‘Tis the season for promises and premonitions. It is the time for hopes and dreams. For Resolutions.
The Earth has spun its way around the Sun once more and 2025 is racing into the rear view mirror. The year was tumultuous to say the least for the Colorado Rockies baseball team. You probably heard that they lost 119 games. That is, as experts say, a whole lot. They didn’t just lose either, often doing so in ways that walked the line between comedic and tragic.
But it’s over now. 2025 is no more. What will 2026 hold?
Let’s take a look at two achievable goals apiece for the front office, the coaching staff, and the players to achieve this year.
Front Office Goals
- Sign some dudes to raise the floor
It doesn’t make sense to make major acquisitions right now. The Rockies are a long way from postseason contention. They are not one great player away from competing. But they are a few decent players away from no longer being laughable.
The new front office has understandably been slow to make roster transactions. Most of them just got their jobs. Before the season begins, though, they need to sign some veteran players to come in and at least stop the proverbial bleeding and give some guidance to the youngsters.
2026 is going to be a season about learning, growing, and even experimenting. But there has to be at least some winning to make those lessons stick.
- Make a bold trade or two this year
Trading for the sake of trading, or to satiate angry fanbases or hungry media, is a bad idea. That said, this team is still in need of some major shakeups. There simply is not enough pitching talent in the system to make the kind of dramatic improvements the front office has said they are looking for. They do, however, have an intriguing mix of position player prospects who could perhaps be moved to address the lack of pitching.
The first half of the season will determine who has the most value at the deadline. And the Rockies will need to be active at that deadline if they are going to boost this rebuild into overdrive.
Coaching Goals
- Young players must broadly show growth
It can always be difficult to determine the exact impact of an MLB coaching staff. Ultimately, results are in the hands of the players. Coaches aren’t paid to do nothing, though.
This is the most ambiguous goal on this list. How do we measure player growth if not through statistics? The main focus here is to put a stop to the parade of disappointment and stagnation. Michael Toglia, who has since been released, became the poster child for promising players not reaching their potential in Denver. We need to see less of that.
Guys like Kyle Karros, Zac Veen, and eventually Charlie Condon need to show some steady progress even if they don’t take the world by storm.
- Fewer Blowouts
So, let’s move from the amorphous to the incredibly specific. The 14-2 games that were clearly over by the third inning have got to stop.
This is something the coaching staff has much more direct control over. Whether it’s choosing the right reliever at the right time or recognizing who needs the off day (or on day) they have to find ways to stop so many games from slipping so far away.
Again, even if the young core of the future must continue to take their lumps this season, it’s important they do so in competitive games.
In 2026, this team should aim to cut the number of games where position players end up pitching by half.
Player Goals
- Raising the floor… and ceiling
As discussed, the Rockies front office and coaching staff both have their responsibilities for raising the floor of this team. But so do the players.
For two decades, even when the Rockies were bad (which was a lot) they still had players who put up numbers. Commonly, you would arrive at Coors Field and see three or four guys in the lineup batting over .300 and/or flirting with 30 homers on the season. Those days feel like a faraway dream right now.
So, while it would be a good goal to not, as a team, be at the bottom of every statistical category in MLB, it would also be interesting to see the teir best players return to legitimate elite status.
Is Ezequiel Tovar that guy? Hunter Goodman? Is this the year Brenton Doyle puts it all together? Can Condon emerge as their most exciting rookie in years?
We will all find out together.
- DON’T LOSE ONE HUNDRED GAMES
Now it’s time for the big one.
It is absolutely, positively, wild to accurately say that this team could improve by 19 games and still lose 100. The starting point feels impossible. Except, it isn’t the starting point. Not really. Every season is a new one. And there is a different feel in the thin mountain air.
Of course, nobody in their right mind expects the Colorado Rockies to fight for the postseason right now. But, oddly enough, a 20-game improvement doesn’t feel far-fetched. At all. Even without much roster movement, they really ought to be a better ballclub this season. Though, again, there should be some roster movement.
A healthy Tovar in and of itself could go a long way toward stabilizing the runaway losing streaks. A few acquisitions here, some growth of talented youth there, and maybe a little bit of magic/luck on their side now that they’ve finally reset the entire organization… and who knows?
Maybe, this year, they’ll just be normal bad.
