The History of the Colorado Rockies: Every Era, from the First Season to Today

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 13 min read

The Colorado Rockies from 1993 to 2025 in eras: the huge early crowds, the Blake Street slugging years, Rocktober 2007, the 2017 and 2018 wild cards, and the collapse that followed.

The Colorado Rockies have played 33 seasons, won one National League pennant, reached the postseason five times and never won the NL West. Their all-time record through 2025 is 2,364 wins and 2,818 losses, a winning percentage of .456. Every one of their five playoff trips came as a wild card, and the best of them, in 2007, ended with a four-game sweep in the World Series.

That is a thin résumé, but it is not a dull story. The Rockies are the franchise that plays a mile above sea level, in a ballpark that bent baseball's arithmetic and forced the sport to invent new ways of thinking about hitters and pitchers. They produced two Hall of Famers who spent the bulk of their careers in purple, a three-week stretch in the fall of 2007 that people in Denver still call Rocktober, and, more recently, a slide to the worst season in club history. This article walks through the franchise in eras, using the historical record for every number.

Expansion and the biggest crowds in the club's history

Colorado joined the National League in 1993, along with the Florida Marlins, as one of two expansion clubs. The new franchise began in Denver at Mile High Stadium, a football stadium that the Denver Broncos also called home. The Rockies played there for the 1993 and 1994 seasons, and what happened at the gate in the first of them has never been repeated: 4,483,350 fans came through in 1993, the highest season attendance in the franchise's history. The club's best season at its permanent home, Coors Field, was 3,891,014.

Part of that figure is novelty and part is capacity. A football stadium holds far more people than a modern ballpark, and a city with no major league baseball before 1993 was eager. The product on the field was what an expansion team usually is. The first manager was Don Baylor, who held the job from 1993 to 1998 and compiled a record of 440 wins and 469 losses in 910 games, a mark that looks respectable only when set beside the club's later seasons.

The roster had an early sparkle. Andres Galarraga won the 1993 NL batting title at .370 in 120 games, a remarkable number for a first-year team and a first sign of what altitude would do for hitters. Dante Bichette, who played for the club from 1993 to 1999, would finish with a .316 average and 201 home runs in a Rockies uniform. Vinny Castilla, who arrived the same season, would eventually hit 239 home runs for the franchise over a Rockies career that ran from 1993 to 2006. Eric Young stole 180 bases as a Rockie between 1993 and 1997, which remains the club record.

Coors Field and the Blake Street Bombers

The Rockies moved to Coors Field in 1995, a new brick-and-steel park in the lower downtown area of Denver. The site's reference data lists its elevation at 5,190 feet and its capacity at about 47,000 (46,897 in the data). Its outfield is large: 347 feet to left, 390 to left-center, 415 to straight-away center, 375 to right-center and 350 down the right-field line. Those large dimensions are a response to the air: a ball hit in Denver carries farther than the same ball hit at sea level, so the fences had to sit farther back to keep the park from becoming a joke. The park's own history is worth reading separately; for franchise history, the important fact is the effect.

The effect was immediate. In 1995, the club's third season and first in the new park, the Rockies went 77-67 and finished second in the NL West, close enough to the division winner that the new wild-card berth was theirs. They lost the 1995 NLDS to the Atlanta Braves, one game to three.

The next several summers were the Blake Street Bombers years, named for the street that runs past the ballpark. Bichette, Castilla, Galarraga and then Larry Walker formed one of the most feared lineups in the NL. Walker joined in 1995 and played for the club through 2004, hitting 258 home runs and, by the sheet's rule of at least 3,000 at-bats, a career .334 average in a Rockies uniform, the best in franchise history. In 1997 he won the NL Most Valuable Player award, the first of the club's players to do so and still the only one. The Rockies went 83-79 in 1996, finished third, and in 1997 and the seasons after missed the postseason even as the offense rolled.

The lesson of the late 1990s was one the franchise would repeat: runs came cheap, but pitching could not be bought at any price. In a park where fly balls fly, an ordinary sinkerballer was a risk. The club's career wins leader today is Jorge De La Rosa with 86, and no Rockies pitcher has won 100 games for the club. Among pitchers with at least 1,000 innings for the franchise, the lowest ERA belongs to De La Rosa at 4.35. That is not a measure of bad pitchers. It is a measure of the environment.

Leaders, losing seasons and the first humidor

The years from 1998 to 2006 were unfocused. The club cycled through managers: Baylor left after 1998, Jim Leyland managed one season in 1999 and went 72-90 in 162 games, Buddy Bell ran the team from 2000 to 2002 and won 160 and lost 184 in 344 games, and Clint Hurdle took over in 2002 and stayed through 2009, going 534-625 in 1,159 games in that span. Those records may look unspectacular, and they were, but they were also set in a park that made winning at home easy and winning on the road close to impossible, because the environment inflated every Rockies batting line at home and every Rockies pitching line to match, and the rest of the league discounted both.

Three developments from the period matter. First, Todd Helton arrived in 1997 and became the cornerstone of the franchise. He stayed through 2013, and by the end he held the Rockies career records for home runs (369), hits (2,519), runs batted in (1,406), runs (1,401) and walks (1,335). He also hit .316 in 3,000-plus at-bats for the club. Helton is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and the historical data lists him as having spent 17 seasons with Colorado.

Second, in 2002 the club installed a humidor to store game baseballs at a controlled humidity. A drier ball travels farther and bounces off the bat harder, and Denver's air is among the driest in the majors; the humidor was meant to restore a ball closer to the weight and surface that exist in a coastal park. The change was not a miracle cure, and Coors Field has remained a hitters' park, but it changed the conversation about whether a pitcher could survive there.

Third, the club got its first Rookie of the Year in 2002, when right-hander Jason Jennings won the award. Jennings pitched for the Rockies from 2001 to 2006, won 58 games, and shares the club record for career shutouts with three, a total that looks small but is the club's highest. He also anchored the pitching staff at a moment when sinker-balling starters like Aaron Cook, who won 72 games for the club between 2002 and 2011, were pushing the franchise toward a style that worked in the park.

Walker's departure in 2004, after ten seasons with the club, closed the first chapter of the offense. He remains the only Rockies position player with a Most Valuable Player award, and he is in the Hall of Fame as well.

Rocktober: the 2007 pennant

The 2007 season is the best-known in the franchise's history, and for good reason. The Rockies went 90-73, finished second in the NL West, and made the postseason as the wild-card team. The record by itself does not hint at the drama. The club closed the schedule on a run so hot that it forced a one-game tiebreaker with the San Diego Padres, played in Denver, to decide the wild card. Colorado won in 13 innings, in one of the most replayed finishes in the park's history. The historical record counts that tiebreaker game in the regular-season record, which is why the 90-73 total adds up to 163 games.

The October run that followed was equally lopsided. The Rockies swept the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLDS, three games to none, and then swept the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NLCS, four to none. That was seven straight postseason wins, and it gave the club the 2007 National League pennant, the only pennant in its history. Then came the awkward part. The club was off for more than a week before the World Series, while the Boston Red Sox came out of a seven-game ALCS. The Red Sox swept the series, four games to none.

The roster was a mix of homegrown talent and a few stars. Matt Holliday, who played for the club from 2004 to 2008, hit .340 with 36 home runs and 137 runs batted in that year. Helton was still at first base. Shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, a rookie, became a franchise cornerstone and would go on to hit 188 home runs for the Rockies between 2006 and 2015. Brian Fuentes, who saved 115 games for the club from 2002 to 2008, anchored a bullpen that also leaned on young right-hander Manny Corpas. Manager Hurdle stayed through 2009.

You can read more on that season and the other four October appearances in the best Rockies seasons and every postseason run.

From 2008 to 2018: stars, reversals and two more wild cards

After the pennant, the club returned to the pattern it had known: good teams in odd years, bad ones in even. The most important turn came in 2009. With the club well under .500 in late May, Hurdle was replaced by Jim Tracy, who went 294-308 over 602 games in 2009 through 2012. Tracy's team caught fire and finished 92-70, the best record in franchise history. The Rockies took the wild card, but lost the NLDS to the Phillies, one game to three.

Over the next several seasons the franchise leaned on a young core. Carlos Gonzalez, who played for the club from 2009 to 2018, hit 227 home runs for the Rockies and stole 118 bases. Charlie Blackmon, who played from 2011 to 2024, became the franchise's second-leading hitter by hits, with 1,805, and ranks second in runs scored with 996. Nolan Arenado, who played for the club from 2013 to 2020, hit 235 home runs and drove in 760 runs. Pitchers Ubaldo Jimenez, Jeff Francis, Jorge De La Rosa, Jon Gray, Kyle Freeland and German Marquez filled the rotation at different points, and Marquez ended as the club's career strikeout leader with 1,069 from 2016 to 2025.

But the club did not return to the playoffs until 2017, and the stretch in between was lean. The 2012 team went 64-98 and finished last. Walt Weiss managed from 2013 to 2016, winning 281 and losing 363 in 644 games. Tulowitzki was traded in 2015. Arenado's talents were rarely matched by the pitching staff.

Buddy Black took over as manager in 2017 and ran the club through 2025, longer than any other Rockies manager, with a record of 544 wins and 689 losses in 1,233 games. His first two seasons were the best of the 21st century. The 2017 club went 87-75, finished third in the NL West, and drew the wild card; it lost the one-game playoff to Arizona, 0-1. The 2018 club went 91-72, which includes a tiebreaker game it lost to the Dodgers for the division title. It won the wild-card game over the Chicago Cubs, one game to none, and then lost the NLDS to the Milwaukee Brewers in a sweep, three games to none.

The collapse of 2023 to 2025

Since 2018 the club has not returned to the postseason, and its last three seasons are the three worst in franchise history by winning percentage. The 2023 club went 59-103, finishing fifth. The 2024 club went 61-101. And the 2025 club went 43-119, the worst record in franchise history. Warren Schaeffer finished that season as manager, with a record of 36-86 in 122 games, after Black's tenure ended during the year.

The causes are a mix of familiar problems. The club lost its home-grown stars: Arenado was traded after 2020, and Trevor Story, who played for the franchise from 2016 to 2021 and who stole 100 bases in that time, left after 2021. The lineup that had produced Helton, Walker, Gonzalez, Blackmon and Arenado had to be rebuilt more or less from scratch, and the pitching staff had never been deep. The standings in 2023, 2024 and 2025 are what a rebuild looks like when it is not working: each of the three seasons ended in last place in the five-team division, with 101 or more losses.

None of that undoes the earlier teams. A franchise that has made the playoffs five times in 33 seasons has done so while playing half its games in the park that makes pitching hardest, and three of those trips, in 2007, 2009 and 2018, came with 90 or more wins.

The franchise in numbers

A few things in the table stand out. The best record, 92-70, would be a good season in any park but never won a division. The worst, 43-119, came in the most recent season of the data. And the career leaders show what the park does to the numbers on both sides: Helton's 369 home runs and 2,519 hits would be a Hall of Fame résumé at any park, but De La Rosa's 86 wins would rank near the bottom of any other franchise's list.

How to read Rockies numbers

The most useful habit for reading a Rockies box score or statistics page is to ask how the park shapes the stat. Hitters who live in Denver collect more doubles, triples and home runs at home than they do away. Their road numbers are usually lower, sometimes sharply. That split led to the much-repeated rule that a Rockies bat should be judged by road performance, which is a reasonable first pass but an incomplete one, since road games are a smaller sample and are played in parks of every kind.

Pitchers have the opposite problem. A Rockies starter can pitch well and still have an ERA that looks poor against league norms. Statistics that adjust for park, such as ERA+, were built partly for situations like this one. They compare a player to the league average, scaled to his home park. For the best overview, see the discussion of ERA and ERA+ elsewhere on the site; it was not written about Colorado, but it uses the same logic.

Two cautions are worth stating. First, the data on this page comes from the historical record through 2025, which has no WAR or Statcast values, so it cannot rank Colorado players by overall value or tell you how hard a ball was hit. Second, the Rockies' career leaders are often long-serving players, not necessarily the best ones. Walker's .334 average is the best the club has had, but he played only 10 seasons for it; Helton's counting totals are higher because he stayed for 17.

Where the Rockies sit in the NL West

The Rockies are the second-youngest of the NL West's five clubs. The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants have been in the National League since the 1800s, and the San Diego Padres joined in 1969. Only the Arizona Diamondbacks, who began play in 1998, five years after Colorado, are newer. Of the five, the Rockies are the only club without a division title. To see how the neighbors fare in the same long view, read the history of the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Dodgers' history and the Padres' history.

Colorado's one World Series appearance, in 2007, was a defeat, the sweep by Boston. For the broader picture of how the Series has been structured and who has won it, see the history of the World Series.

Common questions

Have the Rockies ever won a division title? No. Their five postseason trips (1995, 2007, 2009, 2017 and 2018) all came as wild-card teams. The closest they came was 2018, when they finished tied with the Dodgers at the top and lost the tiebreaker game that decided the division.

Who is the best player in Rockies history? The question has a clear top two. Todd Helton holds the franchise records for home runs, hits, RBI, runs and walks, and Larry Walker holds the best career batting average and the club's only Most Valuable Player award. Both are in the Hall of Fame. Our position-by-position look at the best Rockies players takes up the rest.

Why do the Rockies' pitchers have such high ERAs? Because they pitch half their games at Coors Field, where the thin air lets balls travel farther and take less movement. The club's best ERA among pitchers with 1,000 innings is 4.35. That would be poor in most parks, but it is the best in club history.

What was Rocktober? The nickname for the stretch from the 2007 tiebreaker victory over San Diego through the NLDS and NLCS sweeps, which carried the Rockies to their only World Series.

Where do the Rockies play? At Coors Field in Denver, since 1995. Before that they played in 1993 and 1994 at Mile High Stadium. You can follow the club on its team page and read about the park on its ballpark page.

Where to go next

The rest of the club's story is told in the Rockies' all-time greats, the Coors Field ballpark guide and the best Rockies seasons. For current coverage, follow the Rockies topic page.