DENVER -- Jerry Dipoto studied winning baseball long before he became a Major Leaguer and spending eight seasons as a right-handed relief pitcher for three teams before retiring with the Colorado Rockies in Spring Training 2001.

"I believe I'm a baseball fanatic," Dipoto said. "I've followed the game passionately since I was a kid. One of the things I did was watch trends. What makes a team great? What creates long-term success? The Twins in the early '90s. The Braves in the late '80s and early '90s. The Mets of the mid-to-late '90s. What they had in common was a very high-level minor league system and a sound process, a right way to do things."

Dipoto hopes to help the Rockies follow a similar blueprint. Dipoto had spent two seasons as a pro scout for the Boston Red Sox before the Rockies hired him in November as director of pro scouting. Dipoto oversees the evaluation of Major League and minor league talent and assists with roster decisions.

It's a key job for a club that is refusing to buy its way to competitiveness, a policy it has made clear despite the chagrin of fans that want an offseason splash after enduring six losing seasons in seven years. To win on a budget and please their fans, the Rockies will have to find players who don't have the huge hype, which comes with a big salary requirement.

Having someone who has been there, in the Majors and with the Rockies (1997-2000), helps. Dipoto functioned as a setup man and closer for the Rockies and posted the second-best Coors Field ERA in club history at 3.89.

"The people here have good ideas and good intentions, the things that go into putting a winning product on the field and doing things the right way. I want to be a part of that process."

-- Jerry Dipoto

"I think we knew all along our office lacked some of what Jerry brings," said general manager Dan O'Dowd, who also went with recent on-field experience by hiring former Colorado minor league infielder Chris Warren as the club's advance scout. "We wanted to have a baseball person, and in Jerry's case, we have one that was a successful pitcher in Coors Field. Getting Jerry in our scouting department adds a whole new dimension to the way we make decisions on which guys are a fit for us."

Dipoto, 36, is highly regarded enough in the game to be considered a prospect for top front-office jobs, no small feat in this era of teams run, sometimes successfully, by computer analysis of stats as much as by feel, flesh and blood.

Dipoto appreciates everything about the game. He came back from surgery for thyroid cancer in 1994 and pitched in the Majors that season and more than likely would be preparing to pitch this season if not for the neck problems that ended his career prematurely. During and after his playing days, he has enthusiastically built an impressive memorabilia collection as a way of studying the game's colorful history, so he truly understands the meaning of the Red Sox's first World Series championship since 1918.

"To me, it's who I am, part of the package," Dipoto said. "Those were the greatest 13 years [five in the minors before breaking in with Cleveland in 1993] one could ever imagine. You pull away valuable information or valuable experience. I learned how to play and what it took to be a professional, and if I don't use that in my next walk in life, shame on me."

The two years with the Red Sox taught Dipoto how the richer, other half wins. Dipoto provided information for some of the shrewd moves the club made en route to the title, but Boston had a $129 million payroll to make them with. With the Rockies, he hopes to revisit the winning teams of the past, only this time he's playing a hand in shaping them.

"The Colorado Rockies have had a very high-level minor league system for the last four years and they're heading in the right direction," Dipoto said. "I truly believe that, or I wouldn't be sitting here. The people here have good ideas and good intentions, the things that go into putting a winning product on the field and doing things the right way. I want to be a part of that process."