Let us exchange our collective feelings on Bartolo Colon

[Zvon]

I'm good with this. I imagine we had to put a little more bait on the hook for a one year deal. If he's in the rotation coming out of ST I'll bet TC gives him opening day again.

[Lefty Specialist]

Okay, got that taken care of. Long live the Jiggling Belly.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Ceetar wrote: eh, it's just money.

Have you been paying ANY attention at all? Do you somehow still cling to the notion that the Mets have an unlimited budget?

[dgwphotography]

I like it. He'll be the fifth starter until Wheeler comes back, and then can be used in the pen and for spot starts.

[Vic Sage]

i'd be more upset about this, and Cabrera, if i thought for a second that they were spending this money instead of pursuing Cespedes or Upton, but since i don't think they'd do that anyway, they might as well go with El Colonoscopy.

[Fman99]

I like it because he's pudgy and effective.

[Frayed Knot]

There were 75 starts last season made by someone named NOT Harvey-deGrom-Syndergaard-Matz - the only four 'proven' starters on the roster prior to this signing. 33 of them were from Black Bart and 36 others from guys no longer in the org.
A full season from Syndergaard & Matz will make up for approx 1/3 of that 75 and maybe a dozen more from Wheeler gets you up to around 1/2 - and that's assuming no injuries from any of them or from any of the others either.
So if the remainder of the 'missing' starts weren't going to come from Bartolo they were going to have to come from someone, either imported or internally promoted. Which isn't to say he was the only option, but he's been a pretty good one for two seasons and even with him a team rarely gets by with just five starters (used 10 different ones last year).

2014 Starts to cover from other than the assumed current starting five
Niese = 29
Gee = 7
Sean Gilmartin = 1
Logan Verrett = 4
Rafael Montero = 1


And for the accountants out there, this contract represents money saved on him as compared to each of the last two seasons.
On the downside: I don't want to say that he's old but, during Colon's rookie year, the ML minimum salary for $3.75/hour plus tips.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Those of you thinking this is expensive for Colon, well, keep in mind:

1) He rejected multiple better offers to sign here.
2) He's willing AND able to start AND relieve, which is surprisingly rare among the non-barely-staying-in-the-league pitching set.
3) This is a market in which Chris Young snagged 2/$12M with an option, JA Happ took home a 3/$36M deal, and PELF signed for 2/16.

[nymr83]

I really like the guy but wow, we are talking about replacement-level innings here. i get that the other bad free agent pitchers cost money too, but wouldn't we get the same from some combination of Logan Verrett, Rafael Montero, etc? with at least the chance of upside?

oh well, glad to have the guy who makes us all feel young and skinny back i guess!

[Edgy MD]

Like with the team's building up at short and second, they're certainly more likely to get it with Barty on board.

And for what it's worth, his innings look a lot better from the FIP perspective.

[Guest d'Kong76]

FIP = Fat Innings Pitched

(also Feline Infectious Peritonitis, Fielding Independent Pitching,
and Formative Instructional Pratices?)

[Ceetar]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Ceetar wrote: eh, it's just money. Have you been paying ANY attention at all? Do you somehow still cling to the notion that the Mets have an unlimited budget?

Oh please. Like this piddling amount is going to stop them from doing anything else?

It's not. 100% it's not. You can argue they're broke and strapped and won't sign XX but it's not because they blew the money on Colon. If they desperately needed that bit of change they'd have just rolled with Verrett and Montero and whoever was already in the system.

You can tell me they should have thrown money at Heyward, but throwing out small amounts for roster depth guys tells me a lot more about a team's mindset and financials. Because there's a big difference between can spend money and won't spend money. So while the Mets are probably still not financially laden with the ability to do whatever they want and are still approaching decisions with a prudent mindset (which isn't necessarily bad either) tossing around 7 million for below average roster depth guys with 'intangibles' is a good thing.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Nymr83 wrote: I really like the guy but wow, we are talking about replacement-level innings here. i get that the other bad free agent pitchers cost money too, but wouldn't we get the same from some combination of Logan Verrett, Rafael Montero, etc? with at least the chance of upside? oh well, glad to have the guy who makes us all feel young and skinny back i guess!

Depth isn't about who you have in the fifth slot. It's about who you have in the ninth slot, once deGrom has forearm tightness, Syndergaard gets hit with a line drive and has to sit for a week, and Matz misses a start or five. The further down on the depth chart you push Gilmartin or Verrett (regardless of what the laws of gravity imply, his floor is a LOT lower than Colon's), the better off you are.

And holy hell, does Colon bring more than heft. Have you even seen the game face, man? Cold. Blooded. (Only in a lovable way.)

[metsmarathon]

last year, bartolo colon produced about 2.5 WAR, per fangraphs. bbref has him at 1.0 WAR. the difference is htat fangraphs uses, I believe FIP whereas bbref uses RA9.

steamer projects him to be about 1.3 WAR this year, but that's in 124 innings or so. the going transactional price of a single WAR is currently $8M, meaning on the free agent market, you're spending about $8M to get back 1 WAR in production ($16M for 2 WAR, etc). by that metric, howevermuch validity you may assign it, bartolo is a value signing.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I don't see how $7 million is "piddling". It's a decent chunk of a $105 million payroll.

[Ceetar]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I don't see how $7 million is "piddling". It's a decent chunk of a $105 million payroll.

State of baseball these days.

I mean, that's like the 150th highest salary and from what I can tell it's in the bottom half of non-minimum guys. Chase Utley sucks and is getting 7. That's what a 5th starter costs these days.

[metsmarathon]

fangraphs' contract crowdsourcing exercise yielded an expected contract for bartolo colon of 1 year at $10M. so the mets are coming out ahead here.

but let me put it another way, to reframe the argument with different goalposts.

looking at next year's projection for colon, steamer via fangraphs has him projected to a 3.77 ERA, 3.89 FIP over 128 innings. a pitcher whose been bandied about this offseason as going to a bunch of potential suitors, not as a top of the rotation guy but as a solid mid-rotation piece, is mike leake.

both have mediocre strikeout numbers of 6ish k/9. colon actually strikes out more than leake. he also has way, way better control, walking half as many batters per 9.

but the comparison I'm driving towards here is that leake is projected to 2 WAR over 203 innings - the same rate as colon given the same number of innings. (colon is projected to have a better FIP 3.88 to 4.13, and a better ERA 3.77 to 4.13 than leake)

leake is being talked about as a 4 year, $15M kind of investment for some teams. and fangraphs crowdsourcing exercise had him at 5x$14M.

in colon, we would be looking at about the same production for half the cost, no long term commitment, the flexibility to put him willingly into the pen, the intangibles of his experience, and the entertainment of experiencing him.

$8M is a pretty good value for what we can expect to get from colon.

[Edgy MD]

Can also flip him mid-season if the staff becomes too much of a luxury and one of our key batsmen is concussed or something.

[RealityChuck]

Bartolo's contract may end up being more expensive than we think.

Te Mets' one-year deal with Bartolo Colon includes a few incentives, per Jon Heyman, the highlight of which is undoubtedly a $50,000 bonus if the 42-year-old wins a Silver Slugger award.

[ashie62]

Building quality depth for 7 million. Yeah!!