Rockies hire former Mets exec Levin as assistant GM

DENVER -- Ian Levin, who spent 20 years in various capacities with the Mets, eventually rising to vice president and assistant general manager, is joining the Rockies as an assistant general manager, the team announced on Monday.

Levin will rejoin Rockies president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta, who oversaw amateur scouting and player development for the Mets from 2011-15 before accepting a key decision-making role with the NFL's Cleveland Browns, and assistant GM for scouting and player development Tommy Tanous, who left the Mets last week to join the Rockies.

“Ian brings a proven record of strategic leadership, key roster decision-making, and innovative player performance initiatives,” DePodesta said in a statement. “With extensive experience across Major League operations, research and development, player development and amateur scouting, Ian will strengthen every part of our operation. We couldn’t be more excited to bring him to the Rockies.”

Levin, who began his career as an intern in media relations (2005) and baseball operations (2006), worked in various scouting and player development roles before becoming a key figure in Mets organizational strategies. He left the team after the 2024 season and founded OneOne Sports to help collegiate programs develop data-based approaches to a changing landscape.

With the Mets, Levin at various points pushed for data-based approaches to teaching players, set policies for off-field development of prospects, managed arbitration policies and oversaw a $200 million-plus Major League payroll.

Levin's hiring is DePodesta's latest move to strengthen the organization's structure.

DePodesta also has hired longtime baseball exec Josh Byrnes, most recently a vice president of scouting and player development with the Dodgers.

The Rockies have been criticized in recent years for falling behind a revolution of information-based approaches to building organizations. DePodesta's moves suggest that the problem was more that the Rockies’ organization was thin on numbers of employees to attack the problem. Rather than a house cleaning, this is a massive house addition.

The moves suggest that the Rockies will modernize -- rather than abandon -- a development-oriented approach with goals of improved player selection, training and decision-making.

Early hiring for the Major League coaching and support staff also points to adding personnel. By going with pitching coach Alon Leichman, assistant pitching coach Gabe Ribas and bullpen coach Matt Buschmann, the Rockies expanded the pitching department by one person. Last year, the pitching coach was Darryl Scott and the bullpen coach was Dustin Garneau, a former catcher who also coached that position after bench coach Mike Redmond was dismissed at the same time as manager Bud Black.

Manager Warren Schaeffer, who took over for Black on an interim basis last year and was retained by DePodesta for full-time duties, also has hired Brett Pill (formerly the Dodgers’ Minor League hitting coordinator) as his hitting coach, with the rest of the staff to be determined.