Oakland Athletics sign former New York Yankees starting pitcher Bartolo Colon
The Oakland Athletics have continued their surge towards strengthening their current 40-man roster as they recently added free agent and former New York Yankees' ace starter Bartolo Colon to a one year deal.
Athletics' general manager Billy Beane said, "We are pursuing some veteran free agents to help out the young guys we’ve traded for. And we’ve got a few other things going on."
As soon as he commented in the media, the entire baseball world started speculating about the future of the Athletics. Earlier, when Beane commented in the media at the annual winter meeting, nobody gave much attention towards that particular statement of bringing some young players in for 2012.
Certainly those reporters were right who initially thought the Athletics are here playing mind games as actually they are after some experienced players for strengthening their bullpen.
Coming on to Colon’s contract, he is being given $2 million after a complete physical but any official confirmation is yet to come in the media.
Last year, playing with the New York Yankees, Colon went 4.00 ERA along with 8-10 win-loss, 135 strike-outs and 1.29 WHIP. Though, he performed relatively well last season, but after the Yankees' management denied re-signing him, he filed for free agency and made a one year deal with the Athletics.
Plenty of teams including the Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres, San, Francisco Giants, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Minnesota Twins, Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays have also offered him a potential contract but somehow he ended up in the Athletics roster.
Colon’s agent had also meetings with several teams to get him a long contract but no team gave any lengthy offer to his client as Colon was later convinced to come in the Athletics franchise on a shorter one year contract.
Expert say, Colon’s arrival in the Athletics roster will certainly boost their winning chances next season. It will be interesting to see how Colon will be using his huge experience with the Oakland Athletics.
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