The Rockies have spent four straight seasons piling up triple-digit losses, and 2026 didn’t do anything to soften the blow. Colorado finished 58-104 for the second year in a row, closed with a 6-18 September, and again landed with the majors’ worst record. There was one small step forward - 15 more wins than the year before - but it came wrapped in another season that was defined by the same old problem.
That problem was pitching, and Paul DePodesta said it plainly during his end-of-season press conference on Tuesday, as Kyle Newman of the Denver Post relayed. Colorado’s president of baseball operations pointed to how quickly games got away from the club.
“Our starting pitching, after the trading deadline, had (about) a 7.00 ERA,” DePodesta sai d. “And for the year as a whole, our run differential was worse in innings one and two than innings three and beyond combined. There were way too many games where we just got into a hole within the first two innings.”
The numbers back up the frustration. The Rockies finished last in ERA at 5.59, and the damage wasn’t confined to Coors Field.
Their road ERA of 5.35 was better than their 5.83 mark at home, but it still left them second-to-last in the league. Even with an offense that tied for last in wRC+ at 91, only six teams scored more runs, which tells you just how much the pitching staff dragged the season down.
Kyle Freeland was once the face of that staff. Back in 2018, the left-hander worked 202 1/3 innings with a 2.85 ERA and finished fourth in National League Cy Young voting.
He’s still with the Rockies, but the gap between that version and the one they just ran out there is enormous. Freeland posted a 6.65 ERA across 135 1/3 innings this season, and he was a major piece of a rotation that never found a rhythm.
The rotation as a whole was a mess. Freeland, Tomoyuki Sugano, Michael Lorenzen and Ryan Feltner each made at least 22 starts, but their ERAs ranged from 5.37 for Sugano to 7.08 for Lorenzen.
Colorado released Lorenzen in late August. The club did not move any starters at the Aug. 3 deadline, choosing instead to trade relievers Antonio Senzatela, Victor Vodnik and Seth Halvorsen in separate deals.
The front office also has to live with the decisions it made last winter. DePodesta and general manager Josh Byrnes backed one-year deals for Sugano at $5.1MM, Lorenzen at $8MM and Jose Quintana at $6MM. Quintana wound up giving the Rockies just 11 starts, posting a 5.44 ERA before a sprained elbow cost him about four months.
Now the group looks even thinner. Freeland, Sugano and Quintana are all headed back toward free agency this offseason, and the Rockies also have to plan for part of 2027 without Chase Dollander after he underwent internal brace surgery in late June. That’s a tough hit for a 24-year-old right-hander who showed real promise before going down, logging a 3.89 ERA with similar peripherals and averaging 98.6 mph on his fastball over 44 innings this season.
For next year, the internal options include Ryan Feltner, Tanner Gordon, Gabriel Hughes, Mason Adams, McCade Brown and Pierson Ohl. But as was the case last offseason, Colorado is likely to be shopping for bargain pitching help again.
DePodesta said the Rockies will be looking for a specific type of free agent.
“We want (to sign) a somewhat self-selecting group of (pitchers) who want to take on this challenge. If you’re trying to convince people to do this, it’s probably not going to work out really well for them or for us. We want people who are going to be running toward the challenge.”
Sugano, Lorenzen and Quintana were those kinds of pitchers last winter. The results were uneven at best, and in some cases worse. The Rockies will try again this offseason.
In Other News...
Rockies Finally Face The Pitching Reality Fans Have Feared
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The starting rotation was especially hard to ignore down the stretch, and a 7.00 ERA after the trade deadline put a number to the problem. Colorado even moved on from Michael Lorenzen with a designation for assignment, and president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta has already pointed toward creative solutions as the next step. The challenge now is less about identifying the issue than finding a workable path out of it. [Read more 🡒]
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Team president Walker Monfort framed the increase around a few familiar business pressures, including what he called the clubs traditionally low ticket prices, rising minimum wage costs and lost TV revenue. But in Denver, the bigger issue is less about accounting and more about trust, and whether loyal supporters will keep buying in when the on-field payoff has been so hard to find. [Read more 🡒]