#96 – Javier Colina
Newark (2007)
Long Island (2010 – ’11)
Southern Maryland (2012)
Infielder
Javier Colina‘s career numbers in the Atlantic League won’t take your breath away at first glance, but a closer look shows his work is worthy of the #96 spot in our Top 100. To start, Javier’s 2007 season with Newark was good enough to get him signed by the White Sox, his 2011 campaign saw nearly identical numbers (.309/.375/.560 w/ 26 HR in ’07 vs .309/.378/.555 w/ 25 HR in ’11), and he even had a very strong 6-game stint with the Blue Crabs before calling it a career in 2012. An outlier partial 2010 season that saw Colina struggle to a .266/.341/.423 slash line with 7 HRs in 67 games drags down his career numbers. However, this countdown is about Atlantic League careers as a whole, and that 2010 season isn’t enough to remove Colina from our list.
The Venezuelan utility infielder’s career numbers are good; his .300/.368/.532 slash line, 124 OPS+, 19.5 AB-per-HR, and 205 runs created (.68 per G) combined for a 14.5 WAR over 303 games. Removing his out-of-character 2010 season he’s left with an even more impressive .310/.382/.564 line, 132 OPS+, 17.1 AB-per-HR, and 166 runs created (.70 per G), and 12.9 WAR over 236 games. While we can’t ignore the down year, Javier is far from the only player to have a tough season as he approached retirement and he’s one of the rare guys to have such a strong bounce-back season before finally stepping away. That ability to return to form showed us exactly who Javier Colina was and locked him into our All-Time Top 100!
ALPB Roundup All-Time Top 100 Atlantic League Players
100. Jonathan Galvez
99. Matt Craig
98. Sean Halton
97. Ryan Langerhans
96. Javier Colina
Indy Ball Nation 