First Manny Machado signed a record $300 million free agent contract. Then Bryce Harper signed an even bigger $330 million free agent contract. Two weeks after Harper, the Los Angeles Angels set the bar a full $100M higher than Harper’s standard when they extended superstar Mike Trout with an eye-popping 12 year, $430 million total value deal.
You’d almost think it couldn’t go any higher.
Except there’s still an even bigger fish on the market.
Surprisingly, Bartolo Colon, the ageless superstar pitcher known as “Big Sexy”, has yet to sign a deal for 2019.
Teams report that Colon’s contract requests have moved slightly higher throughout the offseason. His current asking price is 3 years for $450 million, up from $340 million just a week ago.
A $450 million dollar deal would establish yet another MLB record for total contract value.
“This man has that certain something, that star quality that you can’t just find laying around anywhere,” said Jon Daniels, President of the Texas Rangers club where Colon spent the past 2 seasons. “He’s worth every penny of the asking price. Unfortunately, his value has eclipsed our market.”
Colon is 45 years young and a 21 season veteran. He has accumulated 247 pitching wins, most among active pitchers. He had a down year with the Rangers in 2018, but his ability to win games is barely a blip on the radar these days.
“His popularity is enormous right now. Let’s face it, because of the limitations of playing on the West Coast with a mediocre Angels team, even Mike Trout doesn’t have the drawing power of Big Sexy,” said Daniels. “So, Colon isn’t asking for anything he isn’t worth at this stage of his career.”
Speaking through a translator, Colon told The Brown Valley Observer that he doesn’t feel like he has more than three seasons left in his arm and as few as five seasons left in his belly, but that he feels that should be enough to get a comparable deal to Trout’s total considering his uncanny ability to draw fans both at home and on the road.
“It’s true about his drawing ability,” says Sandy Alderson, the former general manager of a New York Mets team that Colon called home for 3 seasons. “The seats would fill with fawning women whenever he pitched. I’d get reports of the staff having to hose down entire sections of the bleachers nights after Big Sexy pitched. And his merchandise practically grew wings and just flew out of the stadium.”
Alderson, now with the Oakland A’s, says he wishes that the Oakland club wasn’t so financially strapped, otherwise they’d take a flyer on Colon.
“He’s big. He’s sexy. And he’s going to get paid,” said Alderson.
Brown Valley Observer 