Number Eight
SP Bartolo Colon, Atlanta Braves, 1-year, $12.5 million
6-14, 135.7 IP, 6.63 ERA, 5.27 FIP, 1.62 WHIP
0.5 WAR (FanGraphs)
-2.0 WAR (Baseball Reference)
Baseball fans love their Bartolo Colon. He’s been pitching in the big leagues since Bill Clinton was president. Because he spent a half-season with Montreal in 2002, he’s the last remaining Expos player still active in the major leagues. He spent the last three years becoming a baseball cult hero with the New York Mets, making behind-the-back plays on slow rollers to the right side, and hitting his first career home run, a home run that pitcher James Shields may never recovered from.
With the Mets from 2014 to 2016, Colon was 44-34 with a 3.90 ERA, while averaging 196 innings per year. Despite Colon being 44 years old, the Atlanta Braves signed him to a one-year, $12-million deal hoping for more of the same effectiveness he’d had in New York.
Instead, they got 13 starts from Colon, a 2-8 record, and an 8.14 ERA. The magic was no longer there for Big Bart. The Braves released him on July 4 and he signed with the ever-hopeful Minnesota Twins. There have been some good starts with the Twins, but overall Colon is 4-6, with a 5.33 ERA in a Twins uniform. While the team is gunning for a wild card spot, he’s been knocked around for 16 runs in 11 innings across his last three starts.
While Colon hasn’t been a good free agent signing, he did do well in the MLB “Funnest” Player in Baseball competition that was created by Joe Posnanski and Michael Schur. In a 16-player bracket, Colon beat Billy Hamilton in the first round and Jose Altuve in the second round to make it to the semi-finals. He couldn’t get past Javier Baez, though, and that’s where his Cinderella run ended. Baez ended up beating Francisco Lindor in the finals.