Yankees vs. Phillies: Who’s Been the Better Deal, Bartolo Colon or Cliff Lee?
June 14, 2011 · Chris Sbalcio · Jump to comments
Article Source: Bleacher Report - New York Yankees
This past offseason, there was a clear prize of the pitching market, as the former Cy Young Award-winning left-hander, Cliff Lee, became a free agent.
There were multiple teams that were interested, with the Rangers, Nationals and Yankees identified as the front-runners to obtain his services. The Yankees offered him a seven-year contract worth $148 million, but in the end Lee chose to return to the team he played for during the second half of the 2009 season, the Philadelphia Phillies.
He accepted an offer of a lesser amount (five years, $120 million) to return to Philly, where he knew he had once been happy, felt he had a better chance to win and whose medical facilities pleased him during his first stay, which is something very important to the father of a son with leukemia.
Needless to say, with no other impressive options remaining on the free-agent market, the Yankees were in a state of disarray in regards to their starting rotation, which also lost the veteran lefty Andy Pettitte to retirement a few months later.
In a frantic search for help, Yankees’ general manager Brian Cashman signed free-agent veterans Freddy Garcia and Bartolo Colon, hoping that he would be able to catch lightning in a bottle with at least one of them.
What he couldn’t have possibly expected, however, was for both of them to make it into the rotation and pitch successfully.
Freddy Garcia made the rotation out of the gate and has been a satisfactory No. 4 or 5 starter, posting a sub-4.00 ERA on the season thus far.
The true phenomenon though, has been Bartolo Colon. The 38-year-old right-hander has acted like the Yankees’ No. 2 starter this season after not even having pitched in the 2010 season and having reported to Yankees camp this spring 30 pounds overweight.
The veteran righty is no stranger to success, having won the 2005 AL Cy Young Award with the Angels, but absolutely no one expected him to be this good, especially not the Yankees, who only signed him to an incentive-laden $900,000 contract for this season.
In fact, Colon didn’t even make the Yankees’ rotation out of spring training, only getting his shot once Phil Hughes hit the DL with a dead arm. However, once he got his chance, he dispelled any doubt that anyone may have had in his ability to pitch.
Since making his first start on April 20th, Colon has posted a 5-2 record with a 2.96 ERA and 59 strikeouts in 67 innings over 10 starts. He has pitched better than any other Yankees starter so far, including staff ace CC Sabathia, who has a 3.15 ERA.
Unfortunately, this past Saturday, in a game against the Cleveland Indians, Bartolo Colon strained his left hamstring covering first base and has since been placed on the 15-day DL by the Yankees.
The Yankees are crossing their fingers, hoping that he will be able to return quickly, as he has been invaluable to them thus far. With the current state of the Yankees’ pitching staff, they can ill-afford to lose Colon for an extended period of time.
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Cliff Lee has only been decent thus far for the Phillies, posting a 6-5 record with a 3.41 ERA and 108 strikeouts.
While the strikeout pitch has been working all along, only recently has Lee been finding true success, with back-to-back quality starts in his past two outings. The Phillies hope that Cliff Lee can continue to produce those kind of starts when he takes the mound, as opposed to the ones that left him at 4-5 with a 3.94 ERA at the end of May.
If they continue to see the Cliff Lee from April and May, they will no doubt be displeased with the way they spent their $150 million.
When I began writing this article, I envisioned a landslide victory for the Yankees and their signing of Bartolo Colon over the Phillies and their signing of Cliff Lee, but with Colon’s recent injury and Lee’s recent success, it’s a lot more difficult of a call to make.
However, I still have to give the edge to the Yankees, based solely on the fact that if Colon can’t stay healthy, the Yankees don’t have to stick with him and would have no reservations about cutting him loose.
They only needed a stopgap-type of pitcher to fill rotation spots until the famed “Killer B’s” are ready to be called up, and Colon has certainly been that.
The Phillies are tied down to Cliff Lee for the next five years, and anything less than ace-like performances will be a disappointment with the amount of money he is making. It isn’t quite yet drastic, but there is already a visible decline with the 32-year-old Lee, and if it continues, it could wind up hurting the Phillies down the road.
At the time, watching Lee sign with the Phillies was a disheartening blow for the Yankees, but in the end, it may wind up having been a blessing in disguise.
Read more New York Yankees news on BleacherReport.com
Yankee Tickets
Shop Yankee
