Thread: Article: Twins injury policy needs rehabilitation

Originally Posted by biggentleben

Originally Posted by Brock Beauchamp

As I mentioned to Nick last night, I wonder if the front office was hesitant to DL Span because they want to trade him this offseason. A few days missed with no DL stint looks better than hitting the 15 day DL.

Tommy Hanson for Denard Span base of a deal. Let the minions work out the details. Get it done!

Myself, hoping for a deal involving Tampa involving Davis/Niemann or Cobb/Shields individually.
Good thinking tho....Hanson has gotten a lil worse each yr & arm problems scare me a bit

It would be really interesting if there were a way to compare the results of various medical staffs. I think most of us generally grumble about what has/is going on with injuries on the Twins. I just don't pay close enough attention to other teams to know how that compares.

Baseball Prospectus (now Rotowire, I believe) handed out the Dick Martin Award each year to the best medical staff. While the total numbers are no longer available, this 2009 piece/chart shows how much difference in time lost there was between the best (291, CWS) and the worst (1,451, NYM).

Look at the Royals last year. After years of losing more than 1,000 games each year to injury, they pared that down to 271 thanks, in part, to the hiring of a new training staff in 2010.

Really interesting article, Parker. Thanks. Do you know if the 3-year and 5-year stats to which they refer are available somewhere? It would be interesting to see how the Twins rank. It would also be interesting to see if there has been any movement in their position.

I also thought that the statement about confidence in younger players was interesting. But it also seems like teams with younger players should have less games lost to injury just as a matter of course.

One other thing, won't KC be really adversely affected this year given their rash of TJ surgeries? And how does that tie in to the new training methods?

Originally Posted by Seth Stohs

Elizabethton's Trainer was named the Appalachian League Trainer of the Year... I wonder if he would consider the big league gig?

Ryan's home is in minneapolis i'm sure he wouldn't mind coming home (and the incrase in pay would also be nice). we'd misshim here in elizabethton - he has been with us several seasons.

I get the part where athletes have to be honest with their injuries, but from my personal history with a few injuries that is hard to say. If someone ask you can you go tomorrow? IDK, I cracked a rib (or 2 or more) this past fall. 2 days later I could barely move, and couldn't laugh, or do anything. 5 days later I felt fine. But 5 days after that they really started bother me when I re-injured them stretching. So I understand the whole thing can be hard. But when a guy can't participate in batting practice on his 5th day, he should be DL'd. The Twins aren't in a race, they are in the bottom 5 of all of baseball. If you take a guy, DL him, get him 100% that is fine. What if he came back too early and screwed something up in his shoulder and had no trade value over the winter and had to miss time next year?
Now I do understand the part of who to call up, but the Twins send down Carson's when Span came back so they could have called up a pitcher. they could have called up an infielder, they could have called up Parmellee and seen if how he handles RF. This is the time of the year, in this type of year where you see what you have. Having a guy be day-to-day for 11 days doesn't help you in that path.

If a player is truly DTD then don't DL him. If he is butera or some other bench player, then DL them if they are going to miss even a few days. Since they are so close to replacement level, when if they play at 90% that provide basically the same value as a tripple a player. With a starter, I would say if they are going to miss at least 7-10 games, I would rather DL them and have them get fully healthy and rested. Span was a unique case because avoiding the DL might have helped his trade value slightly