Four Rotation Holes, One Month: Colorado's Pitching Rebuild Is the Entire Offseason

The Colorado Rockies finished 2026 with the worst record in baseball for the second straight year — 58-104, a fourth consecutive season of 100-plus losses — and the shape of their offseason is already clear enough to be uncomfortable. The rotation that opened the season is essentially gone, the calendar to replace it is unusually short, and the front office now has to answer the single question that has defined the franchise for years.

Start with what the season actually was. Colorado was outscored 944-752, a minus-192 run differential, and finished last in the majors in ERA. The staff walked 475 and allowed 214 home runs across 1,276 1/3 innings, using 25 different pitchers to get there. September was the low point: a 6-18 month in which the club allowed 156 runs in 24 games, closing with a 1-6 stretch that included a 12-8 loss at home. The gap between the rotation and the bullpen was stark — relievers posted a 4.57 ERA, while the starters were the primary driver of the worst mark in the sport.

Now the roster mechanics. Four of the arms that opened 2026 in the rotation are free agents, headlined by Tomoyuki Sugano (12-12, 5.37 ERA, 29 starts, 154 1/3 innings) and José Quintana (5.44 ERA in 11 starts). Kyle Freeland's season — a 6.65 ERA, 100 earned runs and 29 homers allowed in 135 1/3 innings — makes his 2027 option unlikely to be exercised, which would end the tenure of one of the last links to the previous competitive window. Chase Dollander, the club's most promising young starter, is on the 60-day injured list recovering from elbow surgery and reportedly isn't expected back until midseason. There is no obvious wave of arms behind him.

That leaves Ryan Feltner (5.40 ERA, 22 starts) and Tanner Gordon (6.68 ERA, 12 starts) as the most established returning pieces, with Sean Sullivan — 8.87 ERA in five starts after a strong debut — as the internal wild card. Paul DePodesta's end-of-year comments acknowledged the obvious: this rotation needs outside help, not just better health.

The complication is timing. The World Series ends October 27 at the earliest and the collective bargaining agreement expires December 2, with a lockout widely presumed. That leaves roughly one month to make decisions on at least five arbitration-eligible players and to pursue rotation additions before the transaction market freezes. A front office that has talked about building methodically now has to do the most important part of its winter work in a fraction of the usual window, on a team whose attendance just hit its lowest non-COVID mark since 2006.

There are genuine signs of progress underneath the record. Hunter Goodman broke out as a legitimate power threat — 41 home runs, an .839 OPS and a .529 slugging percentage in 138 games — and his underlying contact metrics (50 barrels, a 44.3% hard-hit rate) support it. The power-ranking model has Colorado at minus-1.32 runs versus an average team, a meaningful jump from last season's minus-2.402 despite the identical-looking bottom line.

But that improvement will not survive another year of replacement-level starting pitching, and the position-player core has its own question marks. Ezequiel Tovar's step back was severe: a .219/.264/.353 line, a .281 expected wOBA and negative defensive value, a long way from the player the club extended. For a team whose margin for error is already thin, the path forward runs through the mound — and the Rockies have about 30 days to make real progress on it before the sport goes quiet.