Edwar Colina Claimed by Rangers

[Seth Stohs]

John Blake, from the Rangers Communications staff, tweeted moments ago that Texas had claimed RHP Edwar Colina. 

Not sure I understand this. Obviously he's coming off of surgery for bone spurs. We haven't seen him throw or how his recovery is. But dude throws 100 and has a terrific slider... He's been on the 60-Day IL all year.

As you can see from my tweet... I don't get it. 

[Squirrel]

sheeesh ... blecht

[ashbury]

When Texas puts Colina on waivers a few days from now, I hope the Twins take him right back!

[chpettit19]

I've been about as big of a supporter of this FO as you'll find on these boards, but this is an awful start to the offseason and I feel like I'm going to end up joining the ranks of the very upset fans by the end of the winter. I don't get this at all. They have SO MANY AAAA relievers on the 40 man and they waive the kid who throws 100 with a nasty slider? Don't see the reasoning at all. Feels like they're going to try to thread the needle and really contend in 2022 and end up losing a handful of young guys and tank the future along with the present. Not a fan of this move at all.

[Rosterman]

Depending on the timeline for Colina to pitch, he was still a considerable talent that had trade possibilities. Yes, don't quite get this, unless the chances are that he will start (and stay on) the injured list for a good portion of next season.

 

In that case, the Twins had to take the chance of running him thru waivers, although I'm not sure why they didn't make that decision closer to when all teams are setting their 40-man rosters and the chances for a wildcat claim like this would lessen. Chances are Texas will also try and run him thru waivers at some point, to plant him on a minor league roster.

 

Dobnak should just be run thru and assigned to the minors. The Twins need to put Maeda, Rogers, Kirilloff - probably removing Gibault and Maggi for sure. And Garlick won't be kept.

 

What to do with Smeltzer, Thorpe and Stashak. Do they reaalce three current names, or wander into waiver wire land.

[Squirrel]

I mean, if they thought somehow they could sneak him through ... HUH???? I don't get it.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I really don't understand this but I'll reserve judgment until a larger plan begins to emerge after multiple moves.

If this is the front office trying to be too cute by half on "sneaking" people through waivers or the Rule V... *groans*

Just stop already.

[Sielk]

I am as stunned as everyone else. I have been rather forgiving of all the mistakes this FO has made this year, but this...

The likes of Nick Vincent and Kyle Barraclough are still on this roster. The FO can't seriously believe they're better than Colina?

The only explanation I can come up with and that even remotely makes sense to me is Colina's injury being much worse than previously believed. So bad that the Twins don't think he can ever be an effective Major League pitcher again. 

But if they still believed in him and just wanted to sneak him off the roster, this move is a major blunder. 

[stringer bell]

I think we do tend to overrate Twins'  prospects, but this is a head-scratcher. 

I also believe this says something about 40-man roster decisions happening in the offseason. There is a lot of cutting to be done, by my count there were 40 on the 40-man plus nine on the 60-day IL and the only certain free agents are Pineda and Simmons. If they want to protect five minor leaguers and leave space to sign some free agents, there are a lot of cuts to be made. Some are easy--Albers, Maggi, Refsnyder, probably Charlie Barnes--but others were or have the potential to be pretty good and I'll put Colina in that category.

[DJL44]

Colina was the only pitching prospect who signed as an international free agent. Now they have none.

[gunnarthor]

I thought, since he was on the 60 day IL, we could just keep him there until ST. Maybe I was wrong. I dunno. Colina isn't going to make or break anything but the FO has made enough head scratching moves that this could be another of them. Still, he's 25 with serious history of arm injuries. I don't like this FO but I'll reserve judgment for now.

[DocBauer]

Absolutely dumbfounded! 

They either truly believe his arm is damaged and his career is in jeopardy, or, they just tried to out-cute everyone by sneaking him through.

If it's the latter, JUST STOP. You need to be smart, not cute.

[Brock Beauchamp]

3 minutes ago, gunnarthor said:

I thought, since he was on the 60 day IL, we could just keep him there until ST. Maybe I was wrong. I dunno. Colina isn't going to make or break anything but the FO has made enough head scratching moves that this could be another of them. Still, he's 25 with serious history of arm injuries. I don't like this FO but I'll reserve judgment for now.

The 60 day IL goes away when the off-season begins and doesn’t come back until spring training. 

[KirbyDome89]

14 minutes ago, DocBauer said:

They either truly believe his arm is damaged and his career is in jeopardy, or, they just tried to out-cute everyone by sneaking him through.

They'd have to be absolutely certain of the former. I don't know why they couldn't clear a 40 man spot at the end of the month and wait until the offseason is in swing to actually make this decision. Hopefully it's a sign there's massive change coming via FA & trades and a lot of space needs to be available....

[wabene]

As others have said I'm scratching my head. The thing about the 40 man is when there is so much AAAA chaff the timing of dumping a kid with upside.... Ugh. Why now?

[lecroy24fan]

He had a second surgery recently so it makes more sense now to me.

 

 

[RonCoomersOPS]

This is a risky call, to a degree. Not sure I would have waived him, but maybe they saw something in his recovery that doesn't bode well for the future. Or, maybe they're biased toward pitchers who are 6 feet-plus or something.

 

I guess all we can do at this point is hope he doesn't put it together for someone else, especially if that someone is a division rival.

[Sousy]

Just now, RonCoomersOPS said:

I guess all we can do at this point is hope he doesn't put it together for someone else, especially if that someone is a division rival.

We can hope that he can find his way back to  baseball - if he had a second surgery months after the second that sure doesn’t sound positive.

[tony&rodney]

Falvey sounds pretty sure of himself, like Jim Pohlad just sent an "ok" for a $175 million budget. 

[wabene]

1 hour ago, tony&rodney said:

Falvey sounds pretty sure of himself, like Jim Pohlad just sent an "ok" for a $175 million budget. 

Miracle Mile Miracle Schmile, let's go baby!

[Five minute major]

Another aweful move by this FO regarding the 40 man.    What is up with the ineptness of the GM's of all our pro sports teams here.

 

[Rosterman]

Where the only positive is, it frees up an off-season 40-man roster space.

 

The possible reality is that he will remain inactive for a good portion of 2022, using up another 40-man seasons. He would definitely need time in the minors.

 

Even if he gets a cup of coffee, he might not be fully available until 2023. By then, you have carried him for yet, another season, on the 40-man. And if you take him off, he would be a free agent.

 

The same might be said for players like Thorpe, Smeltzer, Stashak. How much of a gamble would any team take on keeping hem on a 40-man. Every team will have prospects to remove. The Rangers actually had to drop a player to add the injured Colina to their own 40-man, so they did take a hit there.

 

How many players can a team protect, especially if those players won't be a major apt of the team in 2022. That is always the question. And rebuilding teams are sitting there on the sidelines looking for such a player to grab!

 

But I would've waited until later, closer to November when all teams are finalizing their rosters.

[HerbieFan]

6 hours ago, Seth Stohs said:

John Blake, from the Rangers Communications staff, tweeted moments ago that Texas had claimed RHP Edwar Colina. 

Not sure I understand this. Obviously he's coming off of surgery for bone spurs. We haven't seen him throw or how his recovery is. But dude throws 100 and has a terrific slider... He's been on the 60-Day IL all year.

As you can see from my tweet... I don't get it. 

Achhhh...who needs relievers that can throw 100 mph...:)

 

[Danchat]

It depends on what exactly the surgery is having is... but on the surface it is a disappointing bit of news. I still had hopes for Colina, but if he's going down the Nick Burdi path, well, it makes sense to get him off the 40 man roster.

Is this going to be the fate for some of our other pitching prospects, being injured so often that they never make it up with us? Ugh. I unfortunately can envision this with some of other other talented arms.

Also, the timing of the move is odd, I thought teams didn't start DFA'ing guys until the World Series was over... so are we going to see the chaff of the roster get DFA'd now or later? 

[D.C Twins]

7 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I really don't understand this but I'll reserve judgment until a larger plan begins to emerge after multiple moves.

If this is the front office trying to be too cute by half on "sneaking" people through waivers or the Rule V... *groans*

Just stop already.

I'm not sure what larger plan is going to involve us not losing Colina, but still having...oh I don't have the time or energy to list them all (but I will say that I am winking at you first Thorpe).

The FO has something running down it's leg.... and it smells baaaad!

[DocBauer]

I am going to reserve future judgment on this for now after more information and listening to the Falvey interview. 

This STINKS for Colina AND for the Twins. This kid has future BP piece written all over him and probably would have been a fixture the second half of 2021 if healthy. And I don't want to be dismissive of lost opportunity, but I have to say now, with more information, with many moves that have to be made, protection, FA signings and the such, a second surgery really clouds Colina's future. I really hate to say it, because it really sucks big time, but the FO may actually be right on this one, despite my initial chagrin. It's very unfortunate, but I'm not sure you can protect an arm that may be a half a year to another year away when you have so many other moves to be made. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

6 hours ago, D.C Twins said:

I'm not sure what larger plan is going to involve us not losing Colina, but still having...oh I don't have the time or energy to list them all (but I will say that I am winking at you first Thorpe).

The FO has something running down it's leg.... and it smells baaaad!

Well, if Colina doesn’t pitch in 2022, that’s a reason.

Or if the front office dumps almost everyone and remakes the roster, that’s another.

I don’t like or understand the move from where I’m sitting but remember two words before implying the front office is stupid, incompetent, or somehow deficient:

Nick Burdi.

[prouster]

Colina has pitched a third of an innings over the last two years. He has a history of pretty high walk rates and only one year of above average strikeout numbers in the minors. There’s some upside, but I won’t lose any sleep over this. 

[Dman]

I always liked Colina's potential but that is what it always was just potential.  His fastball was hard but always came in pretty straight and he also had trouble controlling it.  His MLB debut although only .1 inning (SSS Alert) appeared to indicate his stuff in its current form wouldn't play at the MLB level.   Obviously some tweaks can change that but he didn't have the look of an elite arm to me.

It is unfortunate he was hurt this year and we never got to see if he could turn the corner or not.  I kind of feel he is a bit Graterol like with the straight 100 MPH fastball that can be hit and maybe not getting quite the results you might hope.  Factor in the arm injury history and it makes things even more murky.

I think this comes down to 40 man space and protecting some players with better long term potential.  We saw this year how small the 40 man can feel when you have guys on it that cannot help at the MLB level they are dead weight on there.  I am looking at Duran, Balazovich, Colina, and Chalmers who was on there for a while until he wasn't. That was 4 guys effectively turning the 40 man into a 36 man.  If Ober hadn't made it it would have been a 35 man.  There just isn't a ton of room for wasted space on there so guys that get added need to be close to ready and be able to contribute or it hurts the teams ability to maneuver without losing players in the process.

If we could reasonably keep Colina without having him on the 40 man I would be all for it. His plus to plus plus slider with his 100 mph fastball makes him a virtual shoe in for the bullpen at some point it seems like just a matter of time.  The only thing that could hold him back is if his arm fails him.

If this FO is going to take a risk on a player they seem to be willing to sacrifice relievers as losing those types of players seems to hurt less.  I take it this is the same calculated risk to open up 40 man space.

 

[jmlease1]

I'm not thrilled about this either because I'm not sure why this is the time to try and slip someone through waivers? But it sure sounds like the Twins don't think he's going to be pitching much if at all in 2022 either, and if that's the case...how much does this matter? the velocity is fantastic, but it hasn't translated to results very well for him and he's been injured/not playing for quite a while.

But this may be an indicator for how some teams are going to play their fringe 40-man this off-season: they'll take flyers on guys with no track record, lengthy injury issues rather than carry a veteran at a higher price. If that's the case, the FA market might be very slow to get moving indeed, and there could be a lot of guys on the carousel. Could we be getting an early indicator that there's going to be a glut of veterans dropped from a team's 40-man who are: middle relievers, 4th-5th OF types, 1B/DH guys, and utility INF?

Hmmm...