Rockies raise ticket prices, promise a ‘significant leap’ next year

The Colorado Rockies won 15 more games in 2026 than they did a year earlier. They also still lost 104 games, and season-ticket holders will pay more to watch the last place club play next season.

Club President Walker Monfort and Paul DePodesta, the Rockies’ president of baseball operations, held an end-of-season news conference Tuesday at Coors Field. They tried to balance the team’s real progress against the horrid results. Colorado finished 58-104, the Rockies’ fourth straight season with at least 100 losses — one shy of MLB’s record.

“Let’s not mistake it for being good,” DePodesta said. “We’re pleased with the progress, but we’re not pleased yet with where we are.”

Monfort defended a season-ticket price increase of about 12%, which the club announced before the season ended.

“It’s never fun, and there’s never a right time, right?” Monfort said. “I guess if you go out and win the World Series, maybe 12% is OK.”

The Rockies didn’t win the World Series. In most of the world’s sports leagues, they’d have been relegated

Monfort said the Rockies mostly kept season-ticket prices flat in recent years, while other Major League Baseball teams raised prices about 4.5% a year on average. The increase is meant to close the gap between Colorado’s revenue and the league average, or the average among the team’s mid-market peers, he said.

Monfort said the increase was “not easy to justify” after another 100-loss season. He noted the team was trending toward 66 or 67 wins when the notices went out. The Rockies’ post-deadline collapse had them fall nearly 10-games shy of that.

“Everything that we do from a business perspective, it’s about becoming more competitive on the baseball field,” he said.

DePodesta said fans should expect that to show up in the standings.

“Our expectation is that there will be a significant leap next year,” he said. “How far that takes us, I think, is really hard to say.”

He also said the Rockies won’t wait years for their farm system to develop. In all four of the team’s trade-deadline deals, Colorado acquired a Triple-A player, and all four were in the majors by August and September.

“It’s not going to be something where we’re going to take the next four years to build up this farm system and wait for those players to get here,” DePodesta said.

DePodesta said the Rockies’ spending on scouting, player development, the front office and technology will be “equal, if not even larger” than it was last offseason — his first with the club. He said ownership has given “the green light to pursue each and every one of those things.” Maybe that’s where the ticket money is going.

The biggest problem for the Rockies is clear, even if they tried to address it a bit at the deadline. DePodesta said Colorado’s starting pitching had an ERA around 7.00 after the deals. He said the team’s run differential in the first two innings was worse than in all other innings combined.

“There were way too many games where we just got into a hole within the first two innings, and we were in chase mode at that point,” he said.

DePodesta called the rotation a “systemic failure.” He said it hid strong individual seasons, including Hunter Goodman’s 40-plus home runs and Cole Carrigg winning National League Rookie of the Month for September. Monfort said the Rockies played 79 games decided by two runs or fewer and won 37% of them. The Rockies still thin on arms in their farm system and their best young arm, Chase Dollander, had season-ending elbow surgery in June and isn’t expected back until sometime in 2027.

DePodesta said the fix moving forward could look different from a traditional pitching staff. The front office has been working through what he said was starting from a blank sheet to get “27 outs times 162” with 13 pitching spots.

“Going with five starters and eight relievers, and expecting the five starters to all go six innings every time out,” he said. “That’s probably unrealistic here.”

A Project 5183 revival, though not referenced by name, could be in the works.

The two also offered a few other updates:

• Ownership: Monfort denied a report that the family plans to sell a majority stake to the Penner Sports Group, which owns the Denver Broncos. “No, there’s not a plan for that,” he said. He confirmed the Monforts will remain majority owners.
• Kris Bryant: Bryant did not play this season. DePodesta said the Rockies will build their roster “as if we’re not going to have” him.
• Warren Schaeffer: DePodesta praised the manager for restoring belief in the clubhouse. Schaeffer is entering the final year of his two-year deal, and DePodesta did not commit to an extension.

“I wish the ’27 season were starting like next week,” DePodesta said.

That 2027 season may not even start in April, with a labor fight looming that could cost games.

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