Life In The Cell

A Solution? It May Be A Start.

It’s no secret that the White Sox’ starting pitching is a question mark. Much of the talk regarding trading Joe Crede has centered on the question of whether the Sox can get a starter in return. As we mentioned recently, Baseball Prospectus’s PECOTA projections foresee serious starting pitching woes for this club.

Well, Tuesday the story broke that the Sox had added a potential answer to this most pressing problem (boy, am I burying my lede here). Impacto Deportive reports that the Sox have signed Bartolo Colon, pending a physical. But wait, have they? Ozzie Guillen told Mark Gonzalez of the Chicago Tribune today that he hadn’t spoken with Colon in weeks, and that nothing is imminent.

The word is that Impacto Deportivo has a history of being right when it breaks news, but that it also has a history of being a little premature. So, my guess is that Colon does end up in a Sox uniform sometime during Spring Training.

All of which brings us to the real question: is Colon an answer to the Sox’ questions in the rotation? PECOTA projects a .500 record with an ERA in the 4.77 range for the BIG guy, with just under 100 innings of work. That’s not great. On the other hand, it’s better than they project for Jose Contreras, John Danks, Gavin Floyd, Lance Broadway, or any other Sox starter not named Buehrle or Vazquez. In fact, other than durability, it’s about as much as they expect from Mark Buehrle, too. And, as a gamble, Colon offers a pretty high, top-end return. Assuming the team is minimizing its risk by signing Colon to a short, incentive-laden deal, this seems like the kind of chance the team needs to take to maintain any hope that their pitching doesn’t sink their playoff chances sometime this season.