Sources: Rockies to hire DePodesta to run baseball operations

The Colorado Rockies are finalizing a deal to hire Paul DePodesta to run their baseball operations department, sources told ESPN, turning to the longtime executive to overhaul a stagnant organization coming off a 119-loss season.

DePodesta, 52, will leave the Cleveland Browns, where he has spent the past decade as chief strategy officer, and return to baseball, where he was a key figure in the “Moneyball”-era Oakland A’s and later ran the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The hiring of DePodesta comes after a search in which the two main candidates, Cleveland assistant general manager Matt Forman and Arizona assistant GM Amiel Sawdaye, balked at taking a job expected to require a multiyear rebuild. Colorado’s previous GM, Bill Schmidt, resigned Oct. 1 following a fourth consecutive last-place finish in the National League West and a third straight 100-plus-loss season.

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The turnaround won’t be easy. Colorado returns limited talent from a team that was on pace to set the single-season record for losses, and while its farm system has improved in recent years, it has a paucity of near-major-league-ready talent.

DePodesta’s success as Billy Beane’s No. 2 with the A’s came in the wake of an analytically based approach that has been embraced throughout Major League Baseball — but not with the Rockies. Colorado’s infrastructural deficiencies, sources said, scared off potential candidates and left some in the mix concerned with the ability to turn things around in the cutthroat National League West.

With the Dodgers having won the World Series three times in six years, the San Diego Padres and Diamondbacks still fielding highly competitive teams and the San Francisco Giants expected to be active in free agency to improve this winter, the Rockies face a decidedly uphill battle to return to contention.

How much leeway DePodesta is given to operate in an organization considered by competitors a decade behind will be key as he returns to baseball after joining the Browns in early 2016. He went to Cleveland following stops with the New York Mets and Padres, and the Browns have posted two winning seasons and a 56-99-1 record since DePodesta’s arrival.

His first task, as the GM Meetings in Las Vegas beckon next week, will be to find a manager. In a hiring cycle that has seen eight new managers — including Tennessee coach Tony Vitello joining the Giants and San Diego on Thursday hiring Craig Stammen, two surprising choices — the Rockies are the lone team in MLB without a manager. They fired Bud Black in May, and with the top baseball operations job open have not replaced the interim manager, Warren Schaeffer.