DENVER -- If patience with a process can produce phenomenal results, longtime baseball executive J.P. Ricciardi believes, Paul DePodesta can overcome set-in challenges and build a winner with the Rockies.
Ricciardi has seen DePodesta -- named the Rockies’ president of baseball operations on Friday -- participate in two major turnarounds.
In 1999, Ricciardi prevailed upon then-Athletics general manager Billy Beane to hire DePodesta from Cleveland and use his strengths in statistical analysis to help build a success period that was immortalized in the book and movie “Moneyball.” Ricciardi was with the rebuilding Mets when DePodesta joined in 2011, and exercised his strengths -- statistical analysis, scouting and player development -- to help build a roster that went to the World Series in 2015.
Can the same happen with the Rockies? They own seven straight losing seasons, including a 43-119 record in 2025 that stands as third-worst in baseball’s Modern Era, behind the 1962 Mets and 2024 White Sox.
“As long as ownership is on board with that type of patience, Paul has the ability to build it from the ground up,” said Riccardi, currently a NESN commentator on Red Sox and Triple-A Worcester broadcasts. “You've got a great fan base there. They support the team, really, really well. And you want to reward them for their loyalty. But it's not going to happen quickly.”
In addition to his time in the front offices of Cleveland (1996-98), the Athletics (1999-2003) and the Mets (2011-15), DePodesta, now 52, served as general manager for the Dodgers (2004-05) and in the front office of the Padres (2006-10). After leaving the Mets, DePodesta switched to football and worked as chief strategy officer for the Cleveland Browns.
Those who worked with DePodesta see well-rounded experience -- which includes being part of five MLB organizations that won division championships, as well as times teams struggle while being built. They see a leader who might be known for cutting-edge thinking and use of numbers, but is as well in touch with what happens on the field as he was in college at Harvard, where he played football and baseball.
Former Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd (2000-13 seasons) worked with DePodesta from the beginning, when DePodesta entered Cleveland’s organization as an intern and worked player development and advance scouting jobs. DePodesta over the years credited O’Dowd for mentorship and friendship. O’Dowd said he was not involved in the process that led to DePodesta’s hiring by the Rockies, beyond being a friend and sounding board.
“He is probably as smart an individual as I've ever come across in the game -- intellectually, at just a different level than most, certainly at a different level than me,” O’Dowd said. “But he never acted like he was the smartest person in the room. He could see things about players or about situations almost like a 50-year-old with experience -- and he was doing that in his early 20s.”
O’Dowd, whose Rockies endured some hard times but went to the World Series in 2007 and the postseason in ’09, believes his approach to battling Colorado’s very real altitude conundrum might have been counterproductive but DePodesta’s qualities could help him avoid repeating mistakes.
“I use an analogy in my own mind now: It was like grabbing an elephant by its hind legs and trying to wrestle it to the ground,” O’Dowd said. “You’re never going to win that battle. The elephant is never going to get tired.
“You need to embrace the elephant in the room. With Paul or whoever is running the team, you need to accept the reality of the situation, embrace it and build a roster that reflects the challenges -- instead of trying to figure out how to work your way around the challenges.”
Like the Athletics of the late 1990s and the current Rockies, the Mets were not good when DePodesta -- not far removed from his brief time in charge of the Dodgers -- joined Sandy Alderson, Ricciardi and others in building a winner.
As the Mets’ vice president of player development and amateur scouting, DePodesta spearheaded a 2011 MLB Draft that started with a little-known Wyoming high school product, outfielder Brandon Nimmo, 13th overall. A whopping 15 players drafted by the Mets that year made it to the Majors.
Not only has Nimmo become a key player, but 34th-rounder Seth Lugo, a pitcher, developed into an All-Star. DePodesta’s methodologies in evaluating players will be important to the Rockies, who must find ways to compete in a division in which the Dodgers will always outspend them.
“Brandon didn't necessarily have those statistics, because you don't have those statistics playing high school ball in Wyoming -- you have ‘X’ amount of games,” said TJ Barra, a former Mets front office member and now vice president of basketball research and innovation for the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks. “But whether that was some things we did, both in person and watching him in the video, and all the psychology and eye tests, Paul saw those traits.
“And it was all throughout that Draft.”
DePodesta joins a team whose problems go deeper than the record. The Rockies have been late in adopting innovations in gathering and using information that are common throughout the game, in the Majors, the Minors and in scouting. DePodesta will make some hires -- likely a general manager -- but also is expected to listen to and lead holdovers who have knowledge of the Rockies’ unique altitude demands.
Ricciardi said DePodesta has made painstaking work pay off before.
“What's the hurry in trying to rush this and do foolish things?” Ricciardi said. “Paul is a good guy in the sense that he's going to want to build it from the ground up.”