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What’s new? Bullpen implodes again for Colorado Rockies

David Martin
David Martin
September 16, 2014
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Rex Brothers has been terrible in 2014 for the Rockies.

Oh Brothers.

If the Colorado Rockies want to prove to their fans that they are serious about winning, the statement will be made early and often in the offseason. The focus of building the Rockies will being and end with revamping the entire bullpen.

On Monday night at Coors Field, Walt Weiss called upon Rex Brothers in the 6th inning to try and keep the Rockies in a 3-3 game. Whether Weiss actually believed that was possible or not is debatable, but the fact of the matter remains the same, Brothers was awful. Again.

Nick Masset then stepped to the mound and did what has become commonplace for him and the rest of the Rockies relievers. He gave up even more runs. Suddenly, the tie game was an eight run advantage for the Dodgers. Thanks for coming out to the ballpark, goodnight.

The Rockies have attempted to build their bullpen over the past two seasons. Two years ago the team dealt failed trade chip Alex White to the Houston Astros for Wilton Lopez. The reliever had closed games for the Astros and had the potential to be a great late-inning arm.

Before the 2014 season, the Rockies surprised everyone by overpaying for Yankees reliever Boone Logan. They gave the lefty a three-year deal worth in the neighborhood of $17 million.

Both relievers failed miserably. Both were extreme disappointments.

The reason why both of them failed should be obvious to the Rockies. Lopez was going to be a New York Met a couple of weeks before the Rockies dealt White for him. However, a physical performed by the Mets nixed the trade and had him set to return to Houston. However, the Rockies swooped in and ignored whatever issues the Mets saw with Lopez and made the deal.

Logan was essentially in the same boat. He underwent elbow surgery in October to remove a bone spur and bone chips from his elbow. The Rockies figured that, even though he would need extra time in spring training, that he would be alright. They were wrong.

The problem with the Logan situation is that bone spurs are often the warning signs of an impending UCL injury, which almost always requires Tommy John surgery.

The Rockies seem to understand that they need to overpay for a reliever. What they don’t seem to understand is that overpaying for a reliever doesn’t mean that the reliever will suddenly turn into the pitcher that would normally be represented by that salary. A player doesn’t become someone different because of the salary that he receives, he is simply the player that he has always been, just a year older.

What the Rockies need to do is target the best relievers on the free agent market and those who might be available via trade. They need to not look for the most available reliever who is actually very good. They shouldn’t target the reliever that they think they have a chance at and pay him as if he is the best reliever on the market. That clearly has been a mistake.

The Rockies also need to be willing to make tough decisions. Matt Belisle fits into the Rockies category of a guy who fits in well in the clubhouse. However, despite a good middle of the season, Belisle struggled both early and late in the year. He is showing the signs of overuse and age. It is time for the Rockies to move on.

The issues at 20th and Blake go far beyond the bullpen, but starting there is the best plan of attack for a team that can’t seem to hit anymore and has actually shown some starting pitching promise of late.

Regardless, the Rockies need to make major changes. They need to be bold in the way they approach this offseason. If that doesn’t include a shiny new front office, it should mean a shiny new bullpen.

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4 Comments (3 conversations)

September 16, 2014

The last sentence in this article is where the true problem lies with this organization…

Any organization that desires to change MUST start from the top and work down…O'Dowd and Geivett both must go. They have both shown that they are not capable of bringing a winning baseball team to Colorado. They both MUST go…

The Rockies need to start over with new management, with a new approach. Perhaps they can look at a team like Tampa Bay, or perhaps even St. Louis and get an idea of how these mid-market teams manage to be very competitive on the baseball field.

The Rockies have bigger problems than bullpen issues. Give O'Dowd and Geivett their walking papers and start all over, If Monfort allows these two to continue to manage the team, then nothing will change. The Rockies will continue to lose, while the turnstiles keep on turning at Coors field.

September 16, 2014

I am going to go crazy here. Gray as your closer. Flande and Friedrich as setup. Hawkins setup. There's your back end. Logan and Morales middle guys.

I fear this will actually be 6 of the 8 people bullpen next year .I turned off the game when I saw Rex and Nick do that wicked voodoo that they do. My experience with 2012 when after 98 losses , virtually no changes were made. There's no reason to believe 2014 off season will be different.

Final comment. ….the official Rockies twitter account sent out a tweet saying Rockies fall short of the Dodgers. ………what wasn't said was the Rockies were only 2 grand slams short .

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September 16, 2014

Very clever. Wish that the Rockies personnel would be as honest as you and would state the mere facts.

September 16, 2014

The Rockies shouldn't do anything special about their bullpen this year. Long-term, the only way to create the bullpen is to continually bring young arms up from the farm system – not pay mediocre free agents more than they're worth. Yeesh – is our farm system ever supposed to actually feed anything at the MLB level is it merely there to delude us that 'next year we have great prospects'?

And short-term, fixing the bullpen is as effective as trying to repair the Titanic with duct tape while the captain turns the ship around and heads for the iceberg a second time. Big picture – we've got much bigger problems than an atrocious bullpen.

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