Colon Ready To Put Exclamation Point on Career?
This week Bartolo Colon worked out for scouts in his native Dominican Republic. Apparently, they did not like what they saw.
Colon, who won the Cy Young in 2005 for the Angels, was diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder in 2006. He elected to rehabilitate the injury instead of having surgery and hasn’t been able to regain his previous form. He went 6-8 last year, throwing just 99.1 innings.
Colon, who won the Cy Young in 2005 for the Angels, was diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder in 2006. He elected to rehabilitate the injury instead of having surgery and hasn’t been able to regain his previous form. He went 6-8 last year, throwing just 99.1 innings.
Colon, a free agent, was throwing between 87 and 89 mph and had no life on his fastball. Colon needs his fastball because his offspeed pitches aren’t good enough to stand alone.
Kansas City, Cleveland, the White Sox and Mets have also been scouting Colon. The Mets reportedly backed off after viewing his medicals and finding that his shoulder is a mess.
Colon originally began his career with traded, before being dealt to Montreal in a master stroke for Grady Sizemore, Brandon Phillips and Cliff Lee.
Don’t forget Traber as well in the Expos deal.
I don’t have a legitimate answer for Colon’s troubles but one would have to think its a mix of a heavy workload (200+ IP 7 out of 8 years) and hitting the buffet once too many.
With all of the velocity, I found it surprising that Colon hit the 1K/IP level in only one season, although he was consistent, ranking 80th all-time in career K/9.
Even with the poor workout I think he’d be worth signing if a team could load the contract with incentive bonus’ and give him a low base of $1 million.