Righty Collin Balester was part of the last-ever Montreal Expos draft in 2004, as the club took him in the fourth round out of Huntington Beach High School. Though he came from a surfing family, according to Baseball America, Balester moved quickly through the lower minors. By 2007, he was considered the Nationals’ best prospect and a future number one or two starter.
During the summer of ’08, Balester was deemed ready to join the rotation of the tanking Nationals club. He made a career-high 15 starts as a 22-year-old rookie, putting up three quality starts in the process.
Balester eventually moved into a relief role for the Nats, but was traded to the Tigers in December 2011. His career also included stops in the Rangers, Pirates, Reds, and Giants organizations, as well as a stint with KBO’s Samsung Lions. Along the way, Balester underwent Tommy John surgery in June 2013, battling to get back to the Majors with the Reds in after a gap of more than three years.
Ultimately, Collin topped 200 total innings in the Majors in parts of six different seasons. Along the way he managed to strike out Ken Griffey Jr., Buster Posey, Freddie Freeman, and Chipper Jones, among many others. Now 36, Collin owns a juice shop with his wife called Local Roots, and also does logistics for an expedited shipping truck company. Give him a follow @Ballystar99 on Twitter.
Collin took questions from MLBTR readers today, covering a wide range of topics including being traded, pitching in Korea, being on the 2012 Tigers, and his juice and smoothie recommendations. Click here to read the transcript!
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When is the Sidney ponson chat coming?
I would love a Sidney Ponson chat.
Yeah isn’t Ponson from the place with all those cool looking lizards?
How about the Bauer chat? That would be some fireworks
Is Joe Karen Kelly a former player at this point? He would be a fun interview, with all his recent stories about running to hide from Correa and talking tough. Twiggy talking some big talk these days, and would get snapped in half by anyone in MLB.
If you’re so enamored with how he’s doing, he’s already done an interview this year with Pitching Ninja.
Perfect, thank you Ronaldo I will be sure and look for that. Always love a good laugh at that clown’s expense.
Imagine letting Joe kelly take up space in your mind for such a strange and pointless reason….although, I feel the same way about whoopie goldberg. For some reason I’d like to watch a video of her tripping on her shoe laces.
…well that escalated quickly
This was the first guy I edited on MLB the Show. He had a sub 0.50 ERA. I remember making him 99 at everything, and he outperformed all the others by 1.5 or more. He will always be memorable to me for that reason.
Dude was not wrong about RFK.
Well, plenty of silly questions today but the Expos question I spent 20 minutes researching (to make sure of historical accuracy) was passed over
like roadkill. Guess I’ll try
“what’s the best way to eat a sunflower seed?” though I’d rather ask “don’t you feel bad throwing all those shells on the ground? Someone has to clean those up!”