Esteban Loaiza remains a shining light in a dim White Sox season. Woody Williams has been well worth the Cardinals’ money. The Rangers’ defense remains the worst in baseball. Plus other Prospectus Triple Play news and notes from Chicago, St. Louis, and Texas.
Joe Sheehan checks in on the 2003 Mariners, and sees a lot of similarities to the 116-win powerhouse of 2001. Can Stand Pat Gillick help push this year’s club over the top?
On Saturday, Roger Clemens missed again in his third try for career win
No. 300. Clemens pitched well for 6 2/3 innings, but was forced out of the game
by an upper respiratory infection having thrown just 84 pitches. In his wake,
Juan Acevedo surrendered a monster three-run home run to Eric
Karros–not easy for a right-handed pitcher–that was the crushing blow in
a 5-2 loss.
Clemens, of course, is going to get No. 300. He’s still a very good pitcher, and there’s no reason to expect that this will turn into a chase like Early
Wynn’s. Wynn notched career win No. 297 in July of 1962, then had just two
wins in his final 11 starts that season. He returned in 1963 to win No. 300–and only No. 300, in 20 appearances–before hanging them up for good.
The interesting thing about this mini-chase is that by struggling to reach his
landmark number, Clemens is illustrating the problem with pitcher wins as a
performance metric.
Sammy Sosa explains why his bat was a little lighter than usual; Professor Robert Adair explains why it doesn’t matter; George Steinbrenner thinks the world is out to get him; Bobby Kielty reads from the gospel according to Earl Weaver; and Scott Elarton reminds us why Colorado is such a unique environment. All this and much more in the newest edition of The Week In Quotes.
Brad Ausmus has been a huge drag on the Astros’ season. The Brewers’ Richie Sexson is the best first baseman in the NL right now. The A’s are thrilled that Brad Sullivan fell into their laps. Plus other Prospectus Triple Play news and notes out of Houston, Milwaukee, and Oakland.
The good news is that Hee Seop Choi will be OK and shouldn’t have any lasting effects from his concussion Saturday. It’s a scary sight for people to see someone unconscious and “locked” as Choi was after his head whipped into the hard Wrigley dirt. After being unconscious for more than two minutes, being taken off with all precautions, and following each step the situation called for, including a night in the hospital, Choi should return in about two weeks, no worse for the wear. Concussions are an interesting beast and everyone will react differently, but it is not a football-type situation where Choi is a recurrence risk. He has as much chance of falling and hitting his head like that as you or I do–probably less. Several sources are pointing to insurance as the reason for the DL posting and this is quite likely the case. The treatment of Choi was textbook concussion management and there’s no reason that should stop when Choi left the field of play and entered the field of lawyers and actuaries. If nothing else, this is a great showcase for David Kelton…and one that could finally lead to a trade for the Cubs.
Joe Sheehan’s analysis of Joe Garagiola Jr.’s trade history included a challenge to keep an open mind. I’m trying to, especially in the case of the acquisition of Shea Hillenbrand. No trade should be analyzed by any one measure. By my favorite measure, MLVr, the Diamondbacks made out like bandits. By injury analysis, Hillenbrand’s oblique injury would cloud things, but Kim’s earlier DL stint would be ignored since it was a freak, traumatic occurrence. Trades probably can’t even be analyzed properly for three years or more, but their very nature demands that they be dissected in every column, blog, and toilet stall from Roxbury to Mesa. All we can tell in this moment is that the severity of Hillenbrand’s injury won’t decide the fate of the 2003 season for the Diamondbacks. That fate was probably sealed long ago.
B.J. Surhoff and Deivi Cruz have compormising pictures of Orioles management. Darren Dreifort’s latest injury has the Dodgers pondering his future yet again. The Brewers may have grasped the concept of sunk costs. The Phillies’ bullpen is a mess. News, notes, and Kahrlisms from 25 major league teams in the latest edition of Transaction Analysis.
There are open questions about Randy Johnson, and Friday’s UTK seems to have opened quite the can of worms surrounding the reigning Cy Young Award winner. As I reported, Johnson is having a series of injections to lubricate his knee and replace the missing cushion and lubrication that should naturally be there. The substance, Synvisc, is administered in a series of three injections, with the first performed Friday, the next scheduled on Tuesday and the final probably the next Friday. There are whispers coming from multiple sources that the Synvisc injections aren’t the solution, but merely a stopgap measure to try and get Johnson through the season. The underlying problem is rumored to be an osteochondral defect and the normal therapy for that is a microfracture surgery or reconfiguration of the bone through an osteotomy.
The problem is similar to that of Mo Vaughn, but a better recent comp is Marvin Benard. Benard had microfracture surgery, took about four months to get back into competitive shape, and has had some setbacks along the way. If Johnson can be babied through to the end of the season, he could have the more extensive surgery in the off-season. Still, despite the best efforts of a good Arizona medical staff, Johnson’s knee could flare up under the unusual stresses placed on the plant leg of a power pitcher. There’s nothing to say that the Unit can’t do it, but if you’re looking at risks, Johnson’s red light just started flashing.
In addition to the pitching problems, the Diamondbacks are placing David Dellucci on the DL after a concussion. The move is termed precautionary and was done more to add a body to the roster while Dellucci fully recovers than concern that he will take longer than expected to recover. Curt Schilling, Craig Counsell, Matt Mantei and Mike Koplove are some of the other key Diamondbacks on the DL for various lengths of time. It’s not just at the major league level either–they’re dropping like flies at the Triple-A level too. Remember that the arms still there, the ones not forced up to the majors by injury, are likely facing a heavier workload and more stress than expected.
The news on Vladimir Guerrero gets worse. The herniated L4/L5 disc is causing not only the painful immobility of his trunk and weakness and radiating pain to his legs, but there is some concern that there may be some stenosis associated with this problem. While the diagnosis of stenosis may not alter the timetable or protocol significantly, it does make it much more likely that Guerrero will be forced to undergo surgery at some point in the future. Guerrero’s response to epidural injections is now crucial. He’ll likely have at least two and perhaps three in hopes that surgery can be avoided. While the injury is comparable to that suffered by Ivan Rodriguez last season, the stenotic element makes this more concerning from a long-term perspective.
The Yankees trade for Ruben Sierra. It’s a bad deal now, just as it was a bad deal in 1995, writes Joe Sheehan. Plus Dusty Baker and his mishandling of the Cubs bullpen.
If I were making even the major league minimum, I would think an off-season visit to a woodworking group and a couple hundred bucks investment in various types of stock would be worth the risk. The cost difference between a bat made out of Padauk and a bat made out of maple really wouldn’t be all that great, and if it can get you 2% more velocity off the bat, that might be the difference between a multi-year deal that sets you up for life and running the produce department at Giant Eagle. After all, gaining an advantage by going against the rules is called cheating. Gaining an advantage by working around the rules to an area not previously considered by the rulemakers is innovation.
Vlad Guerrero and Zach Day go down, adding to the Expos’ injuries woes. Jerome Williams gets his chance with Kurt Ainsworth on the DL. Carlos Delgado is crushing everything in sight. Plus other news and notes out of Montreal, San Francisco, and Toronto.
If you’ve followed any of the media coverage surrounding Sammy Sosa’s corked bat, you’re probably already tired of it. If you’ve seen Rick Reilly on ESPN, looking as if his head might explode with anger at any moment, while implying that it’s a short step from corking a bat to being hopped up on steroids, you’re probably dog tired of it.
So I’m going to leave Sosa out of this for a while.
The Expos got about the worst possible news Thursday, regarding Vladimir Guerrero. Early thought that his back pain was the result of the hard turf in Montreal and would clear up once he got to grass turned out to be incorrect. An MRI showed a mildly bulging, herniated disk but significant nerve impingement. The likely course of action is a DL stint and epidural injections to control the inflamed disk and attempt to reduce the impingement. This is a relatively easy injury to come back from in a matter of weeks, if not too severe. But reports on the severity of Vlad’s injury have varied. The Montreal Gazette reports that “Guerrero probably will be sidelined for an extended period of time.” Vlad will likely see renowned spine surgeon Robert Watkins for a second opinion. The loss of their superstar not only hurts the Expos on the field, but also reduces the potential trade value for Vlad.
There’s been some confusion regarding Randy Johnson, but I spoke to team sources yesterday afternoon and got a bit more clarity on the situation. Johnson and the staff are discussing using Synvisc, an artificial lubricant, in his knee, but this is more a long-term solution. Johnson fully intends to pitch for several more years and does not want to undergo a series of “scrape and tape” knee scopes or have the same type of arthritic degeneration seen in other players. The Synvisc injections should not affect his injury timetable.
Tom Glavine went only one inning yesterday with uncharacteristic wildness. Leaving the game after 54 pitches, Glavine reported “severe stiffness” in his pitching elbow. Reader Greg Sigountos wrote in to let me know that Glavine said in a postgame interview that the problem was caused by adjustments he made as a result of his recent blister. Look–cascading! Since loss of command often is a sign of UCL problems, this bears watching and any injury would be just another nail in the coffin for Steve Phillips.
Last week, Joe Garagiola Jr. made the latest in a long series of heavily-criticized trades in which he gave up young players developed by the Diamondbacks for older talent. While the Byung-Hyun Kim-for-Shea Hillenbrand deal doesn’t quite fit the pattern of his other swaps, it does share one important characteristic: it was largely panned by outside performance analysts.
I’m with them. While I can see a scenario in which the Diamondbacks win the deal, I think that they gave up too much talent for a player who is likely to be average or maybe a little above. The deal is especially problematic because the Snakes have third-base prospect Chad Tracy available, and Tracy is a comparable player to Hillenbrand right now, and comes with a lower price tag and a higher upside.
What keeps me from emptying both barrels on the deal is Garagiola’s track record. This isn’t the first time he’s made a trade that left me shaking my head, and yet, the Diamondbacks have been one of the most successful franchises in baseball since they entered the league.
Statheads…often lament the intentional walk with an argument that usually goes like this: With a runner on third and one out, the expected runs scored for the inning are X. With the bases loaded and one out, that number is Y (higher than X). This argument normally makes sense, but in a situation where one run is all that matters, the manager should instead try to maximize the probability that no runs will score…Does walking the bases loaded with one out make sense on this basis?
As D.H. points out, the only thing that each manager need concern himself with is whether that one essential run scores. All the strategic elements of the game–hitting, baserunning, pitching, defense–are profoundly different under these conditions. What’s a manager to do?
Boyd Nation serves up the second installment in his series on college baseball and the College World Series with a guide to evaluating college pitchers (aka why Mark Prior is better than Todd Pennington).