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June 23, 2009

Under The Knife

Progress Reports

by Will Carroll

There was a short schedule last night in baseball, but there are enough injuries to take this from a "Mini-UTK" Unfiltered Post up to a slightly smaller than normal UTK. Hey, good things come in small packages, right? Powered by finishing my work for the Football Outsiders book, on to the injuries:

Carlos Beltran (20 DXL)
The MRI on Beltran showed that the bone bruise in his knee was getting bigger. This led to two things. First, the Mets put him on the DL, and then Joel Sherman tweeted that it made him think of this classic. So we get some good with the bad. As I stated yesterday, Beltran's knee has been problematic for a while, leading some to wonder if he can stay in center field or if he can even stay in the game long-term. I mentioned a meniscal transplant, but actually the most likely off-season scenario might be for Beltran to have microfracture surgery. This is precisely the type of situation where the operation does the most good, but the results in baseball have been mixed, and there's no good comparable player for a plus defender like Beltran. The Mets will now focus on his rehab and just hope that maintenance and rest keep him productive. The team expects him back just after the All-Star break.

Akinori Iwamura (90 DXL)
Let's hear it for secondary stabilizers! Iwamura had one of the uglier injuries that we've seen this year, and yet, when Dr. Koco Eaton came out of surgery, the news couldn't have been better. Iwamura did not need an ACL reconstruction, just a simple meniscectomy. The ACL had torn, but not to the degree that it needed to be replaced. Eaton did a simple 'scope to fix the meniscus, and Iwamura went from being done for the season to someone you can expect back in August. That could be a big boost for the Rays down the stretch, though Ben Zobrist is playing pretty darn well. The interesting thing here is what the Rays aren't saying, and when they began to not say itL Eaton had to know before the surgery that there was at least a strong chance that the ACL wasn't torn. By going in with the 'scope first and getting visuals on it, he avoided opening the knee unnecessarily and costing Iwamura more time. The delay between injury and surgery is still a big question mark, but my guess is that Iwamura was rehabbing in hopes of avoiding surgery up to that point. If so, we can now add this to the reasons why the Rays weren't even considering trades to fill the spot.

Scott Kazmir (30 DXL)
The Rays also got some good news on the pitching front. During his start in Triple-A, Kazmir looked... well, nothing at all like the Kazmir we've seen so far in 2009. He showed good velocity, solid mechanics, a nice mix of pitches, and (gasp) efficiency in his six innings of work. In fact, he looked so much better than Clay Buchholz, his opponent, that one observer told me this was a big negative for Buchholz. "It wasn't a good outing for Buchholz, and he's better than that, but the contrast was huge. I'm not sure if that says more about [Kazmir] or Buchholz though." Let's take the positive view and say that it's the payoff from his work with ASMI and with Rick Peterson, plus a little less time at Venue, that has Kazmir back to the place he needs to be physically, mentally, and mechanically. Kazmir could return to the Rays and be back into their rotation as soon as his next start.

Ervin Santana (15 DXL)
The Angels aren't catching many breaks this season, but moving Santana to the DL isn't as bad as it seems on the surface. It's a retroactive move backdated to June 12, which makes him eligible to come off of the DL on this coming Friday. The move was made after he had a little soreness during his throwing session on Sunday. Santana noted that the forearm pain was coming very high in the forearm, near the elbow, but still in the "belly" of the muscles there. It's unclear if he'll be ready to come off on Friday, or how the Angels will reconfigure the rotation to slot him back in, but this isn't a good sign. While most focus on an elbow injury, this sounds like a classic cascade to me.