Sources: Rockies to hire DePodesta to run baseball operations - ESPN

The Colorado Rockies are finalizing a deal to hire Paul DePodesta to run their baseball operations department, sources told ESPN, turning to the longtime executive to overhaul a stagnant organization coming off a 119-loss season.

DePodesta, 52, will leave the Cleveland Browns, where he has spent the past decade as chief strategy officer, and return to baseball, where he was a key figure in the «Moneyball»-era Oakland A's and later ran the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The hiring of DePodesta comes after a search in which the two main candidates, Cleveland assistant general manager Matt Forman and Arizona assistant GM Amiel Sawdaye, balked at taking a job expected to require a multiyear rebuild. Colorado's previous GM, Bill Schmidt, resigned Oct. 1 following a fourth consecutive last-place finish in the National League West and a third straight 100-plus-loss season.

The turnaround won't be easy. Colorado returns limited talent from a team that was on pace to set the single-season record for losses, and while its farm system has improved in recent years, it has a paucity of near-major-league-ready talent.

DePodesta's success as Billy Beane's No. 2 with the A's came in the wake of an analytically based approach that has been embraced throughout Major League Baseball — but not with the Rockies. Colorado's infrastructural deficiencies, sources said, scared off potential candidates and left some in the mix concerned with the ability to turn things around in the cutthroat National League West.

With the Dodgers having won the World Series three times in six years, the San Diego Padres and Diamondbacks still fielding highly competitive teams and the San Francisco Giants expected to be active in free agency to improve this winter, the