Timeless right-hander Bartolo Colon celebrated his 45th birthday this week, so he’ll soon become just the 18th player in major league history to pitch in the majors beyond that benchmark. Colon is also the oldest to hurl a pitch since Jamie Moyer back in 2012. Value metrics are divided on his effectiveness so far this season; Baseball Reference pegs his contributions at 1.6 WAR, while Fangraphs believes his 2018 production to be exactly replacement level. In any case, it would have been difficult at season’s outset to imagine Colon exceeding his current results. A 3.51 ERA and 7.20 K/BB ratio are welcome numbers to a Rangers rotation that sports the sixth-highest combined ERA in major-league baseball.
It’ll be fun to see just how long Colon can keep up this pace. But in the meantime, here are some minor notes from last night…
- In other Rangers news, Jeff Wilson of the Star Telegram examines the job security of a pitcher and a position player in Arlington. Austin Bibens-Dirkx pitched well on the whole in his last start (though he was a victim of some bad fielding behind him), Wilson notes that the club is more likely to give Matt Moore a longer look before ceding his spot in the rotation to Bibens-Dirkx. Meanwhile, Wilson notes that struggling second baseman Rougned Odor has two options remaining. With Jurickson Profar putting together quality at-bats of late, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa producing at a better clip than Odor, there’s a chance the club might consider letting the latter work out his issues in the minors.
- In a subscription-only piece for The Athletic, Bill Shaikin examines the storyline of Alex Anthopoulos leaving the Dodgers organization to run a Braves club that’s currently leading the NL East. While Anthopoulos felt like he had “as good a job as there was in baseball” with the Dodgers, his reshaping of the Braves’ payroll has helped to set them up for success as they near the end of a lengthy rebuild. Trades of Jim Johnson, Matt Kemp and some international bonus pool money shipped to the Angels has set the stage for Atlanta to complement its young core through free agency and perhaps even the midseason trade market.
- Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette provides an update on Pirates prospect Bae Ji-hwan via Twitter. Bae is reportedly on his way back to the United States after cooperating with police in South Korea on suspicion of a domestic violence incident. He’ll be allowed to participate in baseball activities pending the outcome of an investigation into said incident. Bae was one of a few players that the Braves reportedly offered “extra-contractual compensation” recently and were thus barred from signing in the last international signing period.
AA has done a good job with a lot of payroll moves, but I’ve questioned other smaller moves. Although none have exactly been bank breakers, you would like to see stronger smaller moves to have confidence in him come time for the big moves. In general, if he stays out of big trades for rentals… we should be ok.
Pick ups of Flaherty and Tucker have been worth while. Which minor moves did you not agree with? Pretty happy in the AA-era thus far.
I’m assuming he means Bautista, but taking a cheap flyer on a guy he had familiarity with from Toronto seemed fine. Other than that, I can’t think of anything that he really messed up on.
Hey Michael, is the e-mail address I have for you from a while back still current?
Signing Bourjos Bautista Flaherty among others showed poor decision making skills
Flaherty turned out to be a pretty good move. The other 2 aren’t on the roster Currently.
Letting Lane Adams and Akeel Morris loose were disappointing moves in my eyes. Both had shown a lot of promise.
Happy with aa overall though..
Just a heads up, the Braves are leading the NL East not the AL East. Very interesting piece on Anthopoulos though, thanks for the reference.
Odor got HR happy. Needs to get back to what moved him quickly up to the majors.
Man, Odor has posted an OBP above 300 exactly once in his career. That’s not good. Maybe he just isn’t very good? He obviously can’t field and 30 home runs doesn’t mean much when your OBP is like 253 and you have a BB/K ratio of 27/162.
yes……he’s not very good defensively and his offensive game is just about hitting HR’s. as you pointed out…..that W/K ratio is terrible. when Andrus comes back, put Profar at second and send Odor to the minors to work on his entire game.
Agreed. Ever since his fight with Joey Bats, Odor has been horrific.
Anthopoulos was given a talented team. Hopefully anyone in that situation would of had success. Come on he isn’t some kind of Savior at best he is doing his J.O.B. Before we label him as the 2nd coming let this play out. Plus how many times in Toronto did he win?
Keep going Bart!
I was saddened when Jamie Moyer retired.
why does Bartolo get a pass for his steroid use, and others don’t?