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July 22, 2015Heading into this week’s mini two-game series in Milwaukee, the Cleveland Indians hadn’t beaten the Brewers since June 13, 2001—a Wednesday matinee at Jacobs Field featuring a strong start from the Tribe’s then-28-year-old ace, Bartolo Colon. In retrospect, that moment in time—the summer of ’01—could be seen as a critical pivot point in the recent history of the Indians franchise.
Despite the preseason departure of Manny Ramirez to Boston and the impending free agency of Jim Thome, Cleveland was still a strong contender with an energized fan base (36,000 attended that relatively meaningless mid-week game against the Brew Crew) and a promising bridge to the future—personified by the bridge-sized 20-year-old rookie phenom CC Sabathia. Together, the hard-throwing Colon and Sabathia were the multi-chinned faces of a franchise in flux. Eventually, they’d become widely and probably unfairly associated with its undoing.
Still pitching at 42, Bartolo Colon has collected 213 wins across a rollercoaster 18-year career. CC Sabathia, remarkably, sits just a single W behind him at 212 (among active pitchers, only Tim Hudson, 219, has more). Since their paths first diverged following Bartolo’s now legendary trade to Montreal in 2002, the two burly hurlers have each won a Cy Young Award, appeared in multiple All-Star Games (six for Sabathia, three for Colon), fended off lazy criticisms of their weight (like the ones in this article), and—more recently—been faced with the harsh realities of their own diminishing abilities.
For Colon, the second oldest player in the majors, this decline is admittedly way overdue. But after a few insanely resurgent seasons in his 40s—apparently fueled by substances far more powerful than sugar and gluten—the crafty Dominican may finally be on his farewell tour. As the veteran leader of an otherwise youthful Mets rotation, Bart did get off to another great start in April, going 5-1 with a 2.90 ERA. Since then, though, his carriage has turned back into a pumpkin, which he then presumably ate. He’s 4-7 with a 6.00 ERA since early May.
By comparison, Sabathia has been consistently bad from the get-go in 2015, and is now three years removed from his last +1 WAR season. As it stands, the Yankees are on the hook to pay Sabathia (who just turned 35 on Tuesday) $23 million this year and $25 million in 2016—an outrageous price tag for a southpaw junk-baller who’s currently 4-8 with a 5.25 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, and 19 home runs allowed across 18 starts. One of the few bright spots (and perhaps a hint at how the Yanks may come to use him) is CC’s continued dominance against lefties, who are only hitting .189 against him. Unfortunately, baseball’s ever pesky right-handed types are slashing at a .330/.367/.553 clip off the big man.
While the Yankees try to figure out Sabathia’s future, Colon continues to brush off any thoughts of retirement, telling USA TODAY just this week that he plans to keep pitching “until someone comes and takes the uniform off me”—essentially paraphrasing Jim Thome’s infamous vow to Tribe fans before signing with the Phillies in 2002. Incidentally, Colon went on to describe the current Mets staff—with young stars Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, and Noah Syndergaard—as the best he’s been a part of since his days with Sabathia, Charles Nagy, and Dave Burba. Yes, he actually did say that.
In reality, Burba and Nagy, along with Chuck Finley, were awful in 2001, leaving Bartolo and Sabathia as the only reliable starters for what would prove to be the final chapter of the “Era of Champions.” CC won the AL Rookie of the Year with a 17-5 record, 4.39 ERA, and 8.5 K/9. Colon went 14-12 with a 4.09 and 8.1 K/9. In the Division Series against Seattle, both aces rose to the occasion. Colon threw 14 straight scoreless innings, getting the win in Game 1 and holding a 1-0 lead in Game 4 before surrendering a go-ahead hit to Ichiro in the seventh. Sabathia pitched six strong innings in Game 3, benefiting from the Indians drubbing of Aaron Sele in a 17-2 finish.
From there, the story is well known. Cleveland dropped the series in five games, fell out of contention the following summer, and elected to deal Colon—in the midst of a career-best season—to the Expos for a gaggle of prospects. The trade was wildly unpopular and really serves to mark the end of the “Era of Champions” more accurately than Thome’s departure a few months later. It was the first clear indication that the party was unequivocally over. As it turned out, it also netted the Indians part of the core of their next competitive era, with Grady Sizemore and Cliff Lee (not to mention the abandoned Brandon Phillips) coming aboard.
With Colon gone, Sabathia took on the mantle as the sole ace of the staff. He’d go on to win 106 games in Cleveland, and still ranks fifth in franchise history in strikeouts (1,265). Because all things are cyclical, though, his last days in Cleveland would read a lot like Colon’s. One year removed from a postseason run, the Indians underachieved in the summer of 2008 and swapped their ace for future components—sending Sabathia to Milwaukee, a team they still haven’t beaten since doing so. Again, fans were furious. And again, like Brandon Phillips, Matt LaPorta didn’t quite work out as the centerpiece of the deal. But…again… the other key part of the haul, Michael Brantley, became a core player for the next Indians playoff run five years later.
The parallels of Colon and Sabathia’s careers go beyond the Cleveland connection. While Bart never got the World Series title that Sabathia eventually did in New York, both men were battered around by the Tigers in their most recent postseason appearances (a pair of losses in 2012 and 2013, respectively). Their overall career numbers, which are rounding into shape for final assessments, have also wound up eerily similar—so much so that the Baseball Reference robot identifies Colon as Sabathia’s third closest comp among all-time pitchers. The other pitchers in CC and Bartolo’s statistical accomplishment club include former Indians Orel Hershiser and Dwight Gooden, along with the aforementioned Tim Hudson, Bob Welch, Kevin Brown, and at least one Hall of Famer, Dazzy Vance.
While Sabathia may have been regarded as the best pitcher in the game for a brief time (particularly during his abbreviated stint in Milwaukee after the ’08 trade), and Colon has shown incredible durability and savvy (his 18-6, 2.65 ERA season in Oakland as a 40-year-old saw him using a 92 mph fastball and virtually nothing else), it’s hard to see either man finding his way to Cooperstown. Colon, despite his popularity and wide respect in the game (“respect” not necessarily including viral videos of him swinging himself out of his helmet), is a virtual impossibility following his 50-game drug suspension in 2012. CC, meanwhile, would most likely need a Colonesque late career revival to get him into consideration. Either way, the divide between the two former Tribe stars has never been a large one over the past 15 years. As it’s turned out, the hype over the 1-2 punch in that 2001 rotation was warranted. We’ll miss them all over again when they’re gone for good.
3 Comments
Ziggy Zoomba
One thing said often about Bartolo when he was here: he wouldn’t last long unless he kept himself in better shape. I mean, he was jiggly even as a young man and was constantly running up pitch counts with wildness/stubbornness. Even with his juicing I’m shocked he’s still pitching, or even that he wants to pitch. Back then he just didn’t seem to be a guy that was uber-competitive, that loved the game that much.
Maybe the Tribe can exploit a market inefficiency: fat pitchers who appear not to give much of a crap.
Good ‘ol Bartolo the trade that Mark Shapiro has built a career on the trade he has printed on his business cards. Crafty headline Mr. Clayman, crafty indeed.