I hope they rolled over Schilling's weight clause bonuses. They'll never pay out now.

If none of the teams with gaping holes in the rotation were willing to pony up to sign him, it's hard to imagine he has much left.

Is it possible the Sox are generating a reputation within baseball for excellent rehab and shoulder maintenance programs such that a pitcher in Colon's position would be drawn to the organization?

Sox wanna make sure Curt looks svelte in spring training...

Is it possible the Sox are generating a reputation within baseball for excellent rehab and shoulder maintenance programs such that a pitcher in Colon's position would be drawn to the organization?

I reckon that's what influenced Schilling to return for 2008...

Presumably there's virtually no guaranteed money here, so I guess it's worth a shot in the dark. But really, given what he showed this winter and the speed at which teams who watched him try out ran the other way it's hard to think this has much chance of working out.

How likely is it that he's better today than Devern Hansack? Seems like at best a 20% chance to me. I almost wonder if this is really a shot in the dark for August, in case by some chance he's able to rehab his way back to a 94 MPH fastball, rather than for April, where he is nearly certain to be awful.

He'll be the guy who makes it out of ST based on "experience" and wil get 5 starts in the first 45 days or so when Schilling's shoulder is bothering him, or Beckett gets a blister, or Wakefield's back acts up. My fear is he'll be 3-0 in those starts and Tito will feel the need to shoehorn him into the rotation until the ASB at the expense of the younger pitchers.

Buster Olney said on ESPNews a little while ago that Colon and the Mets had deal worked out earlier this offseason, but Colon failed his physical. That was the first I heard of it, was I just not paying attention?

Is it possible the Sox are generating a reputation within baseball for excellent rehab and shoulder maintenance programs such that a pitcher in Colon's position would be drawn to the organization?

Have pitchers who rehabbed with the Sox been really successful in recent years? Matt Clement got hurt in 2006 and did make it back at all in 2007 but I am not familiar with the Sox system to say much more than that. Wade Miller didn't do that well either. Have their young starting prospects been especially healthy?

If they bring back Garces at the same time, they'll need a much bigger spread at the buffet...

Have their young starting prospects been especially healthy?

Publicly, it would mostly be based on the shoulder strngthening program and periodic monnitoring system set up to keep Papelbon healthy last year. A similar programn was used subsequently to shut down Buchholz as a pre-caution. Will Carroll in his last chat or maybe the health report referred to other things the Sox do that aren't as public, but probably get talked about amongst players and agents and whatnot.

There is not a long track record of success, but there appears to be a sentiment that the Sox are making progress in terms of keeping pitchers healthy.

Their minor league pitchers have been very healthy. One HS arm came up sore pretty much as soon as he signed and later had TJS, but there hasn't been many other injuries in the minors.

I don't know of any statistical evidence of pitchers' health, and I don't know that such a thing could be usefully compiled.

There have been several stories - this one about Papelbon, this one on Buchholz - that discuss or allude to the new system the Red Sox have developed for testing, strengthening, and resting pitchers' shoulders. Whether it will be effective is completely open, but it does appear to be legitimately new, different, and interesting.

I will say that it probably doesn't apply to Colon - for the most part, the Red Sox have been trying to keep healthy shoulders healthy, rather than trying to heal injured shoulders. It seems likely to me that the two are quite divergent problems.

I remember being very excited about Miller and he didn't turn out as much. But he was a good gamble for the price, and the same can be said for this minor-league deal. As pkb points out, though, there's plenty of reason to think he won't work out.

this is not a particularly smart flyer, in my opinion. even if he's healthy, it'll be interesting to see if his reputation as a hard-headed pitcher works well with varitek calling the game.

if he's in the mid-80s like he was the last 2 years he won't be back, unless he learns how to pitch with different stuff which doesn't seem likely.

Whether it will be effective is completely open, but it does appear to be legitimately new, different, and interesting.

Maybe they ought to clam up about it, in case it does work? Theo was discussing it on WEEI the other day--it can be heard in the audio archives.

if he's in the mid-80s like he was the last 2 years he won't be back, unless he learns how to pitch with different stuff which doesn't seem likely.

He was in the mid 80's, reportedly, in winter ball. When he was able to pitch this year he was generally in the 90's and sometimes in the upper 90's.

He was at his best in April.

The public talk of the Sox system seems to refer to shoulder injury prevention, does that tend to transfer over to recovery? I know last year there was some talk of Clement aiming for a September return, and his wish to pitch, but it was essentially a baseball decision above all else to keep him shelved. Does anyone know if he was healthy?

Wasn't Boston very close to getting Colon before? I seem to recall back on '02 or '03 the team being very close to acquiring him. Well at least the team didn't have to give up Grady Sizemore to get him. Hell, they didn't even have to give up Rocky Biddle.

Wasn't Boston very close to getting Colon before? I seem to recall back on '02 or '03 the team being very close to acquiring him. Well at least the team didn't have to give up Grady Sizemore to get him. Hell, they didn't even have to give up Rocky Biddle.


The rumor was Colon for Shea Hillenbrand and Casey Fossum. The Sox ended up getting Byung Hyun Kim for Shea Hillenbrand and used Casey Fossum to get Schilling so they would not have been able to get Schilling if they had made that trade.

I wonder how recent history is different if the Sox make that trade. They might have won the World Series considering how good Colon was with the White Sox in 2003 (242 IP, 119 ERA+). Colon probably signs an extension to stay with the Sox.

Why wasn't this tagged Boston or Red Sox?

I thought I was going nuts, but then I found the link that said he'd signed with the (White) Sox. Who does he think he is, Tommy Manville?

Why wasn't this tagged Boston or Red Sox?

or at least Pawtucket.

We could use a Pawtucket newsbeat.

Long ago there was another pitcher rehabbing a shoulder injury with Boston, by the name of Pedro Martinez. That seemed to work out OK for 2002-03.

The problem Boston seems to have had in the past few years is not in rehabbing pitchers from known injuries; rather, it's in correctly diagnosing the injury in the first place. By taking a flier on another team's player, they're getting a built-in second opinion (first opinion, really) from other diagnoses*. To the extent that they have a shoulder-rehab specialty, this might not be a bad move.


* I'm not sure, given he's a free agent, that Colon's medical records with other teams are available. But there's enough general medical info about his injury available in the media; I'm not sure how much detail they need beyond that for a second opinion.

The Red Sox method seems to involve objective strength testing (and perhaps also range of motion tsting), which is different from the subjective approach of whether (or how much) it hurts.

IIRC, Okajima was shut down at various points late in the season after the testing indicated he had a lot of arm fatigue. I suspect this happens more often than the public realizes. The Red Sox will internally designate a pitcher as "not available" because of a strength test but won't disclose this to the media or the opposition -- or to Game Chatter, causing the Chatterers to scream at Tito for the tactical blunder of not using the pitcher.

Colon's first bullpen session:

"For not being on the mound for three-and-a-half weeks, he threw the ball to both sides of the plate. He found the glove well," said Farrell, who supervised the session as manager Terry Francona and most of the Red Sox starters headed to Jupiter for an exhibition against the Marlins. "He got through his front side to allow him to really carry the fastball through the zone. I'd say there was a few pitches that approached 90 (mph)."

So, speed is out, but location is good.

Farrell said Colon has thus far exceeded expectations, commending the burly pitcher's strength and stamina in what was his first time on a mound since pitching in the Caribbean Series on Feb. 6.

"In terms of pure arm strength, he's in a very good place," Farrell said. "It's a matter of repetition. Once we get into the up-down of the innings simulation and really getting into games, that will be a very clear indication of where he's at as far as season readiness."

Translation: "Hey, this could work! But it's early."

Colon, who signed a one-year deal on Feb. 25 that could be worth up to $7 million,

I guess I missed the details on the contract on the first go-around. I knew it was an incentive-laden minor-league deal, but had no idea of the max value. I also read somewhere else that he can opt out of the contract if he's not on the MLB roster by May 1, but I'm not sure if that matters.

OK, to sum up from above... It's early, but he seems to have command of his pitches. Velocity is about where it was observed (mid- to high-80s) in winter league.

That last part may or may not be a problem. As with any changeup he needs to have enough separation in velocity from his fastball for it to work. Same, I suppose, goes for his slider. If he doesn't get that separation, it'll be easier for hitters to sit on the fastball. Control is great, but he needs more than that.

I'm starting to see the upside on this as the Bret Saberhagen Reclamation Project, with ERA+ wavering between 70 and 170 from a pitcher who gets by on control rather than velocity and has a spotty health record. To get that from Colon would be good and bad - good in that I wouldn't have expected Colon to have that kind of upside, but bad in that he'd take up a roster spot from someone who might be able to do better.

if he ends up making 7m dollars, the Sox are back in the playoffs with a lot of room to spare.

More info on Boston's approaches to pitchers' shoulders/health in this Globe article on Okajima:

"But when you are coming [from Japan], sometimes the training methods are different. Sometimes there can be adverse effects from that. We tend to pay attention here to shoulder strength and flexibility. Their philosophy is to throw more.

"We have to intertwine those philosophies and make it work."

While Okajima already has expressed a willingness to abandon the workout regimen that made him a star in Japan, that is not what the Sox have in mind. They recognize the value of certain patterns their reliever has developed throughout his career and would prefer he maintain the rituals that are most comfortable. They also have examined which of their own traditional approaches to pitching can be altered to maximize Okajima's ability and health.

"We want Okie to throw a lot of innings," Francona said. "We're going to try not to burn those innings in the bullpen by having him get up, then sit him down, then have him get up again. That means sometimes he might have to go in when he's not ready to pitch."

OK, so there's not much meat there, but I bolded the part that caught my eye.

There's a lot of ways to take this quote. One is what I've suspected for a long time: for health reasons, the team takes the act of warming up into account when they consider a pitcher's availability. (It's not often considered in Game Chatter, from what I remember...) Another way to take it - and I think this is clearer - is that they are (or will be in Okajima's case) hesitant to warm someone up, preferring to have someone come into the game on a short warmup than to have them warm up unnecessarily.

This kind of thing intrigues me. If they're going to do shorter warmups, will they lose any effectiveness? Will being less loose in a game situation produce more (or different) injuries than the ones prevented? Given how many relievers are brought in to start an inning, how big of an impact will this have?

There are secondary impacts as well. If they can increase availability by better managing warmups, can they carry fewer relievers? If so, what's the best use of the additional roster spot(s)? And who do they cut?