Indians Take a Chance on Chris Colabello

Early Friday morning Joe Trezzo broke the news that the Indians had signed Chris Colabello, who had been non-tendered by the Blue Jays ten days earlier:

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No this isn’t the big free agent signing that Indians fans have been waiting for and it will almost certainly no be their last move of the Winter. It fits more into the general category of off-season depth additions (like those of Tim Cooney, Edwin Escobar and Rule 5 pick Hoby Milner earlier in the off-season), but this stands out particularly as it is an area that the Indians desperately need that depth.

If the season were to start today, the Indians would have their entire starting roster set with one exception, DH. As things stand, that spot would likely be filled with Jesus Aguilar, who is a fine defender at first (so he could actually play there with Carlos Santana staying as DH), but has just 10 hits in 64 plate appearances in his short MLB career and only one for extra bases. With 68 home runs in three seasons in Columbus and 140 total in his nine year MiLB career, he’s one of the greatest minor leaguers in Indians history. So was Matt LaPorta and we all know how that worked out.

Beyond Aguilar, prospects are few and far between at first base. In our recently published top 50 Indians prospects, only Bobby Bradley (#5), Nellie Rodriguez (#17) and Ulysses Cantu (#31) are regular first basemen and they all have problems. In order these problems are: 170 strike outs and a .234 average in 2016 at just the high A level, being essentially Jesus Aguilar Jr. and not yet in AAA and being a just drafted 18 year old rookie level player who won’t be nearing the Majors for at least five years if he ever does.

With Carlos Santana becoming a free agent after the 2017 season, this is, by far, the Indians biggest upcoming problem. It’s possible they could move a top prospect at a more crowded position to first, but that wouldn’t likely solve the problem by 2018 and the Indians still don’t even have a DH for 2017 (unless they use Brantley or a roving DH, which is possible).

Because of this difficult situation, Colabello could at a minimum play nearly every day for the depleted Clippers and possibly, just remotely, be on the Major League roster at some point.

His story is an interesting one. He began his baseball career in the Independent Leagues with Worcester after not getting drafted out of Assumption College in 2004. From 2005 through 2011 he played excellent baseball, almost exclusively for the Tornadoes until he was signed as a free agent by the Twins in 2012. Already 28, it took him most of four seasons in the Minnesota minors before he finally made his Major League debut in 2014, about 940 games after beginning his professional career.

After two rough seasons in Minnesota (but still far better than anything Aguilar is yet to do), Colabello was released and picked up by Toronto where he had a breakout season in 2015. Hitting .321/.367/.520 in 101 games, he provided power and a high average to the Blue Jays’ lineup. When that didn’t translate into a second good season in 2016, the Jays let him go despite the fact that he isn’t even arbitration eligible until the 2018 season and should be under team control through 2020.

Now, Colabello is 33 and the question remains if that one season just an aberration or if he finally figured something out. In 2016, he played just ten Major League games, largely because he hit .180/.248/.288 in Buffalo and was suspended for half the season. However, his .225 BABIP in the minors and .100 BABIP in the Majors almost certainly had a lot to do with that. Especially coming off a .411 BABIP in 2015 the drop off in production was extremely apparent.

While he was set for some regression after that unsustainable BABIP in 2015, that doesn’t take into account the home runs he hit, which were significant and doesn’t necessarily mean he was a worse hitter in 2016 or couldn’t return to that level. However, there was also the fact that he failed a PED test after the 2015 season that cost him 80 games in 2016. However, had his 2015 season been solely the product of performance enhancing drugs, one would assume he would have failed a test during the season. The rate stats below provide a more reasonable view of the type of hitter he is at this point in his career.

Colabello		Contact Direction			Contact Quality			Contact
Year	PA	LD%	GB%	IFFB%	Soft	Medium	Hard	K%	BB%
2013	181	13.7%	63.7%	17.4%	13.7%	61.8%	61.8%	32.0%	11.0%
2014	220	13.7%	52.5%	4.3%	16.5%	49.6%	49.6%	30.0%	6.4%
2015	360	25.2%	47.9%	9.4%	16.4%	52.1%	52.1%	26.7%	6.1%
2016	32	10.0%	60.0%	0.0%	40.0%	35.0%	35.0%	28.1%	6.3%

While his limited playing time in his most recent season, this makes that drop in BABIP seem like a little more than luck. While much of BABIP is due to luck, especially when comparing a player’s season to that same player’s career, there are things one can do to improve their situation, like hitting the ball hard and on a line drive. Colabello hit almost nothing hard last year and almost no line drives, instead pounding it into the ground weakly for the most part.

These number, combined with the fact that for the first time in his Major League career Colabello became an opposite field hitter, would make it seem that the (presumably) drug free Colabello has lost a bit of bat speed. MLB.com’s Stat Cast would back up this assertion with an 87 MPH average exit velocity (league average is 89% and just to pull out a random player who had something in common with Colabello, Abraham Almonte‘s was 90% in 2016) and an average launch angle four degrees lower than the MLB average.

So, what the Indians have in Colabello is a weak hitting first baseman (better than Aguilar, but not necessarily better than Chris Gimenez would be if they were to bring him back) who is similar to Santana defensivly at first (but not as good as Aguilar) who is tarnished from a 2016 PED suspension. They also still have a huge hole in their prospect depth chart at first base. Expect Colabello to stay with the franchise out of Spring Training, but in Columbus where he can be a bench option at first and in the corner outfield positions. There, he would be a depth option should someone get hurt or, if they really start the 2017 season with Aguilar on the roster, someone needs to be replaced. He could also have another breakout season in AAA that forces the front office to bring him up, but the chances of that happening given his age and decrease in bat speed are slim.