Rangers release, re-sign Bartolo Colon

UPDATE (Monday): Texas announced that Colon has been re-signed on a new minor-league deal. The move was likely made to avoid paying a $100k retention bonus.

Texas also re-signed Trevor Plouffe to a minor-league deal.
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ORIGINAL: Sad news has swept across the baseballsphere today with the news that the Rangers have released Bartolo Colon from his minor-league contract in lieu of offering him a $1.75M major league contract, reports Evan P. Grant of Sports Day.

The 20-year veteran was having a solid spring training, throwing for a 3.00 ERA over 18 innings pitched with 10 strikeouts. Not bad numbers for a 45-year old.

With the Giants now down both Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzija, Colon could be a solid cheap, short term signing. The Mets could also reunited with their former pitcher, with Rafael Montero and Jason Vargas going down before the season begins. And with that good ol’ Mets luck, they’ll need all the pitching depth they can get.

The Rangers are already running a skeleton crew rotation. While Martin Perez looks healthy and ready to go for the season, Clayton Blackburn and Ronald Herrera will still miss the begging of the season. So who does that leave in way of starters? Yohander Mendez, Jesse Chavez and Austin Bibens-Dirkx are left for the grunt work.

Let’s not cry for Bartolo just yet. It appears Texas has been in contact with Colon about a variety of situations that land him back on the team, and in some cases, the Opening Day roster. It’s unclear what either side is leaning more towards, but one scenario could be a slight renegotiating of the amount of Colon’s base salary and instead providing more incentives.

Now the question remains: Who will bring (Big) Sexy back? (I’ll see myself out).