Phil Hughes update
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on May 30, 2007 
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Brian Cashman revealed today that Phil Hughes has a Grade 3 ankle sprain and will need 4-6 weeks of rehab time before he gets back on the mound.
Given that will take Hughes probably an additional four weeks to get his arm ready to pitch, we’re looking at 8-10 weeks before he is back on the mound. And that’s assuming everything goes well.
So don’t expect Hughes back before mid-August. A Grade 3 sprain is the most serious as it indicates a ligament tear. That is on top of the Grade 2 hamstring tear he already has.
Hughes is wearing a boot on his foot to limit his mobility.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
How did he get this sprain?
I’m telling you guys, the curse was :reversed: in 2004, not just broken, but :reversed:.
What happened to that Franchise tag you were throwing around last February, Peter?
Thurman !!!!
I have said that for the past 2 years to my husband! The signs and the yelling was not to ‘END’ the curse but to ‘REVERSE’ the curse! Exactly!!!! How ELSE can we explain all this horrible, horrible luck (poor hitting notwithstanding, of course)??????
WOW At least him arm will be fresh (I HOPE)
On a more somber note, though, that is really bad news about Hughes. Well, let’s hope he heals well and rehabs better. What can you do?
How awesome is this season?
Damn, hughes sure is fragile.
I’m not allowed to use the words I want to say in this blog.
One day I will wake up and read a headline that Chien Ming Wangs arm fell off.
What the hell is next for this team??
With the Yankees luck, this doesn’t suprise me at all.
Darn, that’s a real shame. I was really looking forward to seeing him pitch. How unlucky are the Yankees this year!
Roger Clemens will be on the disabled list tomorrow (or by mid-June). Anyone want to bet?
At least its not his arm.
Peter,
did he injure the same leg or are both legs injured?
Same leg. See you next Spring Phil!
Shut Phil down for the season. No need to rush or push him back for this season.
BTW, any truth to the rumor that not only has George signed the Rocket, but he’s about to announce that Reggie is coming back — HOF hitter, proven winner.
I said this before but I feel the need to restate it. I am not superstitious but the yankees are seriously plagued by something —a curse, etc. Regardless the Yankees will still find a way to get into the playoffs- AL East or the Wildcard.
Where is the clown that ripped Pete, myself and several other bloggers who said that we would be surprised if we saw Hughes anytime soon, if at all, this season.
We were “reprimanded” by this “expert” who said we were full of it and Hughes would be back in two weeks.
I knew when the Yankees went underground with the MRI info on his ankle it was more serious than first reported.
With all the bad news surrounding this team, if his MRI was clean, Brian Cashman would have held a news conference or shout the news from the rooftops.
If, for no other reason, to deflect attention over all the bad news surrounding the team this season.
What a rotten shame. I was really looking forward to seeing him pitch this season.
Oh well, opportunity for Tyler Clippard to make a name for himself.
Pitch well, and he can be the 5th starter for the rest of the season.
Let’s hope Phil comes out of this ok and is healthy soon.
Torre pushed Hughes too hard going for the no hitter. Another disaster on Torre’s hands.
the worst part about this is there is no way hes going to get 180 innings of work this year … which means next year instead of pitching a full season of 200 innings he’ll be on yet another season of a strict pitch count/inning count.
unbelievable
are you kdding jk – it’s obviously arod’s fault for not taking him out to strip clubs in canada. (tongue in cheek)
possibly not, the yankees might put hughes into a different minor league after the healing to get in his innings.
Didn’t Torre go before reporters two days after he sprained his ankle and tell everybody it was nothing serious? Another brilliant piece of press relations by Bigelow Joe. Love to see how Abrahominahomina spins that one.
probably the AFL
ESPN.com just reported that Joba Chamberlain was abducted by aliens and Jose Tabata was eaten by the Loch Ness monster.
“Nessy’s a girl, you know that..”
just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse. . .
they should just shut him down for the year. desperation brought him to the game early and now look. i really hope he’s able to make a full recovery.
@Chris NY –
AWESOME use of How I Met Your Mother quote right there!
sj44-
since the original plan was to not bring hughes up until at least the all star break, the decision to bring up hughes early was a cashman reversal on the plan. so it was his decision. i actually had a big argument with mike plugh on this site about it. i took the position that it was a rediculously stupid decision to bring up hughes early. plugh loved bringing him up . one of my reasons was that he was not in shape to throw 75 pitches in the major leagues. i was clearly worried about injury. when it happened, i pointed it out on his blog and he booted me off the blog. he’s a little touchy about being wrong. the point is a lot of people were worried about bringing him up too fast. this is not hindsight as people were saying it a head of time.
with cashman’s lack of knowledge about conditioning as demonstrated by his hiring of marty miller and his rushing of hughes backfiring in his face, why do you support cashman leading the yankee’s new emphasis on young players?
Elliott:
Try and pay attention with the rest of the class. I’ve written here for months that teams routinely lie about injuries. Torre has no idea about injured players. He (and most managers) concern themselves with the 25 guys who can play that night.
How can you blame his injury on Cashman? He never worked with Marty Miller. How did it backfire? Hughes got hurt while pitching a no hitter. Clearly, he showed he belonged in the majors.
Wouldn’t you say that’s more bad luck than anything else?
As far as spraining his ankle in Tampa, that can happen to anybody. Its hard for me to criticize that injury since I have no idea how he got hurt. But, the kid obviously showed he belonged in the major leagues from a pitching perspective.
You can’t keep them in plastic bubbles. If the kid is good enough to pitch in NY, which he showed he was, you have to pitch him.
I chalk it up more to rotten luck than some flaw in the program, since he didn’t work with the guy they fired. If he worked with Miller and got hurt, I would agree with you. But, that’s not the case.
Hughes pulled the hamstring overthrowing a pitch, he said so himself, so basically his own fault (who wouldn’t be amped up throwing a no-hitter and trying to strike out a good major league hitter). Turning an ankle, as SJ said, can happen to anyone. It’s a sport, people get hurt. Unless Cashman stuck his foot out and tripped him, it’s not his fault.
Suddenly an ankle sprain in May means he should be ‘shut down for the year’? And these freak, FREAK injuries are because the Yankees ‘called him up early’?
What kind of crazy troll logic are you people using?
Peter,
I love how you exagerrate and get Mid August out of this. It’s always the worst case scenario with you. I expect for him to be back in late July.
SJ44 April 26th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Pete, you are 100% correct. Great prospect, not ready for the majors, even though we all know why he is here.
If the majors was, “on the job training�, then Tampa Bay would win the division every year since they always throw their young pitchers into the fire.
Its the wrong way to develop pitching, which is why the Yankees can’t develop pitching.
this was your position on hughes. you were clearly against bringing him up. so you were against cashman bringing him up.you can’t have it both ways.
you were right and cashman was wrong.
boston is losing 6-2 in the 7th – it could be back to 13.5 games after tonight!
@woo hoo@
sigh.
hey andrew,
if you got off your couch and maybe threw a baseball once in a while you might have some baseball instincts too. a lot of respected mlb people thought hughes was being rushed and predicted problems. sj44 was one of these. is he a troll too? i predicted it. am i a troll?
No question, I said that. When I saw him pitch in Texas, I realized I was dead wrong about him.
The kid is the real deal. He isn’t afraid, which most of the guys on the current pitching staff are, to throw strikes. When I heard him say he told Posada to, “Punch me in the face the next time I walk a guy after going 0-2″, which he said after he walked Kenny Lofton to start the game, that’s when I knew he was ready for the majors.
The kid was too good to keep in the minors.
He got hurt in a freak way. Its impossible, IMO, to hang his injury on Cashman.
He could have gotten hurt the same way in Scranton, as Ohlendorf did a couple of weeks ago.
Joe Torre killed my dog, he ran it over backing up then saw it was still alive so kept going back and forth until it was lifeless. Please defend him for that Petey.
sj44-
this was what i said on that same day “you want to use the yankees for a hughes developmental league. he has no arm strength. 90mph after 75 pitches. maybe he’s been babied ,but he’s only good for 75 pitches right now. his arm is not strong enough.
why throw him into this mess? you have a blue chip pitcher and you want to take a chance on asking too much of him. he does not have good stuff from 75 pitches on right now. bring him up to 100 pitches at triple a and if he can still throw his maximum velocity in the late innings than maybe. till then , forget it.”
what was his pitch count when he was hurt? it was his 83rd pitch.
the key thing i said was,” you have a blue chip pitcher and you want to take a chance on asking too much of him”.
he blew out the hammy when too much was asked of him. to anyone who has been around young pitchers, the danger was easy to see with how quickly his velocity decreased after 75 pitches.
or do you think it was just a lucky guess on my part? it doesn’t matter how well he was doing, the tachometer was in the danger zone.
there was no bad luck involved. cashman pushed hughes and the engine blew.
“randy l April 26th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
pitchers overthrow when they are tired. hughes got tired today at 65-70 pitches. it has nothing to do with stuff,poise, make up, and all that other good stuff. he just doesn’t have the arm strengtyh and endurance.
you don’t learn on the job on a fatigued arm that isn’t trained for 100 pitches. it’s too dangerous.”
“SJ44 April 26th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Randy,
Very good points. He did seem to tire after 75 pitches.
The talent is there. I really wish though, they didn’t call him up this soon.
But, the cat is out of the bag now. Its gonna be tough to send him down unless some other guys step up in the rotation.
Its definitely not the optimum way to do it though.”
Just looking around to see what players were available as FA or could be had by the trade deadline… just looking. I came across Dan Miceli as being a free agent. Tampa Bay released him at the end of March. Apparantly no one picked him up. Anyone know why? Is he broken or just fell apart? I remember him being a fairly strong arm in the pen for the Astros…could be a decent pick up… maybe….Anyone?
It really doesn’t matter. He shouldn’t have been called up when he did. It was a desperation move. He shouldn’t be on the 25 till next season at the earliest.
So, who cares if he is or is not out. He still has some stuff to work on. He tore his hamstring overthrowing a breaking pitch. Rookie mistake and shows he isn’t ready as he isn’t comfortable with his offspeed stuff.
With Clemens coming in and Clip as the 5th starter, we are fine with starters.
What we need are relievers.
Option down DeSalvo and let’s get Britton up here to throw a few and see how he does. If it doesn’t work, we send him back down.
Oh, puh-LEEZE. You could say hindsight was 20/20, but it would still prove people wrong.
Basically, you’re arguing Hughes’ hamstring wasn’t major-league ready. And now because of that, his ankle wasn’t major-league ready. Next thing you know he’s going to get a nose bleed and his nose won’t be major-league ready and it was allll because they called him up too early. Bull. If it was an arm problem, I’d agree with you. But because it was just another hamstring injury to another Yankee player, par for the course, all of that is complete nonsense. Unless you want to argue that Mussina wasn’t major league ready during his start. Didn’t think so.
Hindsight, Hughes was major league ready, and while they would have preferred to keep him in Scranton for a few more starts, there was no question it wasn’t a bad decision. Listen, if you want someone to blame, blame Cashman for hiring Marty Miller, a guy who hadn’t worked in baseball for years. But enough of this ridiculous “this is all because they called him up early” crap. It’s been debunked again and again, and it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Troll logic.
Actually, Hughes didn’t work with Marty Miller. So you can’t even blame anyone but lady luck herself. Hughes was pitching in the 90s all game during his no-hitter. It wouldn’t have been a no-hitter if he was tiring. He overextended trying to bury a pitch to get the last out of the 7th inning of a no-hitter. Would’ve happened in Scranton too.
Get back on your armchairs, GM-wannabes.
Saw in the paper the Yankees are trying to decide between Desalvo and Clippard. Where is the logic? Hello Clippard is the prospect here. This has been a year of injuries for the Yankees but also bad decisions. Sheffield for a guy with a bad arm. This was known too. He had been shutdown last year. The Randy Johnson deal. Was there a prospect in that deal?
Now we have to decide between Desalvo and Clippard? Hello is anyone awake in yankeeland?
“Oh, puh-LEEZE. You could say hindsight was 20/20, but it would still prove people wrong.”
um andrew, when someone predicts something ahead of time it is not hindsight. it is called foresight.
“you have a blue chip pitcher and you want to take a chance on asking too much of him.”
does that sink in at all?
it was easy to predict because because it was early in the season and hughes did not have a pitch count base down. he had been on an 85 pitch count limit in the minor leagues as is standard for that time of the year. he was losing velocity on every pitch over 75 in his first start. he was way below his normal velocity. if he would have been called up even a month later he would have been stretched out to more pitches. whenever a pitcher goes beyond what he is used to doing, there is the potential for problems.
hughes’ body was not in shape to be throwing pitches with that kind of intensity on the 83 pitch when he was hurt. if you don’t understand that a pitcher throws with his whole body, you don’t understand the biomechanics of pitching.
one of the problems with arguments on blogs is that the experience of the commentors is left out. from what you are saying , i’m deducing that you have no experience with pitchers at all. i’m also deducing that you haven’t read much about pitching either.
so what knowlege base are you basing your points on? you seem to have no actual baseball experience with pitchers and you don’t seem like you have studied pitching like say will carrol of baseball prospectus.
it was an easy to predict mistake rushing hughes. cashman made the decision. he was wrong and he’s burned a blue chip pitcher. torre and guidry should have known better too.
it would have been no problem if hughes was pulled after 65-70 pitches. that’s was his body limit at that point in his conditioning.
so i guess i should amend my criticism of cashman and extend it to torre and guidry.
and now, the yankee conditioning staff injures him again with the ankle while recovering from the hamstring. how many more of hughes’ body parts have to blow out before it dawns on you that maybe the yankee conditioning program is not doing it’s job. cashman is in charge of that program. you do the math.
The Curse has been reversed! The Babe is pissed that the Yanks are tearing down the House that Ruth built.
I HAVE A AUTOGRAPHED BASEBALL CARD ON YOU. IT’S A 2005 BOWMAN CERTIFIED AUTOGRAPHED ISSUE. I WANT YOU TO APPEAR ON THE MOUND SOON BECAUSE ALL OF MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY DONT’T BELIEVE YOU’RE AS GOOD AS A PITCHER AS THEY THINK YOU ARE. PLEASE COME ON THE MOUND IN AUGUST AND SHOW WHATEVER TEAM YOU FACE YOU’RE MADE OF!!! PLEASE GET BETTER FAST!!!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bronxjeers/show/