The Cleveland Browns are losing Chief Strategy Officer Paul DePodesta, who is leaving to become the head of baseball operations for the Colorado Rockies, per a report by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, Zac Jackson and Brittany Ghiroli. DePodesta had been with Cleveland since 2016.
Per the report, DePodesta “worked with ownership and football operations on various projects and was regarded as a large part of the team’s planning for free agency each March and the NFL draft each April,” but did not make personnel decisions.
The career change marks a return to baseball by DePodesta, the executive highlighted by author Michael Lewis in his best-seller Moneyball for his role in using analytics to help the then-Oakland Athletics during the early 2000s. DePodesta eventually left Oakland to serve as the general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers in February 2004, but he held that role for just 20 months before getting fired. He also worked for the San Diego Padres and New York Mets before leaving to join the Browns in 2016.
DePodesta played a key role in the team’s hiring of head coach Kevin Stefanski, but his role was diminished in recent years. He also played a role in the team’s trade for QB Deshaun Watson, a move that hasn’t paid off for Cleveland.
He was one of three finalists for the Rockies’ head baseball operations job, but his candidacy was kept under wraps until his hiring today. It leaves a void in the Browns’ front office midseason, although DePodesta’s role was largely remote and his responsibilities were more geared toward the offseason.
The move to hire DePodesta initially was an outside-the-box one, but after ten years in the NFL, he’ll have another chance to run a baseball team. The Rockies are coming off a 43-119 season, one of the worst in baseball history, and DePodesta will look to have more success turning around the Rockies than he did with the Browns, where his tenure with the team resulted in just two playoff appearances and one playoff win, which came over the Steelers in the 2020 AFC Wild Card Round.
DePodesta’s first task running the Rockies will be to hire a manager and a coaching staff. Colorado is currently the only team in Major League Baseball without a manager after the Padres hired Craig Stammen earlier today.
Recommended for you