Roman Colon designated for assignment

Yes, it has finally happened.  RHP-Roman Colon has been designated for assignment by the Kansas City Royals.  For all the talk of new pitches, impressive outings in Arizona, and for everything else, Dayton Moore and the Royals have finally realized the obvious.  Roman Colon is not good enough to pitch in the major leagues.  His career ERA+ currently sits at 86.  It has not been north of 100 (above average) in any season since he threw 19.0 innings as a rookie with the Atlanta Braves.  That was 2004 and was a very small sample size.

The Rotoworld blurb on the move sums up the thoughts of most Royals fans:

"He won’t be missed.  Colon, 30, had allowed four runs in two innings (18.00 ERA) this season.  He posted a 4.83 ERA, 1.43 WHIP and 29/22 K/BB ratio in 50 1/3 innings last season."

However, I find it hard to believe his time in the Royals organization has come to an end.  I fully expect him to clear waivers and find his way to the Omaha bullpen.  Speaking of which, if you think the eight-man bullpen experiment has finally come to an end with this move, think again.  To take Colon’s place on the roster they Royals have summoned 27-year old RHP-Josh Rupe from Triple-A.

The Royals made one of the two necessary moves, the other being to DFA Luis Mendoza, to try and help their bullpen.  I emphasize the word try when it comes to the Colon-Rupe “switcheroo” because Josh Rupe’s 2008 was worse than Colon’s 2009.  I used 2008 because Rupe only logged 4.2 major league innings during 2009 because he was too busy getting hammered in Triple-A pitching for the Oklahoma City Red Hawks.

Roman Colon 2009:  50.1 IP, 4.83 ERA, 92 ERA+, 1.32 SO/BB
Josh Rupe 2008:  89.1 IP, 5.14 ERA, 87 ERA+, 1.15 SO/BB
Josh Rupe 2009 (AAA): 89.0 IP, 6.67 ERA, 1.51 SO/BB

I’m not sure if Rupe is the answer to the bullpen woes, and frankly it looks like he’s not, but we already know that Roman Colon is not the answer.  Based solely on those facts I give this move a ever-so-slight thumbs up.  I do not anticipate that Rupe will find much success, and he very well could be worse than Colon,  but maybe he’ll surprise me.

(Wally Fish is the lead writer for Kings of Kauffman, Call to the Pen and is also FanSided’s MLB Director.  You can keep up to date with all of his work by following him on Facebook, Twitter or by way of the Kings of Kauffman RSS feed.)