SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Shortly before the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday flew to Miami for Friday’s season opener, President of Baseball Operations Paul DePodesta sat down for an exclusive chat with The Denver Gazette about the buildup to the 2026 campaign.

The Denver Gazette: How does it feel knowing you are about to start the season?

Paul DePodesta: Candidly, I think the last two days of spring training are probably the toughest two days of the year. There are a lot of deserving players for the roster. We were in a good spot this spring where we had guys competing for jobs and more guys who did well than we have spots for. That’s always really hard. So while I’m excited for the season, the last 48 hours have been personally difficult, because these guys did what we asked them to do. And, ultimately, we didn’t have room for them, at least on the Opening Day roster. However, I suspect those guys will help us throughout the course of the year.

The DG: What does that competition say about this roster?

DePodesta: I think competition is what we wanted to try to create. And we want to be in a position every year where we just don’t have room for all the good players. But again, we know through the course of the year, we’re going to need those guys.

Honestly, we want every year to be tougher than the last in terms of the talent that we have, and trying to figure out who we’re going to keep and who has to go to Triple-A to start the year.

The DG: So many players inside the clubhouse mentioned the communication and the intention behind everything done this spring. What have you seen from spring training overall?

DePodesta: We want to be very proactive with our communication. We want all the guys to know exactly where they stand and what their situation was. Look, it’s never going to be perfect, but we want every guy to feel like they are valued individually, and that we’re going to spend the time with him to maximize him as a player. To some degree, we are stewards of their careers too, and we take that seriously. We want them to know that.

From the very beginning of spring, we met with every single player individually and then every player also got to meet with a subset of our coaches who produced a plan for them. That plan was not only for spring training, but into the beginning of the year. Hopefully they felt from us that we care about them and care about their careers.

The DG: Now that you’re here at the start of the season, what’s the biggest accomplishment you see from the offseason?

DePodesta: I think just the environment that we’ve been able to create. That’s what I’m most excited about. I think ‘Schaeff’ (manager Warren Schaeffer) and his staff have done an incredible job of creating that throughout the course of spring training.

I also think people are excited about this year. They’ve been excited about the way they’ve gone about their work, excited about some of the successes we’ve had down here in spring training, and therefore excited to get going on the year.

It will be our challenge to sustain that throughout the course of the year. It’s a long season, and even for great teams, you have tough parts of the season. For us to be able to maintain that positive energy and positive environment throughout the course of the season, that’s our challenge going forward. But I’m really happy with where it’s at today.

The DG: You brought in new people from more than 20 other MLB teams. What was that melting pot like this spring?

DePodesta: I think it’s been invigorating to have all these people with different experiences come together and share different things. There is no pride in authorship here. We want to try to do things the best we can and not be hung up on whose idea it was or whether or not we’re the first ones trying it. We want to learn as much as we can from other people’s experiences. To bring all those folks together and have them be so open and so collaborative about those experiences has been really invigorating and hopefully enriching for our team and its success.

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Rockies’ 2026 Opening Day roster:

Right-handed pitchers (10):  Zach Agnos, Chase Dollander, Ryan Feltner, Jimmy Herget, Jaden Hill, Michael Lorenzen, Juan Mejia, Antonio Senzatela, Tomoyuki Sugano, Victor Vodnik

Left-handed Pitchers (3): Brennan Bernardino, Kyle Freeland, Jose Quintana

Catchers (2): Hunter Goodman, Brett Sullivan

Infield (4): Edouard Julien, Kyle Karros, TJ Rumfield, Ezequiel Tovar

Outfield (4): Jordan Beck, Brenton Doyle, Jake McCarthy, Mickey Moniak

Infield/outfield (3): Willi Castro, Troy Johnston, Ryan Ritter

10-day IL (3): Blaine Crim, Tyler Freeman, Zac Veen

15-day IL (2): McCade Brown, RJ Petit

60-day IL (3): Kris Bryant, Jeff Criswell, Pierson Ohl