According to Jerry Crasnick at ESPN.com, the Red Sox and Bartolo Colon have a preliminary agreement on a minor league deal.
Colon spent most of 2007 with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim injured and didn’t exactly have his typical numbers. He was 6-8 with 6.43 ERA with 76 strikeouts in 19 games.
If Colon can stay healthy, he will provide the Red Sox with some insurance due to Curt Schilling’s lingering shoulder issues that have him sidelined for the first part of the season. I’d highly expect the Red Sox to give Colon a chance to make the team out of spring training.
So now it will probably be a 4-man battle royale for the 5th spot in the Sox rotation with Clay Buchholz, Julian Tavarez and Kyle Synder also vying for the opportunity to break camp with the boys from Beantown.
Maybe Colon will return to his 2005 Cy Young form with the Red Sox.
I think this is a good move for them. They havent been afraid to carry a lot of pitchers in the past so maybe they’ll go north with more pitching to start the year.
It doesn’t sound like they gave Colon much of anything. Who is this guys agent? according to some of the stuff I found online he turned down $8 mil from I believe the White Sox in January.
also any idea why Colon over say Freddy Garcia? A lot of the stuff I read about Colon was that Philly went for Benson over Colon because there was a large difference in medical reports between the two.
This is what they gave Colon.
Either way it’s not a bad thing. You can never have enough pitching.
he must feel stupid turning down $8 mil.
Sox still wont confirm the deal. According to the Globe they’re really checking him out medically.
He also missed his flight last night and wont be in Ft Myers until later today for his physical.
as of 12:15p or so the Sox confirmed/admitted that they signed Colon.