The story hasn’t changed for 47-year-old hurler Bartolo Colon. Though he hasn’t pitched in the Majors since 2018, he desires to return and finish his career with the Mets, tweets MLB Insider Héctor Gómez. Colon felt the same way last May, however. It’s hard to imagine that his chances of suiting up again in New York have increased since then. A veteran of 21 seasons, the hugely-popular Colon turns 48-years-old in May. “Big Sexy” last appeared in the Majors with 146 1/3 innings for the Rangers in 2018. He posted a 5.78 ERA/5.47 FIP with 5.0 K/9 and 1.5 BB/9 that season. With that, let’s check on the latest updates from minor league baseball…
- The Fresno Grizzlies are facing a tough decision: accept relegation from Triple-A to Single-A, or leave the Major League system entirely, according to J.J. Cooper of Baseball America. News of MLB’s ultimatum to the Grizzlies first came from Brianna Calix of the Fresno Bee, who obtained a letter emailed from deputy commissioner and chief legal officer for MLB Daniel R. Halem to high-ranking government officials in Fresno. In the letter, per Calix, Halem writes: “Because communications with the (Fresno) Grizzlies and City of Fresno have indicated they have no interest in operating a Single-A affiliate, we do not currently intend to offer any affiliation to the Grizzlies or Fresno.”
- The Grizzlies remain committed in their stance to stay in Triple-A. The difference in league amounts to more home games, a higher profile, and likely more revenue. Fresno Mayor Lee Brand and Mayor-elect Jerry Dyer issued a statement in response to MLB, posted here on Twitter by Marek Warszawski of the Fresno Bee. It’s certainly easy to understand their desire to remain in Triple-A, but for MLB’s part, they’re trying to execute a restructuring plan that they think will bring more revenue to the game overall.
- For a reminder on how the Grizzlies and other clubs got to this point, Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper walks through the timeline of negotiations between MLB and MiLB from December of 2018 to the present day. Cooper includes the latest development from last week when he reported on the changing dynamics for clubhouse managers.
Big sexy
I mean, how much worse can Colon be than Matz, Gsellmen and Wacha were last year?
Excellent point ! Also, Sandy is waxing nostalgic, keeping Tebow, why not sign him ? Colon throws a game or two and is great, yay ! If he’s not, pull and Ichiro and have him retire to a packed Citi house. It would be the classy thing to do. It also an honor, Colon has pitched for 100 teams, but wants to retire a Met.
Packed, yeah…
Amen brotha. I’d take big sexy as our #5 over any of those 3. Matz and Gsellman need minor league stints, they’ve completely lost it.
could the MiLB do what they used to do and have unaffiliated teams playing against affiliated teams within the same minors level? i dont know if that offers any benefit to the MLB, but i find it a neat idea.
There’s not enough cash flow for that at this time.
Colon for dh
Queens needs some Big Sexy in their lives. I think Mets’ fans would love Cohen even more if he was bringing sexy back. Make it happen! LGM
Why not? As Sandy recently said, baseball is entertainment and Bartolo was a great entertainer.
Moans and groans for Big Sexy
The ballpark in Fresno is really nice. It’s a AAA facility.
Sucks to see minor league baseball, which cultivates so many fans, getting decimated.
At least give him a non-roster invite to camp (along with Tebow). At worst, it becomes a money making side show.
That is all Colon would be at this point….a side show….at 48 he does not have the stuff to compete at the mlb level, but neither did Clemens or even Nolan Ryan…..
Towards the end of his career, Steve Carlton played a couple of seasons longer than he should have and got hammered in outing after outing until he was finally forced to retire. Years later, he admitted that he did it strictly for the money.
He got ripped off by an advisor.
@DrDan
Thats a clown comment bro.
What? You cant compare Colon with Ryan. Ryan was pitching lights out up until what was going to be his very last start against Seattle when he was injured.
Neither Ryan nor Clemens pitched at age 48 so your point is moot.
And if clemens did, he would have had “help” pitching too
Poolerh – That is my point
If Tebow is still with the organization out of goodwill, I’d say let Big Sexy train with the team in ST. If it doesn’t likely work out, give him a contract for a day and pitch to one batter and retire.
Obviously this depends on what happens with attendance, but they could definitely build a promotional night around bringing Colon back for one game.
Kirk – a one night promotion sounds nice, but I would only want to bring him in if they were trailing by a lot. Better yet, I hope he plays for someone else’s team…..(all 30 teams making that saying that).
Oh no, I definitely don’t think he should be brought back to pitch meaningful baseball. What I’m thinking is along the lines of what lowereastsider said.
Cohen says he’s open to bringing back Old Timers’ Day so Colon should be in uniform there at least. If not in ’21 then ’22.
That’s a pretty good idea, Mariners did something like that with Griffey no?
I love Colon. He’s one of my favorite players in the game. He’s also older than I am, which allows me to cling to the illusion that maybe someone somewhere will give me a shot.
Hope you’ve been working on your knuckleball.
If I tried to throw my slider today I’d probably break my arm.
Bring Colon in for Spring Training and see what’s left. In this baseball financial climate the Mets have little or nothing to lose.
Though many are upset, I can only see the “reimagining” of MiLB as a potential boon for independent league baseball of which many teams are based in the far, large suburbs of metro areas who’s residents would love to see quality baseball at a cheaper price without traversing an hour to what many times are unsafe environs.
I follow EVERY game from my favorite MLB team, but I would rather GO to AAA games as the drive is far closer, the cost is far less, and I enjoy seeing many future mlb players.
Big Sloppi really misses that locker room spread…
They should give him an invite. Who knows? Could be an inning eater.
Now that I’ve gotten my Bartolo Colon news, it’s all downhill from here today.
Let every team carry Colon as the 26th man on the roster and let him make one start for each team
One of the only true unifying ideas on MLBTR: we all frickin love some Bartolo, man. (remember his behind the back throw to first?)
C’mon Mets. Don’t get cheap. Sign the dude.
My dog is named after the guy so I might be partial, but at least invite Bartolo to spring training.
Sad and ridiculous! The Fresno Grizzlies have one of the nicest AAA stadiums out there with amazing views and truly deserving of a AAA team. The whole minor league system setup where teams change venues so often isn’t fair to fans or cities and then the fact that cities can build nice, expensive stadiums and the league just decides no one will call it home just screws cities.
The problem doesnt lay at the feet of MLB or MiLB. Teams dont want to affiliate with Fresno. The west coast teams have long standing agreements in place already… and why should a team on the other side of the country be forced to put a team in Fresno?
“hugely-popular” and “48-years-old” don’t need to be hyphenated in their respective contexts in the article.
It’s crazy to think that Las Vegas would of absolutely been the first on the list to lose AAA affiliation if they didn’t build Las Vegas ballpark because Cashman Field which was built in 1983 was an absolute dump.
It would be great if the Dodgers vacated Oklahoma City and Tulsa and moved their Triple A team to Fresno and their Double A team to Bakersfield, and then kept them in place for good. Much, much closer to Los Angeles, plus the Frisco fans would hate the Fresno team being affiliated with the Dodgers. It’s a win-win!
Besides, us rotten Californians need to look out more for ourselves like so many other states seem to do. After all, we only provide the Federal Government with many more millions of tax dollars each year than do those other nice states, you know, the ones with residents who like to try to tear us down at every opportunity…
don’t try using logic with the trumpturds here, they still think they bail out you guys (and that covid isn’t killing them off at a rate of 20-1 over godless liberals).
At least now we know mfm really stands for motherf#$&ing moron…
no baseball pun intended here, but this was out of left field.
Except one of the minority owners of the Dodgers owns OKC so definitely not gonna happen
The rest of the country is blessed to have you
Huh? I guess by Frisco; you mean San Francisco. Why would the Giants care? They left Fresno years ago. Fresno not exactly an exciting place. It is more Southern California anyway.
I’m confident that Colon would fare better than Matz, Wacha or Porcello. Let him eat innings. Keep him on a short leash. He’s been the most beloved player since Wright. At least let him retire a Met. Make a night of it. Hardly anyone wants to retire a Met anymore.
it has to say something about the Mets that Colon wants to retire with them. he played with several other teams prior, yet it’s the Mets he wants to retire with. had to have had a good experience to want to retire with a team he played for for a few years in the middle of his career.
Keeps him centrally located between his main family and side family…
Colon is the last (semi)active remnant of the Montreal Expos. The franchise officially dies when he retires so lets let him have one more run
Oh boy, Colon and runs, there goes my breakfast…