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Twins Sign Bartolo Colon

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The Twins have signed veteran righty Bartolo Colon to a minors deal, per a club announcement. He’ll head to the organization’s top affiliate.

It’s not tough to see the fit. Minnesota has struggled to find reliable innings from its rotation, outside of top starters Ervin Santana and Jose Berrios, and also has depth issues in the bullpen. With the club still holding onto hopes of competing for the postseason, but not interested in punting too much future value for immediate improvements, it’ll take a shot on the veteran castaway just three weeks before the trade deadline.

Minnesota will only be responsible to pay Colon at the league-minimum rate during any time he spends in the majors, with the Braves covering the remainder of his $12.5MM annual salary. Evidently, the Twins offered a more appealing situation — whether in terms of opportunity, competitiveness, or otherwise — than did the Mets, who were among the other teams pursuing Colon.

Colon, 44, had thrived for the Mets over the past three seasons, capping off his time there with 191 2/3 innings of 2.43 ERA ball in 2016. But he has been rocked through 13 starts in the current season, allowing 57 earned runs on 92 hits through 63 innings. The Twins will hope that Colon can regain his pinpoint control while also returning to the good graces of the BABIP gods, who cursed him with a .360 batting average on balls in play and 48.2% strand rate during his time in Atlanta.

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Comments

    • Well, for someone who should have retired seven years ago, he’s done fairly well during those years…

      2

    • In 2010? Why? From 2011-2016 he averaged 29 starts and 183 IP of 3.63 ERA ball. Got paid almost $50MM extra to play a game, too.

      The only pitchers with more wins (a terrible stat, I know) over that span? Scherzer, Kershaw, Greinke, Bumgarner, Price, Verlander, Weaver, Lester, King Felix, Porcello, and Cueto. That’s good company.

      • Should have posted the only pitchers with more innings pitched over that span with ERA’s south of 4

    • He basically didn’t play for 5 years so he’s technically got the arm of a 39 year old!

      1

      • Plus he had that stem cell treatment on his arm and shoulder which seems to have worked amazingly. I do wonder if he did any PEDs while receiving the stem cell because the treatment took really well. The doctor that did it for him says he didn’t give him any HGH but i’m not too sure about that lol

        1

        • MLB investigated this thoroughly and found no wrongdoing. It wasn’t allowed in the states when he did it, but it is now.

  4. Well that’s somewhat unexpected. I guess the appeal of playing for a contender and the Twins relative lack of quality pitching depth makes it a good choice for Bartolo.

  5. dear twins,
    call him up to the bigs
    sincerely,
    an indians fan

    3

    • I have a good idea he will help the Twins this season more than you will. Just saying

    • I always love people’s absurd reactions to depth/minor league signings. It’s like they expect the team to be 100% completely healthy and not need to adjust their 25-man roster until September call-ups…

      1

      • What, you mean you think the Twins who have had a revolving door of failure in the back half of their rotation all year to the point that they depleted their AAA depth and had to go to Jorge in AA for a couple of starts **might** have a use at some point for a seasoned veteran with a good amount of success in recent years?? Hogwash!

        1

  7. I really thought this was a good possibility. It makes perfect sense! He will get some starts in no time.

  8. Everyone needs to chill. It’s a minors deal. It’s not like either of them have anything to lose.

    1

  9. Dumb move by Colon and his agent.

    He could have gone back to NY and ended his career as a rock star. Instead, he’ll be used like a piece of Kleenex before being DFA’ed again.

    I guess he can always go back to NY after that.

    • UH well considering the Twins have had one or more gaping revolving door of a hole in their rotation for basically the entire season, if he can pull it together and just be average he’d do fine w them. A really good fit if he can reign in his control.

      • Right. That’s what people said about him when he signed with the Braves.

        Why would this go better?

        Mets fans would have treated him as royalty no matter what and he could have gone out with some dignity.

        • And if he plays just as badly as some expect, going back to the Mets still remain a possibility. And if anything, the story will be better if he gets DFA’d twice and pitches well in NY. But my thinking here is that either he saw Minnesota as a better chance to make the rotation, maybe there’s some bad feelings on Colon’s side after he left for Atlanta (not that there are any reasons to believe they split on bad terms), or he just wants to add another jersey to his collection.

  10. Usually, a good way to predict where someone heads to in free agency or in the trade market is to imagine how they would look in that teams hat/uniform. I can comfortably say that I cannot even picture Colon in a Twins uniform

    • Well I mean he has already played for a third of the MLB teams so you should be able to just google image any of them soon

  11. The manager at the all-you-can-eat buffet at the Radisson just wept a little.

    3

  12. Already people are freaking out about this. It’s a minors deal, that’s all. If he somehow gets his control back in order, then it works out well, especially for a team that could definitely use some rotation help. And if he continues his poor performance, they can just release him. Basically no risk at all. C’mon, guys, get ahold of yourselves…

  13. He was great in Oakland! Post season experience! Good luck, Bartolo!

  14. Might as well try him out, evens if it’s out of the bullpen. He can’t be any worse than Belisle

    • Given that he was literally the worst starting pitcher in the majors this year, I would say that yes, Colon can be worse than whatever garbage the Twins have been throwing out there.

  15. With how bad he has been, the guy should be glad to be pitching at all.

  16. Shows how badly the Mets suck. He would rather sign a minors deal with the Twins then play for the Mets again.

    2

  18. Lol
    Well the twins are rebuilding
    Once the Indians catch fire the twins will fade and I’m guessing they are planning to trade some pieces

  19. The real question is who weighs more colon vargas or sano? twins could have 3 guys in the infield pushing 300 pounds each.

    • Colon ‘pushing 300 pounds’? Really? He’s pushed that aside long ago and I wouldn’t compare him to a guy that’s half a foot taller.

  20. So help me out here with the financials. If the Twins call him up does his base MLB salary ATL still owed become Minnesotas responsibility, or is anything he earns now on top of the Braves dead money?

    • Neither, if the Twins call him up they pay pro rated league minimum. Atlanta’s on the hook for the rest.

      1

      • Is that pro rated minimun built into lets say Barts initial 12.5mil contract? Or is that a separate contract and potentially his new pro rated Twins contract seperate as well and he would then earn on top of the initial 12.5mil?

        • built in. He gets 12.5 of which the Twins pay league minimum, not added on to his 12.5

        • Whatever, the pro rated minimum is something like below 200,000 for from now until the end of the season.

        • * If the Twins bring Colon up
          Can I just think of it like this?

          One day in school the Braves were given 12 & 1/2 hours of detention for signing Bartolo Colon. The Twins were walking by study hall and saw the Braves crying in a pool of tears so they started laughing at them. The teacher saw this and then decided to let the Braves leave early and the Twins had to serve the last 15 minutes in their place.

          This caused the Braves and Twins to end up dropping out of school and were never the same again.

          3

        • You’re overthinking this :). Colon has a contract for $12.5M? He’s going to be paid $12.5M, all that changes is who pays how much of that. The twins will contribute whatever the minimum salary is, which is set in the basic agreement between the league owners and the player’s union and the braves will pay the rest.

          1

        • No, he’s going to make his 12.5 million dollars from Atlanta no matter what. Whatever the Twins end up paying him, which will be the pro-rated league minimum, will be deducted from the money Atlanta is paying him.

      • Or would the Twins be covering a small amount of that 12.5mil whatever the pro rated vet minimum is

        • The Twins pay none of his Braves salary. They pay prorated league min. That amount is subtracted from what the Braves owe him.

          1

  22. I’m preeetty sure he posted a 3.43 ERA in 2016. Don’t know maybe he seduced the stats to lower a run

  26. Signed just in time to start the Twins’ “old timers game”.

    Too bad about the impact his signing will have on the Twins’ post game meal budget.

  27. Well, we can say one thing for sure: *certainly* his “resurgence” in the early part of this decade was *completely* on the up-and-up and that what’s what’s happening now has *nothing* to do with his body breaking down well past its expiration date.

  28. I don’t feel as bad about Colon as I did Derek Lowe, Dan Uggla, or BJ Upton.
    So…… we’re improving????

    2

    • Kenshin Kawakami, Hector Olivera, Chris JohnsonMichael Borne. Im gonna stop so I dont ruin my day.

  29. Perhaps the Twins can also persuade special assistant LaTroy Hawkins out of retirement to join Colon on their pitching staff. lol

  30. Do you guys want Jim Johnson and Ian Krol too? I’ll even throw in Brandon Phillips and Brian Snitker for you too.

    • How can you say that about Phillips. Have you been watching what he’s been doing? Your comment is very unfair. He’s fielding at the league average and batting .281 with 30 rbi’s which is good enough.

      1

  31. He’s more interesting than Adam Wilk or Nik Turley as emergency SP depth.

  32. Score!! Don’t like the twins live in mn and love bartolo. I will show up to every start the rest of the year. Call him up pleassseee

  34. Can you PLEASE stop with the damn errors?
    I may have to uninstall the app.
    Get better writers!

  36. wow. I didn’t expect twins, but when you see him I guess it makes sense….

    in all seriousness…didn’t expect the twins. I understand their rotation, but I still believe he will end up in the bullpen

    and….he could get traded again. I mean if he makes a good start or two, would the twins trade him?

    • Sure, somebody could offer up trade value for a guy they just could’ve had without offering up anything for outside the pro-rated league minimum. SMH

    • He’s not going to end up in the bullpen. The Twins have Santana and Berrios that have been reliable in the rotation and, other than that, Santiago fell off of a cliff and everyone else has been going back and forth to Rochester. Mejia and Gibson have been alright lately but odd as it is to say this, the Twins have a desperate need for barely-serviceable fifth starter depth.

  38. As long as I never have to see him pitch for the Braves again, I’m good with it. Best of luck, Bartolo, and please never come back!

    1

  39. I guess the New York metro didn’t have room for another beached whale.

    1

    • Guess they can cancel that hot dog eating contest between him and Chris Christie…

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