The Rockies introduced new president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta at a press conference on Thursday. Owner Dick Monfort and executive vice president Walker Monfort also took part. While the executives spoke mostly in generalities, Dick Monfort revealed that he plans to scale back his involvement in baseball operations now that a new front office leader is in place.
Dick Monfort is one of the leading figures on the owner’s side in labor negotiations with the MLB Players Association. The 71-year-old pointed out that he’ll have more work to do on that end with the collective bargaining agreement expiring a little over a year from now. “I have a lot more responsibility with the league over the next year, so I have to allocate time there. Plus, I’m getting older,” he told reporters (including Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post). “Walker came to me and said he was interested in taking on (a bigger role). He can handle it.”
It is generally believed that Monfort will be one of the leading proponents of a salary cap push by the owners. The MLBPA has maintained that’s a non-starter, setting the stage for another round of contentious negotiations. The sides recently opened preliminary talks, but they’re almost certainly going to negotiate throughout the entire 2026 season. Commissioner Rob Manfred has already indicated he expects offseason lockouts to be a norm. A lockout would only come into play if there’s no new deal in place by December 1, 2026, and it seems both sides are pessimistic on the odds of things getting resolved that smoothly.
Walker Monfort, Dick’s son, has taken on a much bigger role with the Rox over the past few months. While he has worked for the franchise for more than 15 years, he was promoted to executive vice president in June. The 38-year-old played a significant role in the DePodesta hiring, and he indicated he’ll oversee a lot of the day-to-day operations of the club. “Obviously, everybody reports upward, to our chairman and CEO, my father, Dick. Basically, from there, I will still be in charge of oversight of the entire organization,” Walker Monfort said. “So Paul will report to me, and those that he hires will report to him.”
The most significant of those hires will a general manger and a manager. DePodesta said there’s no timetable for either hire. The Rockies are the only team without a permanent manager in place. Jon Morosi of The MLB Network reported last week that the Rox would like to have a GM by next month’s Winter Meetings.
Colorado’s search for a baseball operations head dragged a little longer than ownership probably anticipated. They’d reportedly narrowed to two finalists, Amiel Sawdaye and Matt Forman, before both men took themselves out of consideration. Dick Monfort said the team evaluated around 30 candidates in the search.
Any hire was going to have his work cut out for him. DePodesta takes over one of the worst teams in MLB history. They’re coming off a 119-loss season and have very little talent anywhere on the roster. A pitching staff that allowed nearly six earned runs per nine innings is in particularly rough shape. Speaking at the GM Meetings earlier this week, DePodesta implied he was open to trading hitting for rotation help (link via Thomas Harding of MLB.com).
“I want to stop short of naming a particular position group – I have one in mind, for sure – but I do think there’s some depth. Now what I have to do is understand what the other 29 teams think, and what players they are attracted to from our organization,” DePodesta said. “We need to be open-minded about that, and if we need to shift assets around – take a little away from this area to bolster another – then we’ll have to do that.”
Harding writes that a trade of an outfielder could be one way to add pitching. Center fielder Brenton Doyle regressed offensively, hitting .233/.274/.376 across 538 plate appearances. He’s a plus defensive outfielder, though, and teams would surely have interest with his four remaining years of arbitration control. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects Doyle for a $3.2MM salary as a Super Two player.
Mickey Moniak had terrible defensive metrics but is coming off a career season at the plate. He popped 24 homers while hitting .270/.306/.518 in 461 trips. He’s projected at $4.2MM and controllable for two seasons. Most teams probably see him as a fourth outfielder, but he has flashed some of the offensive promise that made him the first overall pick nine years ago.
Tyler Freeman has good bat-to-ball skills, speed and some defensive versatility. He could be a serviceable utility player. None of Jordan Beck, Yanquiel Fernández or Zac Veen have been good MLB players to date, but they all had prospect pedigree and remain in their pre-arbitration seasons. They’d have modest trade value but could have some fans in other clubs’ scouting departments.
