Injured Pitchers

[Trov]

Frankie Montas and Carlos Rodon will be starting their season on IL.  Both play for Yankees, and both were targets of fans on this page for Twins the last couple of years.  Montas is expected to miss most of the season.  Many fans wanted Twins to trade for him all last year.  Twins have been attacked for trading for pitchers that have got hurt.  Looks like we dodge at least one of them. 

Rodon, many fans wanted to sign both of last two years.  Last year he did good and had his second year in a row of relative health which led to his 6 year 162mil contract.  I was not one that wanted to sign Rodon to long term deal, mainly his long history of injuries.  Reports of this injury is similar to what he dealt with last year in SF, where he really did not miss time, as he still pitched in 31 games.  However, forearm strain is always a scarry thing to hear as tend to lead to UCL tears and Tommy John.  If he ends up missing time for that, it will look like Twins will have dodged that one as well.  

I do not wish either ill will, but as it goes for Rodon, I was never high on him because of risk of injury over his career.  Outside of 2 contract years, he has never been great due to combinations of injuries and not being effective.  After 2 years of health and success, everyone was high on him.  I said I would not give him more than a few years due to concerns.  Will Yankees end up eating a lot of dead money?  Did Twins dodge some bullets?  

[gunnarthor]

Twins have been hit with enough bullets that they probably shouldn't be too smug and the Yankees have the resources to be fine.

Pitching is always fragile. Pitchers are fine and then they aren't. What teams in the Twins situation have to do is what the Twins did in the 2000s - rely almost completely on the system to develop pitchers. Maybe a pipeline of some sort. Right now, the FO has not been able to do it so we've had to sell off resources for our pitching staff. 

[TiberTwins]