The Colorado Rockies promised in October they would go outside the organization to hire their next head of baseball operations.

They are following through.

The Rockies will hire NFL executive Paul DePodesta to be their next head of baseball operations, according to a report in The Athletic. He will replace Bill Schmidt, who left the position at the end of the 2025 campaign.

MLB’s GM meetings begin Monday in Las Vegas. It’s expected DePodesta will be announced and in place when that key offseason gathering begins.

The 52-year-old DePodesta is the chief strategy officer for the Cleveland Browns, a franchise that, like the Rockies, is all too familiar with trying to figure out how to be a playoff contender. He’s been with the Browns since 2016 and the team has compiled a 56-99-1 mark with two winning seasons.

While the NFL is the latest stop on his resume, there is plenty of baseball knowledge and leadership mixed in as well. DePodesta began his MLB career as an intern with the Cleveland Indians in 1996 and worked his way up the ladder to become the general manager for the Los Angeles Dodgers from 2004-05. The Dodgers won the National League West in 2004 with a 93-69 record.

However, DePodesta’s claim to fame is with “Moneyball,” a book by author Michael Lewis turned into a motion picture headlined by Brad Pitt. DePodesta’s character was played by actor Jonah Hill. The film details his analytics-driven work for the Oakland Athletics during the Billy Beane era. DePodesta was well regarded for his data and statistical analysis during that time. The Athletics made the postseason four consecutive seasons (2000-03) while DePodesta and Beane worked together, and their unique way of approaching roster construction formed the basis for “Moneyball.”

Colorado has long been considered at the back of the data-analysis movement among MLB’s 30 teams. Bringing in someone who helped make the Athletics successful in a time when budget constraints made it tough to win in Oakland should provide a ray of hope to Rockies fans who have been looking for the franchise to stray from simply hiring from within.

DePodesta would bring a new outlook to the Rockies, a team that logged a 119-loss season and has dropped more than 100 games for three straight years. He will not only be tasked with rebuilding the team, but also elevating a farm system that currently boasts just only Top 100 prospects, Ethan Holliday and Charlie Condon.

He will also try to solve the greatest puzzle in baseball — how to consistently win at elevation. None of his four predecessors at the top of the Colorado front office was able to do it.

There’s more to DePodesta than a “Moneyball” reference. There are also moments over nearly 20 years in baseball with five different franchises and learning from what worked to make the Dodgers and Athletics successful, a pair of franchises at the opposite ends of the MLB spectrum. That makes DePodesta a fascinating hire with an infinite amount of possibilities in Denver.

HUNTER GOODMAN MAKES HISTORY AGAIN

One asset DePodesta would have on the roster is catcher Hunter Goodman, who set franchise records for a primary catcher in hits (150), doubles (28), home runs (31), extra-base hits (64) and RBI (91) in 2025.

Colorado’s lone All-Star in 2025, Goodman was named on Thursday as the winner of the Louisville Slugger Silver Slugger Award for catcher in the National League. He’s the first Rockies player to win the Silver Slugger since Trevor Story captured it at shortstop in 2019.