Eli Whitney | June 8, 2026

Start With the Foundation

Paul DePodesta has a phrase he keeps coming back to. Plate discipline, he says, travels well. He means it literally – that a hitter who works counts and draws walks at Coors Field will do the same thing at sea level, where the ball doesn’t carry, and the margins are tighter. But he also means it more broadly. It travels from week to week, month to month, level to level. When the barrel isn’t finding holes, and the home runs aren’t coming, the ability to grind out good at-bats is the thing that keeps a player useful. It is, in DePodesta’s framework, the foundation on which everything else gets built.

​“You’re not always going to find a lot of barrels. You’re not always going to be able to hit balls out of the ballpark. You may find some tough matchups on the mound, or balls might not find holes. But when you have plate discipline, and you can bring that to the park every day – those good at-bats will add up.”

​It is a philosophy that starts in his telling, at the very bottom of the system. Last season, Colorado’s chase rate was the highest in baseball – not just in the big leagues, but also in Triple-A, Double-A, High-A, and Low-A. Every level.

​“We have a lot of room to make up,” DePodesta said, “just to be on par with some of our competitors in that space.”

The work he and the coaching staff are doing – the meetings, the drill packages, the approach adjustments – is an attempt to change something that was embedded in the organizational culture at every rung of the ladder simultaneously. That is not a quick fix. It is, by design, a slow one.

When They’re Ready

​This brings DePodesta to how he thinks about promoting players. The formula, he says, is not about surface-level statistics. It is about process. He used Sterlin Thompson as the clearest recent example – a player whose Triple-A numbers last year were good but whose underlying approach, by the front office’s read, wasn’t yet where it needed to be.

​“What really changed with him was just the process of his at-bats,” DePodesta said. “Really, about mid-April this year, he just locked in, and for the next six weeks or so, the process of each one of his at-bats was as good as anybody in Triple-A. That gave us conviction that he was ready to come up here.”

​The outcomes weren’t the signal. The process was.

​He applied the same framework to Seth Halvorsen – a pitcher with, in DePodesta’s words, “filthy” stuff that clearly plays at the big league level. The one thing the organization wanted to see before calling him up was a consistent ability to get ahead in counts. When Halvorsen went to Albuquerque and demonstrated exactly that, the call came.

“He did exactly that, controlled those at-bats, got ahead, put guys away,” DePodesta said. “We brought him back here to hopefully do the same thing.”

​The same logic applies to the lower levels, where the question isn’t just whether a player can survive the jump but whether he has the foundation to actually thrive. When asked about players such as Roldy Brito and Derek Bernard as examples of those who have found prolonged success at Low-A Fresno, DePodesta signaled that the decision-making process around them is nearly identical to that at every other level.

​“We want to make sure that players have a certain sort of foundation in order to be successful at the next level,” he said. “It’s not always just about their surface-level stats. There may be one specific thing where the rest of their game is in really good shape, but we need you to do this one other thing just a little bit better.”

​He is specific about not wanting players to learn those lessons at the next level after promotion. He would rather they arrive ready.

One Position Is a Limitation

​The organizational versatility push is part of the same thinking. DePodesta spoke at length about Adael Amador – a player whose plate discipline has always been exceptional, but who is now being given time in the outfield to expand his defensive profile. The logic is straightforward: a player who can only play second base is limited by the availability of that one spot. A player who can play second base and left field suddenly fits in far more roster configurations.

​“When you play one position, if that starting spot isn’t available in the big leagues, you’re limited as a role player,” DePodesta said.

​Cole Carrigg is now getting time at shortstop. Chad Stevens has played everywhere on the dirt. Ryan Ritter played the outfield. The organization is, deliberately and systematically, making its players harder to pigeonhole.

The Bulk Philosophy

​There are things that haven’t gone according to plan. The rotation injuries – Chase Dollander, Jose Quintana, Kyle Freeland’s shoulder, the general fragility of a staff asked to pitch in the thinnest air in baseball – have been more severe than anticipated. The bulk reliever philosophy, which DePodesta acknowledged was by design from the start, has proved essential precisely because the rotation has been so unreliable.

​“We certainly felt we were going to need it through the course of the season,” he said. “We didn’t expect to have this many injuries in the rotation, but it certainly has proved to be helpful.”

Still, he said, the depth in that area is starting to thin. Eiberson Castellano has just moved to Triple-A, and Jake Brooks has been strong in Double-A. Konner Eaton has pitched well. There is a pipeline, but it is not inexhaustible.

The Lull

​On Kyle Freeland and Michael Lorenzen, DePodesta was patient and pointed at the same time. Both are struggling. Neither is going anywhere.

​“We have a lot of belief in those guys, and we’re sticking with them,” he said. “They have long track records of success. Stuff-wise, Michael Lorenzen – it’s all there, he’s throwing hard. Kyle is still getting strikeouts. We know it’s still in there. We know it’s going to be better at some stretch. This is just their lull right now.”

​The question of whether this front office has sufficient patience to wait out that lull – especially with a record sitting at 24-42 – is one that DePodesta didn’t address directly, but the answer was implied in everything else he said. This organization is built around the conviction that process precedes outcomes. That applies to hitters working counts in Low-A. It applies, too, to veteran starters trying to find their way at Coors Field.

Opportunistic, Not Desperate

​The trade deadline came up. DePodesta confirmed that preliminary conversations have begun, that the organization is open to being opportunistic in any direction – adding to the big league team, the upper minors, or even the lower levels. He pushed back carefully on the suggestion that nobody on this roster is untouchable.

“There would be certain guys that would be really, really hard for us to move,” he said. “We feel there are hopefully foundational players for us going forward.”

​He didn’t name them. He didn’t need to.

​What came through most clearly in Sunday’s conversation wasn’t any single transaction or promotion or roster decision. It was the coherence of the framework – the sense that DePodesta and his staff are operating from a consistent set of principles that run from the lowest levels all the way to the big league lineup. Plate discipline travels. Process precedes outcomes. Versatility creates opportunity. Patience is not passivity – it is, in this telling, the prerequisite for building something that lasts.

​There is a long way to go. But the blueprint, at least, is legible.