By Ken Rosenthal, Zac Jackson and Brittany Ghiroli
In a stunning career shift, Paul DePodesta soon will leave the Cleveland Browns to become the Colorado Rockies’ head of baseball operations, according to sources briefed on the move.
DePodesta, the analytics whiz depicted by Jonah Hill in the movie “Moneyball,” spent 10 often tumultuous seasons as the Browns’ chief strategy officer. The Browns are 56-99-1 since bringing on DePodesta, who was hired in Jan. 2016 with the franchise arguably in worse shape than it is now.
The Rockies, who have endured seven straight losing seasons and finished 2025 with a major-league worst 43-119 record, were looking to hire a top baseball executive from outside their organization. Their two previous finalists for their top baseball job, Arizona Diamondbacks assistant general manager Amiel Sawdaye and Cleveland Guardians assistant GM Matt Forman, remained with their present clubs.
DePodesta, according to sources, had been talking to the Rockies for about a month. He will take over an organization that has long been criticized for being too insular. Some involved in the team’s hiring process said one deterrent for potential candidates was ownership’s desire for the new head of baseball operations to retain a number of staffers. DePodesta apparently found that condition acceptable, but surely will bring in some of his own people.
The hiring of DePodesta will come just before the baseball general managers’ meetings in Las Vegas. The other team to change general managers in this hiring cycle, the Washington Nationals, named Paul Toboni their new GM in late September. The Rockies, playing from behind, also must hire a manager and coaching staff. They are the only team with a remaining managerial opening.
DePodesta’s highest-ranking position in baseball was general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, a job he assumed in February 2004 and held for only 20 months before getting fired. Prior to that, he worked for the Cleveland Indians and Oakland Athletics. Afterward, he was a special assistant for the San Diego Padres and vice president of player development and scouting for the New York Mets under former GM Sandy Alderson.
The Browns hired DePodesta in 2016 in the wake of a three-win season. It was their second regime change since Jimmy and Dee Haslam officially took ownership in October 2012.
At least by organizational chart and responsibility, DePodesta did not make personnel decisions. He 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. He always had a behind-the-scenes, mostly secretive role, and continued to live in La Jolla, California, and either work remotely or commute to Northeast Ohio.
While the Browns had some early successes during DePodesta’s tenure, the direction of the franchise took a turn for the worse in March 2022 with the Deshaun Watson trade. The Browns sent three first-round picks to the Houston Texans as part of a six-pick trade package for Watson, who didn’t play in 2021 while preparing a defense for multiple allegations of sexual assault, which were no-billed in early March 2022.
Watson initially told the Browns he preferred to play elsewhere, but the Browns completed the deal the next day with a fully guaranteed five-year contract for Watson worth $230 million, at the time the highest guarantee any NFL player had ever received.
That trade has been a crippling mistake — “a big swing a miss,” Browns owner Jimmy Haslam said last spring — and has left the team with an uncertain future. Watson, who is not on the active roster while recovering from a second torn Achilles tendon, has started 19 games in Cleveland and carries a salary-cap number of more than $80 million for 2026.
Early on, DePodesta enjoyed more success in Cleveland. The Browns only won one game over the 2016-17 seasons, but DePodesta was credited with helping to instill a long-term roster refurbishment strategy that resulted in the team making 33 selections in the draft from 2016-18. The Browns had the No. 1 pick in both 2017 (Myles Garrett) and 2018 (Baker Mayfield) and, after a series of trades, made three first-round picks in 2017.
Though DePodesta took more of a background role under John Dorsey, who served as general manager from late 2017 to the end of the 2019 season, he generally was credited with identifying Kevin Stefanski as a potential head coaching candidate in 2018, when Stefanski was quarterbacks coach (and later interim offensive coordinator) of the Minnesota Vikings. The Browns interviewed Stefanski for their vacant head coaching job in 2019 and before hiring him when it opened again in 2020.
The Browns then hired Andrew Berry as general manager, and in the 2020 season scored the only playoff win of the franchise’s post-1999 era. They went back to the playoffs in 2023, but were 3-14 last season after Stefanski and Berry signed long-term extensions and are 2-6 this season.
DePodesta was last made available to Cleveland reporters in late March 2022, about two weeks after the Browns’ trade for Watson. Previously, DePodesta spoke publicly each year after the draft and at the team’s other significant press conferences, such as the formal introduction of Stefanski and Berry. DePodesta signed a five-year contract extension with the Browns in the summer of 2021.
