Medical issues dogging Yankees
-
- April
- 30
Most baseball fans in America, certainly those in New York, are convinced they could be the general manager of a baseball team. Makes trades, select rosters, watch prospects. It looks pretty easy from afar.
But the most difficult decisions have very little to do with the game on the field. Take what has happened to the Yankees this season.
They are 28 games into the season and here is their list of injuries:
Andy Pettitte (back spasms, spring training)
Jorge Posada (right shoulder strain, April 1)
Derek Jeter (left quad strain on April 7)
Jason Giambi (left groin strain, April 5)
Jose Molina (left hamstring, April 13)
Wilson Betemit (eye infection, April 14)
Alex Rodriguez (right quad strain April 20)
Joba Chamberlain (left hamstring, April 24)
Brian Bruney (right foot fracture, April 24)
To me, the hardest thing for a GM is to decide what to do with injured players. You talk to the player, his agent, your doctor, his doctor and the manager then decide whether to put the player on the disabled list or play short-handed for a day or two … or six or seven.
The Yankees did the exact right thing with Pettitte by placing him on the disabled list to start the season. He came back strong and has pitched well.
But Bruney was on the active roster for a day with a broken foot. His lisfranc fracture wasn’t picked up until he saw a specialist.
Posada spent three weeks in limbo. Out for three days, available for a few days, out for a few days, DH for a few days, etc. Then finally the pain got to be too much and he shut it down. In retrospect, the situation wasn’t handled well.
Jeter sat for six days with his injury and has been fine since he came back. But A-Rod sat for only three days with his then re-injured it when he came back. On Monday night, videotape shows him limping in the fourth inning while running to first. But he stayed in the game and ran the bases in the sixth.
Joe Girardi is the team official closest to the players, so his counsel has to be relied on. The trainers as well. Team doctor Stuart Hershon is a key figure in the mix.
Some of it is just plain good luck or bad luck. But the Yankees never seem to have much good luck with this stuff.
Cashman has done a great job of reorganizing how the Yankees scout and develop players. Maybe the next thing to do is look into how they take care of them.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 2:26 pm by Peter Abraham.
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Peter Abraham
Why do I get the feeling that Phil Hughes’s glare problem is going to be called an injury requiring a DL stint?
Go ahead Phil, take a few weeks off, the Tigers and Indians will be gone and you’ll perform much better after.
wonder what Hughes w/l record is at night vs day games…
Better now than in September. As many have mentioned, if they can weather this storm, stay withing striking distance, and bring a relatively healthy roster to June 1, everything will look much rosier than it does today.
I just read the newspapers; and this blog, of course.
I remember not that long ago that the Yankees were considered to be very conservative with regards to injuries. At the slightest indication, a player would be sent for an MRI of whatever it was, and was told to “shut it down”. Numerous players (don’t ask me who, my memory is not good enough to recall specific instances from years gone by) would refer to the team’s conservative nature.
Now, it seems that there is a problem with delayed recognition both of injuries and their severity. As Pete said, Cash is dependent on information given to him, from multiple sources; what else is he supposed to do?
But, if their is a question by the team of a possible problem in this regard, then they should, apporpriatley, perform an analysis of the listed instances, above, and examine the decision-making involved. That’s the only way to make sense of things. Certainly not by emotions, frustrations, or second-guessinig.
Interesting points Pete.
But I think another part of this is how willing a player is to be honest about how much he’s in pain. Since the position players mentality always seems to be to insist they’re fine and can play through things, I think that whole aspect is key.
For example, my understanding is that Alex said he was fine and could play.
The Bruney thing was such a freak occurrence that I’m not sure what you could do about that.
“wonder what Hughes w/l record is at night vs day games…”
Day games - 45 wins, 0 losses
Night games - 0 wins, 45 losses
Well, that explains it.
The Yankees reclaimed Chad Moeller after he went unclaimed on waivers and he is expected to be in the lineup tonight
From John Heymans Latest post ….
TRADE PHIL HUGHES AND IAN KENNEDY FOR 100 BASEBALLS AND A BAT.
THATS ALL THEY ARE WORTH!
who is aplayer that try to gut out an injury and gets criticised for that?? Only a-rod!!!!
All this, and we’re still just 2 games out of first.
WEll I’m not a doctor but I think Hughes can use something that has helped million of people with bad eye visions…it’s called eye glasses Hughes.Maybe Hughes think he might looked like a nerd.Too bad he’s pitching like one.
Wow that’s good news if true on Moeller. Never thought the day would come when we’d all be wishing for him on the team.
We got Moeller back? This is worthy of celebration!
I totally agree with SJ44 on this: If you’ve had “the right stuff” since you started your career, you don’t suddenly lose it over the course of a month. (I’m sure if anyone can think of such cases, it’ll be a damn small number.) I don’t know what’s wrong with Phil at the moment — pressure, rejiggered delivery, some eyesight thing, voodoo doll pins somewhere — but I really believe he’s eventually gonna be okay, he’s going to be the guy baseball experts thought he was.
It’s just super-frustrating and magnified further at this moment with the injury bug stuck in the Bronx, and the fallout from the Yankees not doing the Johan trade. I wish we could count on Igawa on little bit, but I guess that’s wishing for too much….
We have been dealing with injuries so far as deepening the bench and the bullpen and building the minors so we can rotate players in and out of it. Last year we fired that idiotic trainer. But injuries happen. I don’t know how any of these could have been prevented. (Eye infection? Bruney was the victim of a soggy field).
My biggest concern is Girardi’s constant tinkering with the lineup except where it should be tinkered with (Giambi should SIT). It’s bad enough to lose the consistency because of injuries. No reason to lose winning players just because. Molina should have been behind the plate and Melky should have been in center field last night. I’ve said that 17 times in the past two days because I think that what happened to Phil last night (boo’d off the mound) was a travesty that Girardi owns. If I was Cashman I’d be livid.
Anybody else paying attention to the Mets game - now that’s taking advantages of walks!
“The Yankees reclaimed Chad Moeller after he went unclaimed on waivers and he is expected to be in the lineup tonight”
in the lineup? or on the roster? i’m trying to figure out why Molina would not start tonight after sitting last night… unless his hamstring has gotten worse.
hooray for Moeller!
Good call pete. I admit to my love at playing GM. I think a lot of people on this blog do too, and do it pretty well.
Cash does a good job. He’s made mistakes, but all GM’s do. Unless you belive brian bannister for relief junk was a good move. Or julio lugo to a multi yr contract. Or Barry zitto for anything.
As long as a GM has a vision and sticks with it, i’m ok with mistakes in some assessments.
Again, I think this plaement of blame on Joe G or Cashman for the injuries or how they dealt with them is misplaced. The only thing a GM or manager can do is rely on the professional opinions they’re provided and act on that information.
One of the faults of American society is this belief that if someone in knowledgeable or capable in one area that they must be omnipotent or have some knowledge in others. This belief is the reason why we “care” what a great actor believes about politics, or why we think a politician is knowlegable about all aspects of the economy, or why we listen to Bill Gates about immigration issues. (Note- Bill Gates has a hard enough time making software that works, see Vista, so why should we regard his opinion as it comes to immigration?) Richard Posner wrote about this phenomena in “Public Intellectuals”.
So, if the doctors are saying the players are okay and not having problems, or the players are being so pig-headed to not disclose their injuries, how can the management be held accountable?
The only way I can see that they can be is if they receive multiple opinions on injuries and choose to believe the opinion that best fits their outlook/need at the time. Like the patient that doesn’t want to go through chemo-so he consults with 10 doctors- 9 say he needs chemo and 1 says he doesn’t so he goes with the 1 doctor that supports his view and then ends up dead in 6 months.
WooHoo! Moeller is back! (never thought I would ever type that)
Rishi-I am also following the Mets/Pirates game. Wow, that inning was a mess
Can we get a link on the Moeller thing - I can’t find it anywhere…
Molina has never played more than 70 games in a season and we might need him for extended time this year, thus we will probably rest him when we can.
Anyone know what happened in the Mets game. It’s 7-0 Pirates in the top of the 3rd… looks like Perez gave up 2 hits in 1.2 innings, 5 walks, but only 2 earned runs. How did he get 5 unearned runs tagged on?
link:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/jon_heyman/04/30/heyman.scioscia/1.html
I heard Jeter say you can play hurt but you can’t play injured. I think most professional athletes play through pain so often that they may have a problem figuring out when they cross the line from hurt to injured.
I know Posada and Jeter both had MRI’s when they were first injured. Did A-Rod? I remember them saying he got treatment on the off day but don’t remember if that included an MRI.
I am glad Moeller is back too. Nothing against Stewart but last night was a horror show. Moeller seemed to work really well with the pitchers.
Fielding Error on Luis Castillo…
Pete, you forgot to mention Phil’s eyes.
Moeller, welcome back!!!
Never knew your name until 2 weeks ago but you are a sight for sore eyes (esp. after the debacle by Stewart yesterday).
It’s great when a journeyman gets some appreciation.
it would have been the second out
Rishi
Go to SI.com. Jon Heymen’s artcle on front page.
Thanks Rishi.
My other post disappeared.
Let me try this again:
Here is a link Rishi:
http://tinyurl.com/5bzdq7
Why is it that Derek Jeter was given an MRI when he injured his quad and A-Rod wasn’t? That didn’t make any sense to me at all, especially now that we’ve found Derek’s was a lower grade than Alex’s.
For precautionary reasons at the very least, why wasn’t A-Rod given an MRI from the start and why was he put back in the lineup so quickly? Girardi said that when Derek told him he was ready to play, he would still get an extra day off, yet A-Rod was back in a few days without a word.
None of this makes any sense at all.
Russell–Luis Castillo made an error, but the whole disaster is really Perez’s fault. The inning lasted forever–it’s practically an invitation for errors.
About the injuries–I’m sure it’s easy when it’s a young player, but when you have a player as experienced and knowledgeable as Posada or A-Rod and he says he can play, it must be awfully hard to detect that it’s not true. Also, people have different thresholds of pain; I have a very high pain threshold, and that has led me to disastrously run through injuries because I just didn’t feel how serious they were.
“Anyone know what happened in the Mets game. It’s 7-0 Pirates in the top of the 3rd… looks like Perez gave up 2 hits in 1.2 innings, 5 walks, but only 2 earned runs. How did he get 5 unearned runs tagged on?”
I don’t know what the official ER tally will be, but there was a horrid botched play by Castillo - easy double play ball that would have stopped the bleeding early. Only ‘counts’ as one out error, so some of the runs should have still gone through?
This is the link for the Moller story it is on page 2
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/jon_heyman/04/30/heyman.scioscia/1.html
Sad day when we are rejoicing the fact that Chad Moeller is on our Roster. With that said - WAHOO Chad Moeller is back!!!
Thanks - I saw all the Scioscia love and stopped reading…
Brendan….LOL, it is a sad day but let’s not complain or else we’ll be labelled “whiners”.
Go Chad!!
A couple of comments:
I think you are wrong for criticizing the Bruney injury Pete.
I am not a DR but it’s not the first time a lis franc was missed on a initial screen. It is a very small fracture.
The Posada injury is really strange and I am not sure if we have the final diagnosis yet……
If you are going to criticize the Arod situation, I think that is legit. Who is running the show? Was his star status so great that when he said he was ready they alllowed him to play regardless of concerns about further injury?
We don’t know for sure because the Politboro, oops, Yankee Management is so tight-lipped about this stuff.
I’m just curious but has A-Rod ever been on the DL?
Scorpio - stop whining about whining
Concerning telling reporters and fans about injuries - I have no issue with the Yankees (or other team) being tight lipped.
It’s strategy. If the other team thinks someone can play when they can’t, it will effect how they manage the game. Done all the time in football.
Pettitte missed 1 start due to his back. That’s nothing. Posada was a freak injury from slipping on the plate during a throw. Betemit’s injury is common ailment in everyday society.
The other injuries are pulls/strains which happen in baseball because of the explosive nature in quick-start running.
My review of Hughes - I think he is tipping pitches. When I watch his games, it appears that the ball is exposed through his motion. No deception for the hitter and you can see the grip. I think I attached the Hardball Times video breakdown of Phil’s motion. Under “What’s Different”, the hands are breaking open even more now (frame
which is exposing the ball.
Plus, today, he isn’t using the “older, better motion” that got him to the Bigs. Same thing happened to someone else - Mark Prior.
Noticed the website link didn’t work, so I’ll try again
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/if-it-aint-brokea-video-review-of-phil-hughes-mechanical-changes/
I’m just curious but has A-Rod ever been on the DL?
Yup. I heard this morning that he was on the DL in 2000 but hasn’t been on it since.
“I’m just curious but has A-Rod ever been on the DL?”
– Seems to go on it every October.
Maybe the new GM next season can get some good trainers to help the team.
“Cashman has done a great job of reorganizing how the Yankees scout and develop players. Maybe the next thing to do is look into how they take care of them.”
thanks peter, where do i send you the money i said i’d pay you to say that ?
(just kidding folks. after some of the comments the last few days, it’s important to qualify things.)
seriously the yankees have to hire an assistant gm that overhauls and oversees the conditioning , training, and medical staff. then that person is in charge of everything through him or her.
cashman is spread too thin to do it, which is why so many conditioning things things fall through the cracks.
I have never been able to understand why baseball players have so many injuries running to first base, or stepping off the mound, etc. These simple little things seem to be such a big issue for these guys. What about a game like soccer or basketball where they are basically running all the time. They don’t seem to have these issues. What gives?
Most of the injuries I see at first are when the player is stretching as much as possible to leg out a hit. Injuries also happen a lot out of the box going from a fairly sedentary point twisting more at the waist to suddenly a full out sprint. In soccer you can usually build up momentum to the sprint.