Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports is reporting that the Mets have agreed to terms on a contract with free agent starting pitcher Bartolo Colon. The contract is said to be for two years and $20 million.
Last season, the 40-year-old Colon went 18-6 with a 2.65 ERA and a 1.166 WHIP for the Oakland Athletics, and was an All-Star for the third time in his career.
Colon has pitched the last two seasons for Oakland, going 28-15 with a 2.99 ERA in 342.2 innings pitched. That 2.99 ERA ranks 5th in all of baseball over the past two years among pitchers with at least 300.0 innings thrown. Only Clayton Kershaw, Kris Medlen, Hisashi Iwakuma and David Price have been better.
In advanced metrics, Colon averaged 5.5 K/9, 1.4 BB/9, and 0.8 HR/9, while being worth 6.3 fWAR (and 7.7 bWAR) over the past two seasons. His 2.84 RA/9 in 2013 was the best of his career.
Steamer projects Colon to be worth 2.8 WAR this season, which means following a standard aging curve, Colon will be projected to be worth 5.1 WAR over the next two seasons. All Colon has to do to justify this contract is produce 3.0 WAR over the next two years, assuming the value of a win is $7 million. That seems like a seemingly reasonable threshold, so right now this looks like a good deal for the Mets.
Colon has resurrected himself after seeming to be on the verge of being out of the league a few seasons ago. After a 21-win season in 2005 in which he was awarded Johan Santana’s Cy Young Award, Colon went a combined 14-21 with a 5.18 ERA over the next four seasons, not topping 100 IP in any campaign.
He sat out the 2010 season and underwent controversial stem cell treatment in the Dominican Republic. An article by Serge Kovaleski in The New York Times described the procedure performed by Dr. Joseph Purita like this:
“[H]e used fat and bone marrow stem cells from Colon, injecting them back into Colon’s elbow and shoulder to help repair ligament damage and a torn rotator cuff.”
Purita would normally use human growth hormone, but did not do so in this case because HGH is banned by MLB.
The results have been nothing short of spectacular. In three seasons since undergoing the treatment, Colon is 36-25 with a 3.32 ERA and a 1.219 WHIP in 507 IP. The first of those three seasons came with the Yankees and then he left New York to sign with Oakland.
Colon came cheaper and with one fewer year than what Bronson Arroyo is looking for but he’s also four years older. The Mets are definitely rolling the dice that Colon can keep up his recent spate of good, healthy pitching.
If Colon can come close to repeating what he did the last two years, this deal will be a home run for Sandy Alderson. It’s probably a good deal if he can just match what he did in 2013 over the next two seasons.
It’s hard not to be impressed with the season Colon produced in 2013. It’s easy to see the upside that this contract offers. Still, it remains a gamble and one that I probably would not have made. It will be curious if this represents the end of moves by the Mets or if they will be able to add a shortstop before the start of Spring Training.
Brian Joura contributed reporting and writing.
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Well,the good news is the Mets are spending some money.
It seems as if the Mets see some merit in the A’s formula of good OF defense and fly ball pitchers.
Another perplexing move in my opinion. If everything breaks right, I want no part of Colon in the 2015 rotation. I’m hoping that he follows the sign and trade typically used by the Marlins and I hope he’s gone by the end of next winter
This is an odd move. Considering their interest in Arroyo, I wonder if Alderson and company view older starting pitchers as a chance to pick up good value. Also, does Colon get the Opening Day start?
Niese has gotta be the opening day starter with colon, wheeler, gee, meija following
That is one damn fine rotation, no matter how it gets set up.
Colon
Wheeler
Niese
Meija
Gee
I think that has the ability to be as good a rotation as the 2008 Mets. Damn fine rotation.
Brian,
It seems to me that as Alderson surveyed that market toady, he saw that his preference was not going to occur. In a perfect world (for him), he deals Ike and Murphy, gets a decent return, can sign Drew, and settles for two lesser SP signings like DiceK and Harang. Since that did not occur, and he really needed to leave these meetings with one of three catches (a big bat, like Kemp, which was a real long shot, a SS upgrade, or a legit SP3), the SP3 was really the only reachable goal. Given the economics, the choices were Colon or Arroyo. I think he really preferred to do Colon on a 1 year, and would go two years on Arroyo at the right price, but when market conditions made the choice Colon for 2 years or Arroyo for 3, he opted for Colon on a two year. Given these circumstances, that would have been my choice as well. While he used up some budget, he narrowed his needs and still can go in several directions to get the legit bullpen arm and SS upgrade needed to propel this team into the 2014 playoff discussion without compromising the future financially or prospect-wise.
This seems like a reasonable summation.
I do find it curious that Sandy Alderson was willing to go 2 years with Colon and (seemingly) not willing to go 3 years with Drew. Just given where the organization strengths and weaknesses are, it seem like the SS who’s put up a combined 10.1 fWAR in his last three full seasons, including a 3.4 mark last year, would have been the safer way to go.
I’m still mulling where I stand on the Colon signing. It just seems like a high-risk, high-reward signing. It just seems so out of character for Alderson.
Feldman(3/30)
Kazmir(2/22)
Hudson(2/23)
Haren(1/10)
Vargas(4/32)
Johnson(1/8)
Hughes(3/24)
Vogelsong(1/5)
Looking at the pitching market and what other pitchers got, Colon’s deal doesn’t look that bad. I would rather have signed Hudson if we were willing to do 2 years guy or Vogelsong if we wanted a 1 year guy. I really hope they look at the medicals on him well and hopefully he hasn’t lied about his age.
Still, i also found signing a pitcher of this caliber quite odd. Hopefully this means Sandy feels confident he can acquire a SS through trade.
I don’t know that the market had firmed up enough for the Mets to take the shot at either Vogelsong or Hudson. It was just the way the cookie crumbled.
Possibly it was timing. It’s been said that this was in play from Tuesday. Remarkably I think on Tuesday or Wednesday it was reported that the Mets were rebuffed on Thornburg.
We sign Colon.
After, Sandy’s coming out with comments like,”we’re not in the business of letting Ike go for nothing.” And some noise about a backup catcher no longer being one of the things we’ll get.
Speculation on my part is that the priorities were SS #1, then power bat, then pitcher. Drew < Peralta; Drew Colon; Colon > Drew.
The question now will be is, after moving Ike is another closer > Drew?
well the formatting screwed up that comment.
Meant to be
SS #1; Power Bat; Pitching
Peralta better than Drew. No Peralta
Power bat better than Drew.
Cost controlled pitcher + Drew better than Colon.
Colon better than Drew.
Hate this move. At 40 a guy who has already tested positive and been suspended goes a run and a half better than his career ERA? Please.
You are sane. This is a farce.
I’d rather see the $20M go to developing an actual scouting system.
Colon is a PED colon.
It’s expensive but I like it. Colon may be 40 but due to stem cell treatment his shoulder is younger.
Hard to see a downside here, unless its felt the contract constrains their future spending. They needed a veteran to log innings, and they went out and got a guy who can do that.
If this is the last move of the winter – other than trading away Ike Davis – then it was a waste of $20MM, and I’d rather have seen them find a way to get another few bucks fit Steve Drew into the picture.
Don’t get me wrong, he’s totally worth the $20MM if he lasts two years. Do some quick figuring here, extemporaneously. Let’s say he gets you 2 WAR over the two years – I think that’s pretty pessimistic. So you’ve overpaid him by $8MM, roughly.
BUT … you’ve given yourself a full extra year of control of … let’s say Thor. What would a full year of Thor be worth … in 2019? $25MM? 35MM? Of course, you get into a full blown “time value of money” argument, but you simply have to know some finance freak did that work for them.
Anyways, I hope we still get Drew or a reasonable facsimile of a SS.
Side note: according to other sources, this leaves the Mets with around $5MM to spend. Moving Ike Davis gives them another $3MM, one way or the other (presuming he is traded for a Tyler Thornburg-like contract or simply cut).
That’s $8MM, and with just a touch more money from the ownership – which has said they would open the purse strings as necessary – you have just about enough to land Steve Drew.
Sandy *might* spend the money on a closer, but color me SS-centric.
Hey the Mets have young pitchers who could be positively influenced by Colon right? Buck shared his knowledge base last year and this year, it’s Colon. He becomes a second pitching coach.
This guy cheated 2 years ago. He’s supposed to be a positive influence? Why do people expect every veteran to be of the “mentor” type?
Maybe Name he cheated for 2 years. Players can learn how much to take and how long it stays in their system. The fact that he wasn’t caught means the players know how to beat the testing.
Maybe he can do a commercial for the secret of his success? When they open his locker and you see a package marked Biogenesis! Then the picture goes black and you hear Colon say I will teach these youngsters how to pitch!
Would of been cheaper to hire Dave Duncan. Sorry I don’t believe in rewarding cheaters.
Oh and we had LaTroy last year too. I should point that out.
This was not the way that I projected the Mets would spend their money. I presumed Alderson to be a conservative GM but signing a 40 year old seems rather risky to me. The move does tell me that Sandy intends to compete in 2014 and that he wants to do it with pitching and defense. The rotation is going to be putting a quality starter on the mound every day. Colon was an ace and the most cost effective way to replace Harvey (if you thought Harvey needed to be replaced).
Going into 2014 the Mets improved their OF defense and replaced Byrd’s offense with Granderson. They improved the other OF position offense with C Young, who in a down year still outperformed EY or Lagares and with more power. Right now this team is better than a 74 win team but it will take some more analysis to figure out how much better.
Pitching and defense wins games.
Good move. Adding a veteran at the top of the rotation eases the pressure on all the young pitchers. At this point, I would swap Montero for Didi Gregorious and Duda for Matt Joyce. Sign Chris Perez or Kevin Gregg for the pen and I’m satisfied.
I hope we don’t trade Montero for Gregorius.
Didi got off to a great start but in his final 310 PA, he put up a .216/.304/.304 mark. Plus his minor league numbers are nothing to get excited about.
I would rather sign Drew, but not at the expense of dumping Ike. I’m not at all a fan of Duda and/or Satin at 1B.
Let’s see how he pitches without the juice before we determine if this was a good signing, You don’t know how long he was using and the fact that he didn’t fail a drug test brings up an interesting point.
Cab you please tell me where you are getting your number for the Met current payroll? Cot’s has the Mets at 45.3 million without the Colon signing. Are you including Bay’s deferred 6 million for this year?
This is one source :http://m.espn.go.com/general/blogs/blogpost?blogname=new-yorkmets&id=80095&city=newyork
It is close to what I have researched and Alderson has looked at it and commented on it so it should be pretty close.
[…] Joe Vasile, Mets360: […]
Does the Jason Bay deferred money for this season count towards the payroll? Or is the deferred money coming from a different source?