Colorado Rockies: A look at some of the relievers on the free agent market this offseason

One of the biggest needs for the Colorado Rockies this offseason will be to address their bullpen as their relievers were one of the worst in baseball in 2020.

The Colorado Rockies tried addressing their bullpen issues three offseasons ago when they signed Wade Davis, Jake McGee, and Bryan Shaw to contracts to create a “super bullpen” and the trio ended up becoming one of the biggest disasters in Rockies free agent signing history as the trio created more of a problem in the Rockies bullpen.

In 2020, it was the first season that, with the exception of 4 1/3 innings from Davis, was without the trio … and the Rockies still had the second-worst bullpen ERA in all of baseball at 6.77. In the final seven weeks of the season, the Rockies had the worst bullpen ERA in all of baseball by nearly three-quarters of a run at 7.81.

Needless to say, the Rockies need to address the bullpen. Quite frankly, first off, the Rockies need to be able to diagnose which pitchers would be most likely to succeed at Coors Field and (more importantly) the transition from altitude to non-altitude (road games) frequently.

However, by and large, the Rockies haven’t been able to figure that out for much of their franchise history and it’s an issue that we can delve into at a later date.

Nonetheless, the Rockies do need to address the bullpen. It could come from trades or via free agency. Today, we will check out some of the free-agent relievers on the market this offseason.

For this exercise, we won’t be looking at any players that have an option on their contract for the 2021 season, just outright free agents. Also, we won’t look at any pitchers that will definitely be out for the entire 2021 season (e.g. Padres closer Kirby Yates will be a free agent this offseason but he just had Tommy John surgery that means he won’t pitch until 2022).