Colorado Rockies pitcher Germán Márquez, left, reacts after San Francisco Giants’ Willy Adames, right, hit a two-run home run during the first inning of a baseball game in San Francisco, Friday, Sept. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
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No team in MLB will welcome the end of the regular season more than the Colorado Rockies. They finished the year at 43-119, which makes them one of the worst teams baseball history.
ESPN’s Buster Olney and Jesse Rogers reported recently that the Rockies are likely to shake up their front office this offseason. At this point, not doing so would be malpractice. They have scored 597 runs and surrendered 1,021, and their -424 run differential is the worst by any team since the 1899 Cleveland Spiders (who were disbanded after that season).
The Rockies are a product of their own making. They’re notoriously loyal to front office staff and prefer to hire from within the family. Walker Monfort, son of owner Dick Monfort, is the executive vice president, and his brother, Sterling Monfort, is the director of pro scouting.
Current—and likely outgoing—general manager Bill Schmidt has been employed by the organization for more than 25 years. He ascended to the top job when his predecessor Jeff Bridich was asked to step down in the middle of the 2021 season after Colorado was swindled in the infamous Nolan Arenado trade.
That situation seemed to call for an external hire to recalibrate how the franchise operates, since the rest of MLB had been getting the better of them on and off the field. Instead, they promoted Schmidt, and they’ve only gone downhill since then.
The Rockies finished the 2021 season in fourth place in the National League West with a 74-87 record. They haven’t finished out of last place since then, going 68-94 in 2022, 59-103 in 2023, and 61-101 in 2024 before setting futility records this year.
Colorado’s pitching in particular has gotten inexcusably horrid. Their 6.02 ERA is the worst in MLB by a mile. For comparison, the worst ERA in the American League is the Los Angeles Angels’ 4.87. Their 17.1% strikeout rate isn’t just the lowest in MLB—it’s the worst by any pitching staff over a full season in the last 10 years.
There were only two starting pitchers the Rockies used this season whose ERAs were merely bad and not atrocious. Ryan Feltner posted a 4.75 ERA over six starts and 30 1/3 innings. Veteran Kyle Freeland was the nominal “ace,” finishing the year with a 4.99 ERA over 31 starts, though he leads MLB with 17 losses. Every other Colorado pitcher who started at least one game has an ERA of 6.33 or higher.
Their offense hasn’t fared much better than their pitching, as their 597 runs scored are the second-lowest in MLB. They rank dead last in the league with a .293 on-base percentage and an 80 OPS+, indicating their total offense has been 20% worse than the league average.
Perhaps the most damning indictment of Schmidt’s tenure is that their farm system remains shallow despite having high draft picks every year. MLB.com ranked their system 24th overall after this year’s draft, and they were only that high because they had just selected Ethan Holliday with the fourth overall pick.
The big-league roster can’t be fixed overnight. Building up the farm system will be a top priority for the next general manager, but the outgoing regime left the Rockies in such a sorry state, that it’s going to take years to clean up this mess.
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