Bartolo Colon, Trevor Plouffe released, Tommy Joseph optioned

The Texas Rangers released Bartolo Colon today, per the beat guys. Colon was in camp on a minor league deal, and could opt out today if he wasn’t added to the major league roster.

I wrote earlier today that I thought the announcement that Martin Perez would start the season on the disabled list meant that Colon would be on the Opening Day roster, since Perez certainly seems to be ready to go, and stashing him on the d.l. for the first week would seemingly be a mechanism to give the Rangers some additional roster flexibility. Instead, Colon is not being added to the roster, though the beats say that the Rangers are talking to Colon about staying with the team.

With Clayton Blackburn and Ronald Herrera out for the first half of the season, the Rangers’ already tenuous starting pitching depth is even worse than was anticipated coming into spring training. Right now, the sixth, seventh and eighth starters would appear to be Jesse Chavez, Yohander Mendez and Austin Bibens-Dirkx.

Colon had a solid camp, and it seems likely other teams would be interested in him now that he’s a free agent. The San Francisco Giants have lost Jeff Samardzija and Madison Bumgarner for the first portion of the season, and Colon would seem to be a viable short-term fit for them.

In other procedural moves, Tommy Joseph was optioned to AA Frisco yesterday and Trevor Plouffe was released. Joseph was claimed on waivers from the Phillies earlier in the week, and his being optioned was expected. Plouffe had been signed to a minor league deal as depth this spring, but with all the position players (particularly Adrian Beltre) staying healthy, Plouffe wasn’t an option for the major league roster, although the team would apparently like for him to agree to go to Round Rock.