Beavers Add Colonel

Former Rockies and Blue Jays prospect Christian Colonel has been added to the Portland Beavers’ roster, filling the spot vacated by the since-promoted Lance Zawadzki.

Colonel is a utility player with experience at first base, second base, third base, left field, and right field. He is a third baseman by trade.

Colonel, 28, hit a collective .285/.355/.427 from 2003-2009 in the Rockies system, and was off to a .368/.429/.395 start for Toronto’s AAA Las Vegas affiliate before being released last week.

He’s hit as many as 17 homers in a season, but is more of an 8-14 homer guy with gap power. While Colonel is versatile defensively, he isn’t exceptional at any of his five positions.

We are talking about a guy who hit .308.360/.478 in Triple-A two years ago, and was hitting .368 thus far this year, so Colonel is certainly worth a Triple-A roster spot. With just average power, speed, and defense, however, there isn’t much to recommend him for the majors, particularly at age 28. The Padres have a good amount of corner depth already–Colonel adds to that, but shouldn’t really bump anyone down the depth chart.