Colorado Rockies remain record-setting terrible, but there is always next year

Let’s give the Colorado Rockies some credit; at least they didn’t spike themselves.

However, they did set a Major League Baseball record for futility that has only been done four times prior and not since the inaugural New York Mets teams in the early 1960s. The Rockies have lost 100 or more games for the fourth consecutive season.

The franchise will pitch this season as movement in the right direction. But that is akin to saying giving up a home run into the second deck is better than one that lands in the upper deck. Who gives a shit? It’s gone.

Technically, the Rockies were better this year. But that is because they were abysmal last year. The Rockies arguably finished as the worst team in modern baseball history in 2025. They lost two fewer games than the Chicago White Sox the year before, but shattered the record for worst season run differential by almost 100 runs. That meant they got blown out on a regular basis.

This year? As of Friday afternoon, the Rockies had lost 102 games — which would mark a 17-game improvement! Of course it would also be the third-worst season in franchise history. And if they lose two of their last three they will climb to second worst. Maybe the White Sox, who had also lost 100 games in each of the past three seasons until guaranteeing a winning record this year, will take pity on the Rox in their season-ending series this weekend in Chicago. But given that the Sox are a game out of winning their division, the boys in purple should not count on it.

There is an outside shot the Dodgers will win as many games this year as the Rockies have in the past two combined — if the Dodgers win out and the Rockies lose out. It would take too long to figure out how many games over how many seasons the Dodgers would have to play to lose 100, total. But it has been over a century since the Dodgers lost 100 games in a season (1908 when they were the Brooklyn Superbas). They have only done so twice in their history dating back to 1884. 

That’s right, over the past four years the Rockies have more 100-loss seasons than the Dodgers have had in nearly 150 years. 

At least the Blake Street Bums cut their run differential almost in half. And unless something disastrous happens, they will finish above the Oakland A’s in that category. They did it by bringing adults into the room. Team general manager Josh Byrnes and president of baseball operation Paul DePodesta looked at last year’s wreckage and jettisoned much of the flotsam. 

Gone are players like Michael Toglia who struck out often, failed to deliver power and never gave the team a chance to win. In are players like TJ Rumfield, who is hitting almost .300 and getting on base at an exceptional clip of nearly .400. Cole Carrigg, one of MLB’s fastest players, now patrols the great prairie of center field, capable of turning potential triples to the gap into outs while also making pitchers wary any time he is on the basepath.

With players putting the ball in play, the Rockies have scored almost 150 more runs this year than last. Added to nearly 100 less runs against and at least appears they have changed the club priorities. The trick will be to continue building on it.

The next step is always the hardest. A few injuries or regressions (what happened to Ezequiel Tovar this year?!?), and the only thing that might save them from tying the all-time record of five 100-loss seasons in a row might be a work stoppage. It is hard to lose 100 games when you play 100 or fewer total. 

But even if catcher Hunter Goodman somehow reverts back to something less than the superhuman backstop he has been over the past two years, none of the prospects on the farm turn out and Dinger is forced to take up a bat, the folks at 20th and Blake still seem to have a plan. That is more than could be said about any time in the past two decades.

It also means they may have a shot at climbing out of the Colorado sports basement.

The Rockies are leagues away from the recent success of the Broncos, Nuggets or Avalanche. And I do not regret trading in my Rockies season tickets for a pair to the Denver Summit — even at a temporary stadium that has hosted too many games in sweltering heat, they have the best atmosphere in town. But currently my alma mater, the University of Colorado, is making a hard run at the Rockies for worst management.

I have never been a Coach Prime fan, but his dismissal of student athletes without shouldering some of the blame is petty, classless and indicative of a leader who has no idea how to make his team better. At least the Rockies brass recognized they need to improve without throwing individuals on their team under the bus.

Given their recent record for futility, that is commendable. It also demonstrates that they believe in the process. If players like Zac Veen and Charlie Condon come good while Carrigg and Rumfield keep improving, the local ballclub may not need to keep building bronze statutes outside the stadium to distract fans from the product on the field.

Instead, they may be building a club capable of competing for a wild-card birth in a few years. That would give the few actual Rockies fans a reason to cheer.

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