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When the air is let out of the Bartolo Colon balloon, as it was tonight, I envision that balloon as being Macy's-sized.

The guy is amazing. As many innings as he has thrown, at 42 he is still an effective starter in the MLB. He's the Matt Stairs of pitching!

I would be completely surprised if Colon is not getting artificial help.
Everything from that era, the even bigger body, especially the head, over-performance past 40, maintaining and even surpassing skills from earlier years. All there.
Just my thought.
Am I the only one?

The bone growth effects of GH don't just wear away. His head size will be what it is. He was caught with synthetic enhancing use. An effect of synthetic use is that your body doesn't produce as much of the natural source as it becomes dependent on the synthetic source. For example, at 42 with past synthetic use his T levels are probably low enough that he could be prescribed testosterone by a doctor and that level is monitored every six months. Some levels can be higher depending on the dose. Potentially higher than Mike Trout. Low T levels can decrease naturally so it can simply be an age thing as opposed to an abuse thing.

The argument screams speculation and I'm not making an opinion here, however there is one potential drawback from PED use that he is evidently not experiencing. His tendons at 42 are normal. His recovery at 42 is above average. Leads me to believe that he was not a prolonged PED user and got caught using late in his career. He has never been a strength training/ conditioning kind of guy, which may have attributed to his longevity believe it or not.

He doesn't pass the duck test.

Fourslot40 wrote:The bone growth effects of GH don't just wear away. His head size will be what it is. He was caught with synthetic enhancing use. An effect of synthetic use is that your body doesn't produce as much of the natural source as it becomes dependent on the synthetic source. For example, at 42 with past synthetic use his T levels are probably low enough that he could be prescribed testosterone by a doctor and that level is monitored every six months. Some levels can be higher depending on the dose. Potentially higher than Mike Trout. Low T levels can decrease naturally so it can simply be an age thing as opposed to an abuse thing.

The argument screams speculation and I'm not making an opinion here, however there is one potential drawback from PED use that he is evidently not experiencing. His tendons at 42 are normal. His recovery at 42 is above average. Leads me to believe that he was not a prolonged PED user and got caught using late in his career. He has never been a strength training/ conditioning kind of guy, which may have attributed to his longevity believe it or not.

I do believe that he was not not a strength and conditioning type of guy.