A few takeaways from the DePodesta-Schaeffer presser

On Wednesday morning, Colorado Rockies president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta and manager Warren Schaeffer met with media via Zoom. Although the focus was Schaeffer’s becoming the full-time manager, the conversation covered a wide range of topics. (Read more about that here from Sam Bradfield.)

DePodesta said two things that I wanted to mull a bit because they provide a sense of how he is building his staff and organizing his priorities.

First, I asked DePodesta about his schedule since taking the PBO job three weeks ago: What that had been like and how had he been parcelling out his work? Here’s what he said:

It's been exciting. It's also been non-stop. That's probably the best way to describe it.

When I first came aboard — I've shared this with some other people — it felt like every 72 hours there was, there was another, not necessarily, deadline, but there was another thing on the calendar that was there.

So when I first took the job, it was, “Well, I have to get to Cleveland and close up shop there and say all my goodbyes, and then I just need to get to the GMs meetings in Vegas.” And then once I was at the GMs meetings, I thought, I just need to get to Denver, so I can start meeting everyone there. I finally got a chance to do that. And then three days later, it was, well, we had the roster deadline. And then I thought, if we if I could just get through that. And three days later is the tender deadline, if I could just get through that, you know, etc.

So, really, last Saturday was the first time I could sort of sit back and say, “Okay, now let's really, really focus on staff.” I mean, certainly through all that time, I had been focused on staff, I've been having a lot of conversations and whatnot. But it really wasn't until Saturday that I didn't have something sort of immediately in front of me that I was also going to have to deal with.

But no, it's been super exciting. I really enjoyed get to know everybody. It's helped me. It's helped me create, I think, a more defined plan, both on the field and off the field, about how we want to attack this offseason, and now I'm excited to get that plan moving.

Let me say at the outset how refreshing it is to have a front office person who gives thoughtful, developed answers to questions. The Bridich-Schmidt years of terse replies will not be missed.

One reason, then, that DePodesta is taking so long to bring together his staff is simply a schedule that was forced on him. Now that he’s met the most-pressing MLB deadlines (e.g., the 40-man roster and the tender deadline), he’s in a position to begin focusing on his staff. Also worth noting is Schaeffer’s comment that the two had been in constant contact since DePodesta’s hiring. The interview process was underway, but the new PBO had not yet had time to complete the search.

That brings us to this question from Manny Randhawa about the state of the general manager search:

I'm doing some of the same work that I did on the manager side, having a lot of different conversations, gathering as much information as I can on some different potential people, but it's actually not just the GM.

I think we're also talking about other potential roles because I really am trying to build a team of complementary skills. So it's not so much that I would look for any one job, including the GM job, in a vacuum. It's an if, what about this person is GM, and then we could bring in these other people in various complementary roles, or if it's this other GM, then it might be totally different people that we might bring in in complimentary roles. Because I think some of the people we've, we've at least discussed internally about who could take on the GM job have very, very different profiles, so that would affect sort of the rest of the leadership team.

So I would say that doesn't answer your question directly, but we're very much in process. I do have a goal of getting some of these things in place by the time we get to Orlando. I certainly want to have the manager in place by then, maybe a front office person or two by then, maybe another coach or two by then, would be terrific.

I don't want to put an exact time frame on it because you never know. I want to make the right decision, as opposed to just the quickest one. But certainly, having as many people in place as we can by the time we get to Winter Meetings, would be terrific.

DePodesta is clear that he’s building a team, and his sense of personnel is fairly fine-tuned. He’s not revealing what he’s hoping to accomplish, but he’s got a plan. Now that he’s got a little more time, he can turn to that part of the process — and he hopes to have some of those roles filled by the Winter Meetings, which are next weekend.

So it may be a busy week.

I wrote on Tuesday that I thought hiring Schaeffer was the right move in part because I believed the two would learn from each other: Schaeffer would come to understand more about using analytics; DePodesta could take advantage of Schaeffer’s knowledge of the Rockies system and his relationship with players.

After listening to Wednesday’s presser, my thoughts on that have not changed.

And let me offer a totally subjective observation: The vibes, they are good.

Rockies fans have been going through some things, probably since the Nolan Arenado trade. But DePodesta has brought new energy into the organization — it’s palpable. He’s being careful to respect what’s there and not break things, but he’s also got a plan, and he’s being deliberate about what he’s building.

Perhaps all the losing has just gotten to me, but I’m as engaged with this team as I’ve been in some time.

At one point, Schaeffer commented, “It’s an exciting time to be a Rockie.” Given what we’re learning, it’s hard to disagree.

With the Winter Meetings fast approaching, we’ll know more soon.

Closing thoughts

It appears I’ve run on too long again, so I’ll bring this one to a close.

As always, thanks for reading —

Renee

Rockies Pitch is a newsletter that focuses on Colorado Rockies baseball.

Find me on Bluesky at @ReneeDechert.com or send an email to Renee@RockiesPitch.com.