Rockies fire pitching coach Alon Leichman after one season

What happened

The Colorado Rockies have parted ways with pitching coach Alon Leichman, per Ken Rosenthal and Keith Law of The Athletic, as reported by MLB Trade Rumors' Mark Polishuk. Leichman, 37, held the position for a single season — the Rockies had only brought him on last December.

The Athletic's report does not characterize the departure as a resignation. No club announcement has accompanied it. Per the report, this is a firing.

Why it matters

One season is a short runway by any measure. The timing — following a completed campaign rather than mid-year — suggests the organization made a deliberate evaluation and arrived at a deliberate conclusion. Whether that conclusion reflects dissatisfaction with the pitching staff's performance, a broader coaching overhaul, or something else entirely is not addressed in the report. What is clear is that Leichman, brought aboard just last December, will not be returning.

The role of pitching coach carries real operational weight. It is the staff member most directly responsible for the development and in-game management of a pitching staff — sequencing, mechanical adjustments, workload conversations, and the daily relationship with a roster of arms. A one-season tenure means Leichman had, at most, a spring training, a full regular season, and whatever the offseason brought before December. That is not a long time to build anything, and it is not a long time to be evaluated on it either.

There is also something worth sitting with in the timeline. Leichman was hired last December, which means the Rockies identified him, conducted a search, made an offer, and announced a hire — and then, roughly twelve months later, reversed course. The full arc from hire to departure fits inside a single calendar year. That is not unheard of in baseball, but it is not common, and it raises questions the report does not yet answer about what specifically drove the decision.

For a franchise that finished 58-104 (.358) — fifth in the NL West, 42 games back, and eliminated from both the division race and the Wild Card race — the question of what went wrong is not a small one. The Rockies' .358 winning percentage reflects a club-wide situation, and the pitching staff existed inside that situation. Whether Leichman's departure is the first move of a broader staff restructuring, or a standalone decision, is not something the report addresses. But it is the first publicly reported coaching move of the offseason, and in a year that looked like this one, it is unlikely to be the last.

The numbers

Colorado finished the season 58-104 (.358), fifth in the NL West and 42 games back of the division leader. In the Wild Card picture, the Rockies ranked 12th, sitting at 30.0 relative to the cut line — a number that, in context, is less a gap than a canyon. The club enters the offseason having been eliminated from both the division and Wild Card races.

Those are the standings. They are not, on their own, an indictment of any single coach or player — a 58-104 record is a roster-wide and organization-wide outcome, the kind that accumulates across every department and every decision over the course of a long season. But they are the backdrop against which every personnel decision this offseason will be made, and they are the backdrop against which Leichman's one-season tenure will be understood by anyone trying to make sense of the timing.

A pitching staff does not operate in a vacuum. It is shaped by the roster around it, the run support behind it, the organizational depth feeding into it, and the coaching staff guiding it. Sorting out how much weight belongs where is genuinely difficult, and the report does not attempt to do that sorting. What it establishes is the outcome: one season, then a parting of ways.

Where the club stands

The Rockies closed the year 58-104 (.358), fifth in the NL West. At 42 games back and ranked 12th in Wild Card positioning at 30.0 relative to the cut line, Colorado was not a team whose season extended into October baseball. The regular season is over, and the organization is now in full offseason mode — which, given the scale of the rebuild implied by that record, means there is a considerable amount of work ahead.

The club enters that offseason on a one-game losing streak, which is perhaps the least consequential detail in a year that produced a .358 winning percentage. What matters now is what comes next: who fills the coaching vacancies, how the roster is reshaped, and whether the organization's approach to the rebuild shifts in any meaningful way. Leichman's departure is one data point in what figures to be a busy few months for the franchise.

What we don't know yet

The report from Rosenthal and Law establishes that Leichman is out. It does not establish why, beyond the implicit logic of a .358 winning percentage and a one-year tenure ending in a firing. No official club statement has been reported alongside The Athletic's report. No successor has been named or rumored in the available material. The scope of any broader coaching staff changes — whether other members of the staff are also departing or under evaluation — is not addressed.

It is also worth noting that Leichman was 37 years old when hired last December, making him a relatively young pitching coach by the standards of the role. What his next opportunity looks like, and when, is an open question the report does not answer. Coaches with his profile — young enough to have grown up in the analytics era, experienced enough to have earned a major-league staff job — tend to find their way back into the game. But that is a story for another day and another report.

The "more to come" framing in Polishuk's write-up at MLB Trade Rumors signals that additional details are expected. For now, the facts on record are limited: hired last December, let go after one season, per The Athletic.

What to watch

The obvious follow-up is who the Rockies hire next. A pitching coach search this early in the offseason gives the organization time to conduct a thorough process, and given the state of the roster, whoever takes the job will be walking into a significant developmental challenge. The Rockies will need to identify a candidate, conduct interviews, and make a hire — all before spring training arrives and the next chapter of what has been a difficult stretch for this franchise gets underway.

Beyond the coaching staff, the broader question is what the organization's offseason plan looks like. A 58-104 (.358) season is not a foundation; it is a signal. The pitching coach position is one piece of a much larger puzzle, and how Colorado approaches the rest of the offseason — roster construction, additional staff decisions, and the longer arc of the rebuild — will tell a more complete story than any single hire or departure can on its own.

Whether this firing is the opening move of a sweeping staff overhaul or a more targeted decision will become clearer as the offseason develops and more information emerges. The Athletic's Rosenthal and Law broke the news; the explanation, and whatever comes next, is still pending.

For now, per Ken Rosenthal and Keith Law of The Athletic, Alon Leichman is no longer the Rockies' pitching coach. One season in, one season out. The search for what comes next begins.