Rockies part ways with pitching coach Alon Leichman after one season

What happened

The Colorado Rockies have parted ways with pitching coach Alon Leichman after just one season in the role, MLB.com's Thomas Harding reported. The move was first reported by Ken Rosenthal and Keith Law of The Athletic.

Leichman joined the organization ahead of the 2026 season and departs now that it has concluded, making his tenure among the shorter ones a pitching coach can log before the organization decides to look elsewhere.

Why it matters

Pitching coach turnover at the end of a season is not unusual across baseball — staffs get evaluated alongside rosters, and a club finishing its year will often reshape its coaching infrastructure before turning attention to the offseason roster. What makes this one worth noting is the brevity: one season is a short runway, and parting ways after a single year signals that the organization's assessment of the pitching program's direction did not align with what Leichman was building.

For a franchise that finished 58-104, the pitching staff's performance was part of a broader organizational picture that clearly did not satisfy the front office. Whether Leichman's departure is the first move in a larger coaching overhaul, or a standalone decision, is not yet known. What is known is that Colorado will be searching for a new pitching coach as it heads into what figures to be a consequential offseason.

The timing also matters operationally. Clubs that move quickly on coaching staff decisions give themselves more runway to identify candidates, conduct interviews, and install a new voice before pitchers and catchers report. A pitching coach shapes not just in-game decisions — pitch sequencing, bullpen management, communication with starters — but also the longer developmental arc of young arms in the system. For a rebuilding club, that developmental piece carries particular weight.

The numbers

Colorado finished the 2026 season at 58-104, a .358 winning percentage, placing fifth in the NL West and 42 games behind the division leader. The Rockies were eliminated from both the division race and the Wild Card race, and they closed the year ranked 12th in the Wild Card standings, 30.0 games relative to the cut line.

Those are the organizational coordinates against which every personnel decision this offseason will be measured. A 58-104 record does not indict any single coach, and it would be a mistake to read this departure as a simple cause-and-effect story. But it does establish the baseline from which the next pitching coach will be asked to work — and it makes clear that the organization is not in a posture of incremental adjustment. Something more substantial is being attempted.

Where the club stands

The Rockies ended the season fifth in the NL West with a record of 58-104, 42 games out of first place. They enter the offseason having been eliminated from both the division and Wild Card races, closing on a one-game losing streak. The Wild Card gap of 30.0 games relative to the cut line is a number that frames the scale of the rebuild still underway in the organization.

That context makes the coaching staff evaluation straightforward in one sense: when a club is this far from contention, every element of the organization is subject to review. The pitching coach position is not insulated from that process, and Leichman's departure reflects the Rockies' willingness to make changes at every level as they work toward a different kind of season.

What we don't know yet

The reporting from Rosenthal, Law, and Harding establishes that the parting has occurred, but several questions remain open. No successor has been named, and no timetable for the search has been reported. It is not known whether this decision was mutual, whether it was driven by the front office, or whether it reflects a broader philosophical shift in how the organization wants to develop and deploy its pitching staff.

It is also unclear whether additional coaching staff changes are coming. A pitching coach departure at season's end can be a standalone move or the first in a sequence — and at this point, the reporting does not indicate which this is.

Is there a replacement named?

No. As of the reporting from Thomas Harding at MLB.com and the earlier report from Ken Rosenthal and Keith Law of The Athletic, no successor has been identified publicly. The Rockies' pitching coach position is open heading into the offseason.

What to watch

The most immediate thing to track is whether Colorado moves quickly to identify a replacement or takes its time building a candidate list. Clubs that are rebuilding sometimes use the pitching coach search as an opportunity to signal a philosophical direction — a development-first hire versus a major-league-focused one, for instance — so the profile of whoever is brought in will say something about where the organization believes it is in the process.

Beyond the coaching search, the broader offseason picture for Colorado will be shaped by how the front office addresses a roster that finished 58-104. The pitching staff's composition heading into the next season — which arms are retained, which are developed from within, which might be added — will define what the next pitching coach is actually working with. That roster picture is still entirely unwritten.

A week removed from the end of the regular season, the Rockies are in the early stages of what figures to be a significant offseason. Leichman's departure is the first publicly reported move of that process. It will not be the last.