The Rockies have stopped pretending. President of baseball operations Paul DePodesta said near the end of the 2026 season that Colorado is building its 2027 roster as though Kris Bryant does not exist.
“We have to continue to move forward from a roster-building standpoint as if we are not going to have him,” DePodesta told reporters, per Kyle Newman of the Denver Post. If Bryant does make it back, DePodesta called that “a great bonus.”
Read that again. A front office boss just described a $182 million player as a lottery ticket. Asked whether the club might restructure or defer any of the money, DePodesta said nothing had changed there either.
The Numbers Are Brutal
Bryant signed a seven-year, $182 million deal before the 2022 season, fully guaranteed. Per Spotrac, he is owed $26 million in 2027 and $26 million in 2028, which leaves Colorado roughly $52 million still to pay a man who may never hit again.
He has played 170 games across five seasons in Colorado. A healthy everyday player clears 170 in a little over one year. Bryant has not appeared in a big league game since April 12, 2025, and he got into just 11 games that season.
The bat was worse than the attendance record. Bryant put up an .851 OPS in 42 games in 2022, then collapsed. From 2023 on he managed a .642 OPS and a 69 OPS+ in 128 games, with minus-2.2 WAR by Baseball Reference math. Colorado has already paid him about $130 million for 170 games and negative value.
The Back Is the Whole Story
This is not a hamstring you rehab over a winter. The Rockies placed Bryant on the 60-day injured list in February with lumbar degenerative disk disease, and he missed all of 2026. Ablation procedures have not killed the pain. Reporting out of Denver says conventional surgery would likely end his playing career, which is why he has been exploring experimental options instead.
Pile that on the foot problems that ended his 2022, plus a rib contusion and a broken finger along the way. Bryant will be 35 on Opening Day 2027. Nothing in that profile says comeback.
Colorado Has No Escape Hatch
Bleacher Report has already tagged this as the Rockies nightmare contract heading into 2027, putting it in the same tier as the Stephen Strasburg and Anthony Rendon deals. That is the right company. This belongs on the very short list of the worst contracts in baseball, and Colorado cannot wriggle out of a dollar of it.
There is no trade partner for $52 million of back pain. There is no buyout that saves real money. Releasing Bryant costs precisely what keeping him on the injured list costs, which is why the answer about restructuring amounted to a shrug.
The honest autopsy: Colorado handed seven guaranteed years to a 30-year-old with a thick injury file and a swing already drifting the wrong way, then watched the worst case arrive almost immediately. The only move available now is the one DePodesta just made. Say it plainly, write the checks, and build the 2027 team around the players who can actually play.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.