roster that was clearly lacking in pitching talent.\u00a0 In the Rockies\u2019 case specifically, the team has spent its entire history trying to figure out how to develop and maintain quality pitching in the thin air of Coors Field.<\/p>\n

Nobody expected Leichman to turn this around in a single year, but president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta may have planted some hints about the firing when speaking to reporters last week<\/a>.\u00a0 The starters\u2019 pre-game preparation under Leichman may have been an issue, as DePodesta pointed specifically to the fact that Colorado\u2019s \u201crun differential was worse in innings one and two than innings three and beyond combined.\u00a0 There were way too many games where we just got into a hole within the first two innings.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Leichman now gone, it is worth wondering if assistant pitching coach Gabe Ribas, bullpen coach Matt Buschmann, or director of pitching Matt Daniels may be in jeopardy.\u00a0 This trio were also hired just last winter as part of a broader shake-up of the coaching staff in DePodesta\u2019s first winter in charge of the Rockies\u2019 front office.<\/p>\n

DePodesta (likely with some input from manager Warren Schaeffer) will now add another pitching coach search to the offseason to-do list<\/a>.\u00a0 Colorado is still deep into rebuild mode, and revamping the team\u2019s pitching process on an analytical and development is more important than getting a big uptick in Major League results in 2027, though obviously improvement would be welcome.\u00a0 Even a short-term boost in starter or bullpen ERA would help the Rox perhaps flip some pitchers elsewhere at the trade deadline in exchange of prospects.<\/p>\n

This was the first time Leichman had worked as a big league team\u2019s lead pitching coach.\u00a0 He had previously been an assistant pitching coach with the Marlins in 2025 and the Reds in 2023-24, and spent four seasons as a pitching coach in the Mariners\u2019 farm system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rockies have parted ways with pitching coach Alon Leichman, according to The Athletic\u2019s Ken Rosenthal and Keith…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":830234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[48694,5],"class_list":["post-830233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-alon-leichman","tag-baseball"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117447095963418173","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/830234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}