Rockies’ Paul DePodesta, Warren Schaeffer map plan to start winning ‘a lot sooner than you think’

Warren Schaeffer and Paul DePodesta talked a lot about the Rockies future on Wednesday morning Communication leadership values process and collaboration were their recurring buzzwords and themes But two things stood out First was Schaffer s optimistic offseason offering The ultimate goal is to bring consistent winning seasons to this organization announced Schaeffer who was officially named as Colorado s manager on Monday You re going to see winning baseball in Denver a lot sooner than you think For a club coming off a -loss season it was a gutsy thing to say but such was the optimism of the morning The primary reason for the conference call was for DePodesta the club s new president of baseball operations to explain his decision to bring back Schaeffer after the Rockies went - with him as the interim manager That brings us to the second newsy nugget of the morning While DePodesta declared he explored the idea of hiring someone other than Schaeffer and talked to people inside and outside the organization about possible candidates it s clear that Schaeffer was his No choice almost from the get-go Ultimately this is where I landed and it was pretty quick DePodesta stated I would say even a week in it became pretty clear to me that this was a good direction to go Podesta added that although he did explore other candidates he did not conduct any formal interviews Ultimately I didn t feel the need to interview anybody else DePodesta stated elaborating that he likes Schaeffer s connection to the Rockies past and the continuity the manager can bring as the association begins its rebuild Schaeffer s first job in the Rockies organization was as the hitting coach for Short-Season Tri-City Pasco Washington in He managed the Asheville Tourists from through and Double-A Hartford in and He was named manager of Triple-A Albuquerque for the season but the season was canceled due to the COVID- pandemic He managed the Isotopes in and In November the Rockies promoted him to their major league coaching staff as third base and infield coach for the season Not only is Schaeff a connector but he places importance on collaboration DePodesta continued I think he s a great teammate and partner not only with the front office but with his coaches I think he s very open-minded He clearly works extremely hard and has a really high care factor both for the Rockies in particular but also for the job at hand There s a great respect for the competition and a great respect for the organization But none of that will matter and Schaeffer s vision of a quick turnaround will fade if Colorado can t fix its busted starting rotation It posted a ERA the highest mark since it became an official stat in the American and National Leagues in I think the short answer is that there isn t one answer DePodesta disclosed Our eyes need to be open to every viable avenue I say that to mean it could be free agents it could be different types of free agents and it certainly could be trades It also could be players in our own -man roster Clearly it s an area of focus for us as we begin the offseason Schaeffer is already looking forward to his first spring training as Rockies manager When we walk into spring training next year the guys are going to be excited to see what new things are going to happen there he disclosed I really feel strongly that we are going to put a new process in place Schaeffer didn t get into specifics about how the organization will be coached differently during camp but did say There will be a shift in how we do things from top to bottom Just the way the mornings are set up and just what kind of importance we place on things We need to get way better in our baserunning We are going to spend way more time on that Related Articles Keeler If Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer wants to right Dick Monfort s ship this ex-Colorado closer wants to help Warren Schaeffer returning as Rockies manager for season MLB s new media deals with ESPN NBC and Netflix total M annually Rockies Mailbag Who will manage Colorado in Could it be Warren Schaeffer Rockies designate Michael Toglia for assignment exchange for lefty I can t get too much into it because I haven t talked to my staff yet because I don t have a staff yet Filling out Schaeffer s coaching staff as well as DePodesta s front-office staff beginning with hiring a general manager is high on both men s to-do lists They declared they are looking for complementary pieces I m having a lot of different conversations gathering as much information as I can about specific different foreseen people DePodesta reported But it s veritably not just the GM I think we re also talking about other prospective roles because I really am trying to build a club of complementary skills So it s not so much that I would look at any one job including the GM job in a vacuum Particular of the people we ve discussed internally about who could take on the GM job have very very different profiles So that would affect the rest of the leadership squad So I would say we re very much in process and I do have a goal of getting a lot of these things in place by the time we get to Orlando for the winter meetings beginning Dec Want more Rockies news Sign up for the Rockies Insider to get all our MLB analysis