The Rockies are heading into a pivotal offseason, and a fresh set of team honors only sharpened the picture of what Colorado has to work with.
Joel Reuter of Bleacher Report picked out each MLB club’s MVP, Cy Young winner and Rookie of the Year for 2026, and his choices for the Rockies line up neatly with the organization’s most important pieces. Hunter Goodman took MVP honors, Tomoyuki Sugano was named the Cy Young winner, and first baseman TJ Rumfield was selected as Colorado’s Rookie of the Year.
That trio says plenty about where the Rockies stand as Paul DePodesta enters his second season running baseball operations. Last winter, DePodesta got a late start after being hired in early November, but he avoided the kind of overreaction that can derail a reset. He brought in John Byrnes as general manager and removed the interim tag from Warren Schaeffer, keeping the structure steady while the front office got to work.
The biggest decisions now sit ahead of him.
Goodman is the kind of player teams rarely find, let alone replace easily. He’s an All-Star catcher, and the temptation to use him as trade currency is obvious if Colorado wants to address multiple holes at once.
But the problem is just as obvious: the Rockies likely don’t have a ready-made replacement in the system, and finding one in a deal would be no sure thing either. If Colorado wants its rebuild to keep moving in 2027, it has to think hard before moving him.
Sugano presents a different kind of question. He was clearly the best Rockies starter this season, especially with Michael Lorenzen disappointing and Jose Quintana dealing with injuries.
But Sugano is also a free agent, which puts the next step in his hands as much as the team’s. Does DePodesta push to bring him back?
Would Sugano want to return and anchor the rotation again? Those are the questions hanging over the winter.
Then there’s Rumfield, whose arrival already looks like a win. Colorado landed him in an under-the-radar trade with the New York Yankees last offseason after he was blocked by Paul Goldschmidt and Ben Rice. The Yankees had a clear path to move him, and the Rockies took advantage.
Rumfield came up just short in the Gold Glove race on Sunday night, but that doesn’t change what he did in his first season in Denver. The 26-year-old Virginia Tech product hit .300/.390/.453 with 16 home runs and 73 RBIs in 155 games, while giving Colorado above-average defense and stability at a corner infield spot.
For the Rockies, the offseason now gets more interesting. The good news is that the foundation looks real. Goodman and Rumfield give Colorado young pieces worth building around, and Sugano’s future could shape the next step.