The Rockies are heading into another winter with the same ugly question hanging over the franchise: who, exactly, is going to hold together the rotation?
Colorado has now gone through four straight 100-plus-loss seasons, and the season ending almost feels like a break for fans at this point. The bigger issue is what comes next, because the pitching plan they tried this year never really took hold.
The club leaned veteran instead of young arms, putting Kyle Freeland alongside Michael Lorenzen, Jose Quintana and Tomoyuki Sugano. That approach was supposed to steady things. Instead, it left president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta with another major overhaul to tackle this offseason.
Freeland, Quintana and Sugano are all at the end of their current contract, which opens the door to a significant reset on the mound. Ryan Feltner remains under team control and is listed as part of the current Colorado rotation, but the real intrigue is whether the organization has anyone else ready to step forward.
Mason Adams has at least made a case for himself. In his first six MLB starts, the rookie has posted a 4.03 ERA with 31 strikeouts. He hasn’t blown anyone away, but he has been steady enough to earn another look when spring training opens in 2027.
Then there’s Chase Dollander, who was supposed to be one of the arms the Rockies could build around. That still may be true someday, but the timeline has changed.
Dollander had surgery in June to have an internal brace placed in his right elbow, and the team expects him back sometime in 2027. Even so, Colorado can’t bank on him being ready for Opening Day, much less assume he’ll be able to handle a full starter’s workload right away.
McCade Brown is in a similar spot. He spent nearly all of the 2026 season on the injured list because of right shoulder inflammation, worked his way back to bullpen sessions, and then the Rockies shut him down so he could stay healthy for 2027.
Both Dollander and Brown should matter when they return. But neither can be counted on to solve this problem immediately, and that’s the crux of it.
After another failed attempt built around veterans, manager Warren Schaeffer said in a post-game media meeting that the strategy didn’t produce the desired result and that the team may need to rethink how it uses pitchers.
Coors Field remains part of the challenge. It has been extremely difficult for Colorado to build a five-man rotation that can consistently work deep into games there. Still, the front office has to treat this as the top priority.
DePodesta needs to chase pitching hard this winter. The Rockies are stuck in a brutal slide, and if they’re going to climb out of it, the fix starts on the mound.
In Other News...
Rockies May Have Just Seen Suganos Exit Get More Complicated
Tomoyuki Suganos first season in Colorado has already given the Rockies plenty to think about, and his latest start only added to the conversation. At Rate Field, the veteran right-hander took the mound for a one-year Rockies contract against a familiar opponent in White Sox slugger Munetaka Murakami, a matchup that carried some built-in intrigue for anyone who followed their time in Japans Central League before they ever reached Major League Baseball.
Murakami made the reunion hard to miss, connecting for two home runs in the White Soxs 6-1 win and putting a dent in Suganos outing at an important moment for both pitcher and team. Sugano still finished the season as Colorados wins leader, but with free agency ahead, each start has taken on extra weight for a Rockies club trying to decide what comes next on a staff that could look very different soon. [Read more 🡒]
Rockies Farm System Just Delivered A Reason For Real Optimism
The Rockies have spent plenty of time trying to find reasons to feel better about the future, and their farm system is giving them one now. Baseball America recently put out its league honors, and Colorado had names at the top in two different spots: outfielder Zac Veen was recognized as the best player at Triple-A, while Cristian Arguelles earned the same distinction in the Arizona Complex League. For an organization that has long needed more impact talent in the pipeline, that kind of double recognition stands out.
Veens surge with the Albuquerque Isotopes helped get him to the majors, where his bat has carried over enough to keep the conversation moving, while Arguelles has quickly built a case as one of the systems most intriguing young hitters. The 19-year-old set the Arizona Complex League batting average record and took home MVP honors before his promotion to Single-A Fresno, and the Rockies are giving him time to keep developing there. For now, the encouraging part is simple: Colorado has more than one prospect making real noise, and those are the kinds of names a rebuilding club wants to see rising together. [Read more 🡒]
Rockies Showed One Encouraging Trend Despite Another Brutal Season
The Rockies fourth straight 100-loss season is the kind of stretch that can flatten a franchises outlook, and the overall numbers have been as rough as anyone around the club would expect. Even so, there was one area that at least offered a sliver of encouragement: the offense looked more capable, with Hunter Goodman, TJ Rumfield and McCarthy giving the lineup some much-needed signs of life.
Pitching remains the glaring problem, and the teams ERA sits at the bottom of the majors, so there is no hiding how far Colorado still has to go. But the front office does have something to work with in a few promising prospects and draft picks, which gives the Rockies a path forward even as the present continues to feel stuck in place. [Read more 🡒]