Reusse column on Sano

[Richard Karn's Beard]

 

I cannot understand why it's totally baseless to question this and that his overall physical well-being cannot be connected to performance.  It makes no sense on many levels.

 

 

 

I've been reading articles here for years and have always considered myself a "fan" of the Twins and baseball in general.  I've always been hesitant to comment or give my opinion because the responses many times are so snarky, dismissive, and matter-of-fact.  The level of arrogance from certain members is off-putting.  It's almost as if some of the regulars here don't want anyone having an opinion of their own and/or just don't want to read about it.

 

Losing weight it difficult.  No doubt about it.  But back to your concern about his weight being connected to the issue...There is an "ideal weight range" called BMI that's pretty easy to calculate.  Per his "listed" weight of 260 he's still well above the obesity range.  It's not totally 100% accurate but quite frankly I doubt he's even close to 260 lbs right now.  Small changes in his body mass would undoubtedly improve how he functions in normal life, let alone baseball related activities.  

 

This isn't a contact game.  You wanna weight 260 lbs as a defensive lineman?  Fine.  Not in baseball at the hot corner where reflexes and agility mean everything.  This is a reflex, speed, and agility game.  Reflexes, speed, and agility can be improved by losing weight.  Not losing too much weight, but losing SOME weight, or redistributing that weight through monitored diet and exercise.  

 

Are there other factors in play that people don't know about?  Probably.  Maybe it's mental health issues or an addiction of some sort.  Maybe there are family issues at play.  Maybe relationship troubles.  Or maybe he's just lazy.  Losing 10 lbs would take a man of that size a week with a basic meal plan and exercise routine.  And that would be a good start.  So to give my opinion once again, I unashamedly say he's lazy.

 

I hope everyone's week has been excellent so far and I'm very excited to be able to watch the Twins on FS1 tomorrow.  It is an absolute treat for me to be able to watch anything Twins related here in Omaha as we have the unfortunate curse of being considered "Royals" territory.    

 

[TheLeviathan]

BMI is ridiculous.

[Battle ur tail off]

 

Is Buxton in great shape?  Might he be "too skinny" for the wear and tear of 162 games?  

 

I'm playing devil's advocate here a bit, but I think Kirby's point about the lack of consistency with the criticisms is really the key.  LoMo is pudgy, but there aren't 6 threads about that.  Fernando Romero isn't exactly the healthiest looking guy in the world either.  

 

And Glen Perkins?  That dude relished being a fat guy in the offseason who didn't give a damn.  Is it too much to ask for consistency?

What I am saying is that no one cares about Lo Mo because he just isn't an important piece of the team. Glen Perkins was railed on by quite a few people for being chubby and lazy also. I don't care what Fernando Romero looks like either if he keeps pitching like he has. Buxton has all kinds of criticisms on the daily. I've said it before he is as soft as charmin.

 

People talk about Sano because he is a cornerstone type of player. At his best, he's a giant in the lineup and a huge part of this team.

[TheLeviathan]

 

What I am saying is that no one cares about Lo Mo because he just isn't an important piece of the team. Glen Perkins was railed on by quite a few people for being chubby and lazy also. I don't care what Fernando Romero looks like either if he keeps pitching like he has. Buxton has all kinds of criticisms on the daily. I've said it before he is as soft as charmin.

 

People talk about Sano because he is a cornerstone type of player. At his best, he's a giant in the lineup and a huge part of this team.

 

And as I've pointed out....even when he was an All-Star and a successful player for this team, the articles were still coming out about his weight.  Maybe not from you personally, but this issue doesn't disappear when he has a .900 OPS as you are suggesting.  (And was suggested earlier)

[ewen21]

 

And as I've pointed out....even when he was an All-Star and a successful player for this team, the articles were still coming out about his weight.  Maybe not from you personally, but this issue doesn't disappear when he has a .900 OPS as you are suggesting.  (And was suggested earlier)

He hadn't progressed to this point by then.  I was not concerned about his conditioning then.  A lot of other people might have been, but I was not.  Over time, he has managed to get me concerned about his physical state.

 

This isn't rocket science.  Anyone who carried a few extra pounds can attest.  This isn't so much about the weight for me as it is the CONDITIONING.  He can weigh 260 pounds and I could care less about that if he were built better to be a more well rounded player.  Not sure why you are pushing so hard against people suggesting that he condition himself in a more meaningful way because he's most certainly not the same guy he was in 2015.  He put on a good 15 to 20 pounds and it isn't muscle mass.  Let's get real here.

 

I know about where my ideal weight is and it took me until I was about 34 or 35 years old to get it.  It is well above the BMI but then I have lifted weights for a long long time.  I am just a teacher, not an athlete.  If I can do it at 52 years old he should do a better job.  Period.  Stop.

 

 

[ewen21]

 

What I am saying is that no one cares about Lo Mo because he just isn't an important piece of the team. Glen Perkins was railed on by quite a few people for being chubby and lazy also. I don't care what Fernando Romero looks like either if he keeps pitching like he has. Buxton has all kinds of criticisms on the daily. I've said it before he is as soft as charmin.

 

People talk about Sano because he is a cornerstone type of player. At his best, he's a giant in the lineup and a huge part of this team.

We have to make a distinction here?

 

Simple.  Logan Morrison carries a few extra pounds, but he was signed to a one year deal, is 30 years old and isn't in  Sano territory.  Miguel Sano has been referred to as a potentially great player for years.  I did not write the articles, I did not rate him, I did not draft him.  A documentary was actually centered around him when he was 16.  Is this HIS FAULT?  No, it is not.  Then again, it is not your fault or my fault (or anyone else's fault) he was hyped up so much.

 

Watching his trajectory over the last four or five years he has gained plenty of weight and it isn't good weight.  Aaron Judge weighs over 280 pounds and no one cares.  Why is that?  Because it is OBVIOUS that he is very well conditioned.  The guy is making plays in the outfield Sano could never dream of making.  Never mind that.  This idea that the eye test is totally inadmissible stuns me to no end.  People work out and train hard to look better.  And why is that?  So people could notice and (more importantly) to improve their overall health.   Do people honestly believe nothing can be gleaned about conditioning from a guy's appearance AND myriad other factors?

 

That is pretty stunning to me.

 

 

[KirbyDome89]

 

I haven't once blamed that injury, or any other injury for that matter, on him being overweight or out of shape. Weight clearly didn't cause a ball to hit his shin.

 

I say, and have said, only this: Conditioning is a legitimate concern for a major league team to have on one of its young players. It is a potential factor in his slow recovery from injuries. But weight caused neither the shin injury last year, or the hamstring injury this year. His conditioning could make it harder to recover from them.

 

Even if not, conditioning is still vital because it gives him a better chance of staying at third and having a longer career. It's also a symptom of the seriousness to which a player takes his career, especially in his 20s. Why is this even a debate?

 

The Twins have every right to be concerned about his level of conditioning and his weight gain, especially given his age. Yet any time someone brings it up, people harp on it and somehow rush to the defense of the player, insisting that it's somehow OK for a player to gain 40 pounds in three years in his mid-20s when he has access to personal trainers and weight rooms and physical therapists. 

 

And you keep pointing to those "30 games" in the second half of last year.

 

It's not just those 30 games. I don't know how many times I have to say this.

 

It's the 20 games he played this year, and it's the full 100+ games in his 2016 season. That's a hell of a lot more than half a season. I would gladly look past 2016, but the performance in the 50 games since the all-star game last year has made that year more the norm than the exception.

 

 

The most likely reason why Sano is struggling is his swing, and his inability to adjust to pitchers who have adjusted to his freeswinging tendencies. The swing was the primary subject of the original column, right or wrong.

 

Maybe I do have to readjust my expectations. But a Miguel Sano with a .740 OPS is just not all that valuable. 

When the number of games missed is being linked to his weight I'm not sure how else I'm supposed to read it. Chalk it up to a misunderstanding then I guess. 

 

I've repeated this endlessly. It's only a "debate," because of the armchair fitness diagnosis. You can list off every risk factor for injury and recovery and I'm not going to fight you on them. The issue is whether or not they apply to Sano. Nobody knows what an acceptable level of fitness for him is, or what it looks like, but apparently we're all certain he isn't there. The other issue is that it's being used to make character assessments, i.e. "a symptom of the seriousness with which he takes his career." When posts presume to understand the psyche of a player I think it's time to take a step back. 

 

I've said my peace on 16' and I'm not going to bury him because of a disappointing but short second half in 17' and a bad 10 game stretch to start 18'. We'll just disagree on the significance of those samples. 

 

I 100% agree, the most likely cause is something either mechanical and/or an approach issue. You're not going to get any arguments that an OPS just above .700 is ideal. 

[Platoon]

BMI is ridiculous.

I know someone in DC who came in one pound under. I saw Adrian Peterson, not sure what he weighed but it was well over 200. And I see Sano at well over 200. The eye test says there are two different kinds of well over 200. Whoops, make that three, I forgot myself!

[TheLeviathan]

 

I know someone in DC who came in one pound under. I saw Adrian Peterson, not sure what he weighed but it was well over 200. And I see Sano at well over 200. The eye test says there are two different kinds of well over 200. Whoops, make that three, I forgot myself!

 

Right, the Rock'sy 260 and Miguel's 260 and the dude at Burger King every day for lunch's 260 are not the same thing.  Which is why BMI is kooky-dukes.

 

I'm clearly being forced to watch Moana too often is what I just realized from typing that paragraph.

[Doubles]

 

Nobody knows what an acceptable level of fitness for him is, or what it looks like, but apparently we're all certain he isn't there.

This, right here, is the very crux of the debate that absolutely loses me.

[ewen21]

 

This, right here, is the very crux of the debate that absolutely loses me.

He's saying that you, I or anyone who thinks he could do a better job training have no idea what we are talking about because he can't tell if Sano did or didn't because he didn't have 24 hour surveillance on him this winter.

 

It's not our problem if people can't make simple inferences about someone's conditioning.  I mean, do we REALLY need to have labels for "before" and "after"????
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bpLuAbSRc14/maxresdefault.jpg

[TheLeviathan]

Hey....remember that time we played "Before" and "After" during spring training before pictures even came out?

 

Yeah.  Fun times.  

[launchingthrees]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed

 

Plug in weight +injury risk, body fat+ injury risk, weight +recovery, whatever. This isn't a subjective issue. It's solved. Extra weight increases the likelihood of injury and the significance of injuries. Very little in exercise science has been studied to a greater extent. This is settled science.

 

If Sano continues to hover at his current weight he is very unlikely to stay healthy for an extended period of time. If someone says losing weight would not decrease the likelihood of injury then they aren't informed on the issue. No amount of whataboutism changes that. Can the team force him to lose weight? Probably not. But his weight absolutely has contributed to his injuries, and maybe more importantly to his ability to recover from those injuries.