Keidel: Mets' Colon May Be The Best Value Signing In All Of Baseball
By Jason Keidel
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Not to brag, but...
Back in December, the Mets signed an aging, decaying, geriatric pitcher to round-out a glittering, young staff. With "round" being the operative word. He's a pitching Weeble, who wobbles but won't fall down. (A childhood reference that may elude Millennials.)
Yours truly lauded the one-year, $7.25 million deal as perhaps the most underrated signing of the offseason, in all of MLB. It didn't include the cash or cachet of Zack Greinke's contract. It didn't rock the halls or walls of bank vaults, like Stephen Strasburg's epic deal.
But it is the kind of deal that turns a team from a playoff contender to a World Series contender. He is the kind of guy every team needs -- the perfect confluence of timing and talent, of age, wage, and wisdom for a club loaded with fledgeling fireballers.
That would be Bartolo Colon, of course, who has been invaluable to the Mets. On a staff of young, fit, and gifted pretty boys who had their mail forwarded to billboards, hair salons and New York Sports Clubs, Colon looks like the round peg in a swath of square holes.
He's a the perfect pitcher because of his imperfections. The Mets took minimal risk and have received maximum reward.
So what's the portly pitcher done, other than hammer the buffet table between starts?
A lot.
Colon is 3-1 with a 2.82 ERA. Still defying Father Time, Colon still has a more than a few innings left in his rubber right arm, as evidenced by his 33 strikeouts in 38 1/3 innings. And his control is astonishing. In stark relief to his robust strikeout total, he has issued just four walks, for an over 4-to-1 ratio.
While the marque beams with movie stars with masculine monikers -- like Thor and the Dark Knight of Gotham -- Colon provides the one thing no one else on the staff can guarantee, stability.
While he no longer pops the radar gun, Colon still gobbles up innings. While the Mets are laughably rich with pitching talent, they have a conga line of Tommy John arms that could either snap at any moment or need an extra day or week of rest at a moment's notice. Enter Colon, who may not look like Michel Phelps, but is a sneaky-good athlete who, over the last five years, has made 26, 24, 30, 30, and 31 starts, respectively. His number of starts per season has actually increased since 2011.
Colon, who turns 43 in a fortnight, has not only defied logic and gravity, he has suddenly found lighting in his bat, clubbing his first career home run last week, making him the oldest pitcher in MLB history to swat his first round-tripper. Making it all the more endearing, his leisurely home-run trot could have been timed by a sundial. The blast was so suddenly popular, he literally short-circuited the printing apparatus at the Topps baseball card company.
MORE: WATCH: Gary Cohen's Unreal Call Of Home Run By Mets' Colon
MORE: Baseball Card Of Bartolo Colon's Home Run Breaks Sales Record
According to ESPN, Tops sold an all-time record 8,826 cards commemorating the event, between 11:30 a.m. Sunday and 11:30 a.m Monday. Topps literally could not keep up with the demand. The prior record was held by the card created for Jake Arrieta's no-hitter -- a paltry 1,808 cards.
That, as much as any inning he throws, is what makes Colon so popular and valuable. While we marvel at his deeds from 60 feet, 6 inches, his sudden surge in power -- Colon had just nine hits all last year and now bashes homers -- what Colon provides is relief, not just from the mound. The chubby, cherubic pitcher brings experience and levity to a team that could get tight during a pennant race.
You could argue Colon is the most underpaid and underrated pitcher in our pastime. He won't argue that. He's too busy having a blast.
Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel
