Mets Would Pay Some Of Colon’s Salary In Trade

The Mets are willing to absorb roughly $2MM of Bartolo Colon’s remaining salary in order to facilitate a trade, sources tell Andy Martino of the New York Daily News. Colon, who earns $9MM in 2014 and $11MM in 2015, has about $14.25MM remaining on his contract at this time.

However, Martino also reports that the growing sense is that if Colon is to be moved this month, it won’t happen until just before the deadline. Many teams consider him a fallback option if they are unable to acquire the likes of David Price, Ian Kennedy and Cliff Lee. The overall price tag on Colon will have dropped to about $13.95MM at that point, meaning that an interested club would have to take on about $11.95MM of salary for eight months of Colon’s pitching (not including any postseason innings, of course).

General manager Sandy Alderson isn’t desperate to move Colon, Martino notes, so if he doesn’t find an offer to his liking in the next week, he can simply hang onto Colon, as he did with Marlon Byrd last summer. (Byrd was eventually dealt to the Pirates in August.) The Mets are willing to wait until August, or even the offseason, to move the veteran right-hander, Martino writes. If the Mets really don’t feel any pressure to trade Colon at this time, it’s fair to wonder just how much Alderson would be willing to budge from that $2MM figure (one would assume, of course, that the Mets would be comfortable eating more salary if the other team paid a greater price in terms of prospects).

Colon’s ERA has spiked from 2.65 in 2013 to 4.03 in 2014, though some metrics — xFIP (3.72 in ’14, 3.95 in ’13) and SIERA (3.76 in ’14, 4.10 in ’13) — feel he’s actually been better than he was last season. That’s likely due to an uptick in his strikeout rate and a slight improvement in his already outstanding walk rate. Colon struggled through his first six weeks with the Mets but has turned in a 2.98 ERA with a 62-to-14 K/BB ratio over his past 84 2/3 innings (12 starts).