For the Rockies, the idiom must be: Spring hopes eternal.

The propitious revolutionary rectification of the Whack-A-Mole Roxbottoms has begun in Scottsdale in earnest.

Could the long, maddening Monfort nightmare be over for intrepid Colorado Rockies baseball fanatics?

Finally, responsible adults now are in the Rox front office, at the ballpark and in the locker room.

In the past six regulation regular seasons (not including the pandemic year) the Denver franchise has averaged 99.2 losses, climaxing in 2025 with 119 defeats. Owner Delusional Dick was humiliated enough to surrender after enough was enough.

Schmidt no longer happens.

The Rox are playing ball in spring training with a new team led by president of baseball operations, Paul DePodesta, general manager Josh Byrnes and an impressive ensemble of coaches, scouts and data-driven, avant-garde analysts and MLB specialists who will try to be game-changers at 20th and Blake and beyond.

Byrnes says the front office will be reimagining the Rockies’ style of pitching.
Imagine that possibility.

The Rockies were last as always in pitching particulars last season with a staff that allowed 933 earned runs, 1,673 hits, 251 home runs and 554 walks. The aggregate of 27 Rox pitchers and four position players on the mound blew leads in 32 games and performed as Terrible News Rox 26 times while being lit up for 10 or more runs — including 17, 18, 20 and 21. The Rox “ace,” Denver’s own Kyle Freeland, lost the most games of anybody: 17. The Rockies had one six-game winner. The relievers created a Kerosene Korps.
And the LoDoers challenged the worst record in MLB’s entire annals.

Phony Ball.

DePodesta and Byrnes immediately started to address the starters’ and relievers’ cataclysm and the club’s pathetic past pitching philosophy.

The pair hired a quality-control quartet for the 32 pitchers who reported Thursday to the Rox Salt River Fields spring training headquarters in Scottsdale. Although most of the returning veterans and newly acquired position players already have arrived, their official first day will be Tuesday.

The Rox will open Cactus League exhibitions Friday and Saturday at the Salt River Fields complex they share.

After the dumping of the previous regime like a load of coal by fresh authority, manager Warren Schaeffer was an exception, despite his dubious debut.

He certainly has to prove his attributes this season. Unlike predecessor Bud Black, Schaeffer wasn’t permitted to choose all his surrounding cast. Alon Leichman is the head pitching coach after serving as an assistant and the first Israeli-born Major League coach. Gabe Ribas will be second in command of pitchers, with Matt Buschmann as the bullpen coach and Matt Daniels in an established role of pitching director.

Under the new pitching process, Leichman is anticipated to call all the pitches from the dugout, as he did last season when the Marlins adapted the unique scheme a year ago. The 36-year-old Leichman, who coached and played on Israel international teams and has trained in the Dodgers’ organization, will signal the preferred pitch to the Rockies’ catcher who, in turn, would relay it to the pitcher.

The Rockies’ pitchers are being coached up on new angles and deliveries from the three-quarter arm position, and more emphasis is placed on several additional pitches. So far the concept designed to succeed both at Coors Field and on the road has been welcomed by the returning pitchers and the free-agent journeymen who joined the Rockies on short-term contracts. But will it be a success?

The Rockies’ front office trust will trust veterans more than youthful, drafted pitchers who were pushed prematurely onto the mound too often in the past.
The six pitchers competing for the five-man rotation are Freeland and Ryan Feltner, coming back from injury, the three experienced pickups: Jose Quintana (37), Michael Lorenzen (34), and Tomoyuki Sugano (36), and prized prospect Chase Dollander (24).

With as many as four new position starters and possibly more than a dozen new players on the overall roster, these aren’t the old 100-plus-game losers. But will they be the new 60-plus-game winners as predicted by baseball wise guys?

At the very least, these Roxbottoms are more curious and promising than the bunch belonging to Dick Monfort and his cronies, lackeys and ne’er-do-wells.
Hope does spring eternal in Arizona for the Rox.