Reliever Colon called up | Braves | ajc.com
Tim Drew has a “strained calf muscle”. I could have sworn it was a strained neck from watching all the hits he gave up Tuesday, but anyway he’s on the DL now. (Maybe the Braves have figured out a way to transfer all the injury problems to the less important brother.) Roman “Not Ramon” Colon has been called up. His line from AAA:
W-L SV ERA G GS IP H R ER BB IB SO HR
4- 1 0 3.65 51 0 74.0 72 33 30 22 1 64 4
I doubt he’s very long for Atlanta, and likely he’ll be sent back down on Aug. 31 when the Braves are setting up who will be eligible for the postseason roster.
Colon was notified of his callup (which happened before last night’s game) by none other than Matt Whiteside. I hope Colon didn’t catch anything from him.
This is telling me that management has too much confidence in Alfonseca/Gryboski/Martin. I’d have rather found out if Cappy and Meyer have the stuff to make a difference on this team than continue to rely on the inconsistencies of these guys.
Yeah…where’s Jose?
I would guess that the Braves don’t want to start Capellan’s service clock early just to see him sit in the pen to take on Drew’s #2 mopup man role. What I want to know is why we need two mopup men!
Also, the Braves might want to give him a couple more starts. They’d LIKE for Capellan to be a starter, long-term, and not pigeon-hole him in a relief role just yet. That’s probably where he’ll wind up is my guess, but we’ll see. There’s a good chance he’ll be called up in September, and if he does well the Braves will finagle him onto the postseason roster via the DL cheat.
Does the DL cheat effect service time? If not, then that does make sense.
I don’t know if it does or not, but I don’t think so. I’ve never heard of anyone who’s been added to the playoff roster with no major league experience, though — even K-Rod had thrown 5 2/3 innings on the major league level before the 2002 playoffs. I expect that the union would have something to say about it if anyone tried.
The big reason to avoid starting the service time clock now is arbitration eligibility. As I understand the rules, a two player with two years of service time plus one day would be arb-eligible. He wouldn’t get to free agency any faster, but it might cost the team millions over the four arbitration years. I think it would be worth the gamble.