Twins Start Doing Medical Evals Of Prospects

[nicksaviking]

Sick of getting burned, Twins focused more on pre-draft medical info | 1500 ESPN Twin Cities ? Minnesota Sports News & Opinion (Twins, Vikings, Wolves, Wild, Gophers) | Sportswire: Minnesota Twins

 

I didn't see this anywhere.

 

The Twins finally started to do extensive medical evaluations with prospective pitchers. I guess it only took Bashore, Gibson and Wimmers to blow out their elbows for them to get on board.

 

I'm glad they are finally doing what the rest of the league has been doing awhile, but why does my favorite team always seem to have to be at the back end of any new baseball philosophy?

 

Edit: I should have noted that this is a Phil Mackey piece.

[PseudoSABR]

That's reassuring, but also damning. Deron Johnson says, they were "one of the last few teams that didn't really rely a lot on medical." Wtf?

 

DJ goes onto say, "We've gotten burned over the years." No ****.

[IdahoPilgrim]

I guess the big question is if adopting this approach earlier would have avoided trouble or not. Even pitchers who pass this screening are going to have injuries.

 

In any case, I'm glad they're doing it now. Early adopter, late adopter, whatever, as long as they're doing it.

[nicksaviking]

Regardless of what a few people think in this day and age, stubborness is rarely a positive attribute. Adapt or die. I just wish the Twins be first to adapt, it's the slowest of the heard that gets taken down by the lion.

[Mike Sixel]

Hard to believe, given the importance of the draft.

[ashbury]

The two things I'm unclear on in this are 1) what information actually would do any good, and 2) what is the prevalence of falsified information.

[Winston Smith]

Hope they aren't using the taining staff to do it.

[John Bonnes]

Well, the cynic might say that this is just witch-doctory. There is nothing that suggests that any of these studies have any kind of correlation with preventing injuries. If they want to spend their time on it, I suppose it could be fine, even if it's a lot of gum-wagging and posturing. Or, it might be harmful - maybe the stuff they flag is in fact helpful.

 

The one thing that is probably valuable is that it allows them to gather info for future analysis, so as guys are injured (even guys they didn't draft), it might help them evaluate red flags in the future. But that would be way down the road.

[PseudoSABR]

Witch-doctory or not; having as much data as you can seems like a good idea to me. There's always a need to have smart people to parse through which data is meaningful and which is totally useless--I do not* think it's smart to dismiss any kind medical evaluations out of hand.

[TheLeviathan]

I'm confused by the compulsion to dismiss this. Aren't the Twins themselves via Mr. Johnson admitting this has been a lapse in good judgement here?

 

im glad we are doing this and a bit concerned we were late to the party.

[John Bonnes]

I do think it's smart to dismiss any kind medical evaluations out of hand.

 

I assume you meant "do not think".

 

I'm not saying to dismiss them out of hand. Just do so with a stone-sized grain of salt. The natural human reaction is to look at data and think there is an answer in it. I'll be very surprised if there is an answer in the data that is being gathered for something like this. I'm up for trying, but again, that's something to be identified much later, not a priori.

[PseudoSABR]

I assume you meant "do not think".

 

I'm not saying to dismiss them out of hand. Just do so with a stone-sized grain of salt. The natural human reaction is to look at data and think there is an answer in it. I'll be very surprised if there is an answer in the data that is being gathered for something like this. I'm up for trying, but again, that's something to be identified much later, not a priori.

Right, while the Twins might not take Baltimore's approach, they clearly are doing something different as far as gaining medical data than three years ago--that seems like a late adjustment to what the Twins themselves indicate was an industry standard. So many grains of salt, but that's why you have wheel barrels.

[Steve Lein]

Interesting. One thing to note that I remember from the pre-draft discussions when the Twins selected Kyle Gibson, was how the forearm or whatever injury he had during the college season which caused him to slip in the draft, was a precursor or pretty good predictor of future elbow problems...And look how that turned out...

[drjim]

Interesting. One thing to note that I remember from the pre-draft discussions when the Twins selected Kyle Gibson, was how the forearm or whatever injury he had during the college season which caused him to slip in the draft, was a precursor or pretty good predictor of future elbow problems...And look how that turned out...

 

That's true, but it was a worthwhile risk for the team to take. Hard for a team to acquire talent like that in the back half of the first round without taking a little risk on.

[nicksaviking]

And remember Wimmers was somehow pegged to the Twins at #21 by everyone. It was about as unanimous as who the Twins will take at #4 this year.

 

I always assumed the most "MLB ready" arm in the draft fell to the Twins because every other team valued high ceilings in the 1st round while the Twins valued high floors. What if other teams passed on the "MLB ready" arm because they instead noticed something in the medical reports?

[Winston Smith]

When you are giving guys millions of dollars you should spend every effort to find out as much as possible about them. Look at all the stuff players go thru before the football draft.

[ashbury]

Interesting. One thing to note that I remember from the pre-draft discussions when the Twins selected Kyle Gibson, was how the forearm or whatever injury he had during the college season which caused him to slip in the draft, was a precursor or pretty good predictor of future elbow problems...And look how that turned out...

 

Fair observation, but in keeping with John B's point, you also need to factor in how many other times such injuries have been flagged pre-draft and nothing happened to go wrong later. That requires a ton of data and then analysis.

[TheLeviathan]

Fair observation, but in keeping with John B's point, you also need to factor in how many other times such injuries have been flagged pre-draft and nothing happened to go wrong later. That requires a ton of data and then analysis.

 

I don't think anyone is suggesting this is a silver bullet for avoiding injuries, but another helpful tool. It's clear that Mr. Johnson feels not having this hurt the team. That's a pretty strong endorsement of the value.

[Steve Lein]

That's true, but it was a worthwhile risk for the team to take. Hard for a team to acquire talent like that in the back half of the first round without taking a little risk on.

 

Agreed. Just had to point that out.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Huh. I assumed this practice had been in place for years.