Colorado Rockies 2016 Bullpen Wish List

Apr 24, 2015; Denver, CO, USA; Colorado Rockies closer A. Ottavino (0) delivers a pitch during the ninth inning against the San Francisco Giants at Coors Field. The Rockies won 6-4. Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports

As the Colorado Rockies limp to the finish line in 2015, it’s certainly not too early to lay out a wish list of sorts for what we’d like to see in the 2016 bullpen. 

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The Colorado Rockies have had all kinds of pitching problems this year, and the bullpen has been especially bad.

That’s in part due to awful starting pitching that’s forced the Rockies to go to their pen far too early, and far too often — and that’s given us exhausted relievers who are overly used and completely ineffective.

But the bullpen deserves its own set of blame, too, because even on days where starters have gone deep in games, late inning relievers have found a way to mess things up — and the bullpen as a whole has been allergic to throwing strikes this season.

[ Related: Ten relievers the Colorado Rockies should look at in September ]

Now, though, the Colorado Rockies have a chance to turn the ‘pen over a little bit for 2016, and while it may get worse for a time, it’s also much younger (read: no LaTroy Hawkins, Rafael Betancourt, or John Axford) and can develop into something fairly decent over the next several seasons.

Let’s start with the closers and late inning relievers in this purely hypothetic and speculative (but hopefully intelligently-guessed) exercise…

Next: Wish list: the late inning guys