Twins 2024 Position Analysis: Center Field

[Schmoeman5]

17 minutes ago, wabene said:

Maybe there is no conspiracy or mishandling of the situation. They could've just struggled to correctly diagnose and treat the problem. Is this the first time someone had a condition that wasn't diagnosed properly? What would anyone have to gain from not just fixing the problem in the first place? Look for the motive. There isn't one. I don't know why that is so hard to believe. Last year they thought he would improve and kept pushing back his timeline on returning to the field. The soreness never went away. It is too bad Buxton effectively lost a year.

You never know he could be a new man from here on out and with all he has learned, stay healthy. 

"However, it is widely believed that plica syndrome goes undiagnosed in many instances since symptoms are similar to other knee problems."

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21705-plica-syndrome

I'm not suggesting a conspiracy. And I'll even acknowledge that they  misdiagnosed initially. I remember Rocco saying that he wasn't where he needed to be when he was asked about Buxton returning to CF. That was May if I'm not mistaken. Buxton continued to go downhill performance wise. And yet they still acted like he would rejoin them after he was I Led in Aug. Did a short rehab stint in st. Paul before they shut him down. Then activated him for the last playoff game. His procedure was shortly after the season ended. So somewhere in that time frame they figured it out. Bummer either way. The problem I have is that the Twins put a 1 legged man out there until they realized he couldn't help them.

[bean5302]

13 hours ago, JD-TWINS said:

Castro had a 106 OPS+ ……period.

.257 BA - 32 XBH - 33 steals - 6 positions potentially……124 games. Good speed & good arm!

He’s going to turn 27 in a month.

I don’t care what he did with the Tigers any more than I care what Nikko Goodrum did with the Tigers. How did they do in ‘23?

Castro can play CF for 80 games if needed.

I'm a big fan of Castro, and my offseason plan would have put Castro as the starting 2B out of the gate. Also, I would have rather the Twins not signed Margot and made Castro the backup CF. That said, Castro had 1,100 plate appearances across 4 seasons including back to back 400ish plate appearance seasons where he was very poor offensively. Then he has an explosion at the plate in 2023 despite a lot of poor contact, and an xwOBA 20 points lower than actual. It's worth tempering expectations for a guy who was non-tendered rather than paying $1.7MM before their age 26 season.

[CCHOF5yearstoolate]

10 hours ago, wabene said:

"However, it is widely believed that plica syndrome goes undiagnosed in many instances since symptoms are similar to other knee problems."

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21705-plica-syndrome

This is the important takeaway from this whole saga. Byron Buxton didn't just develop a plica in the last few years, he's had it since he was 8-10 weeks old in the womb. It just wasn't causing him pain until some recent injury, but the symptoms associated with an inflamed plica are the same as other knee problems that are far more common and better understood. As I've read from actual doctors and PTs, removing the plica is closer to a last ditch effort than it is any kind of normal procedure for an athlete.  

It's not some medical malpractice, or laziness or incompetence on the Twins part that essentially erased Buxton's 2023 season. It's not fair, but sometimes that's just life. I can pretty much guarantee that anyone who is bashing the Twins for this has ever even heard of a plica before.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK535362/#_article-27335_s2_

Quote

Epidemiology

The literature varies widely regarding the estimated prevalence of plica syndrome. Most report a 10% prevalence of plica syndrome based on arthroscopic studies. It is estimated that plica syndrome is underdiagnosed because the symptoms are similar to other etiologies of knee pain. A study in Japan looked at 3889 knee joints during arthroscopy and found the incidence of medial plica to be 79.9%. This did not specify that the plica was the etiology of symptoms in all these patients and thus this was the incidence of plica, not plica syndrome. Other literature reviews show autopsy results that found plica are present in approximately 50% of individuals. Thus, the prevalence of plica on arthroscopy does not correlate with the prevalence of clinical plica syndrome.

Pathophysiology

Plicae are normal structures in the knee joint that come together in utero. Plicae typically involute when the fetus is around 12 weeks old, but autopsy results indicate plicae are present in 50% of individuals.

It is important to note that not all plicae cause pain. Normal plicae can become painful as a result of undergoing inflammation. This inflammation can then lead to a tight, fibrotic plica that can manifest in symptoms during flexion of the knee when it leads to impingement between the patella and femur.

 

[wabene]

18 minutes ago, CCHOF5yearstoolate said:

This is the important takeaway from this whole saga. Byron Buxton didn't just develop a plica in the last few years, he's had it since he was 8-10 weeks old in the womb. It wasn't causing him pain until some recent injury, but the symptoms associated with an inflamed plica are the same as other knee problems that are far more common and better understood. As I've read from actual doctors and PTs, removing the plica is closer to a last ditch effort than it is any kind of normal procedure for an athlete.  

It's not some medical malpractice, or laziness or incompetence on the Twins part that essentially erased Buxton's 2023 season. It's not fair, but sometimes that's just life. I can pretty much guarantee no one who is bashing the Twins for this has ever even heard of a plica before.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK535362/#_article-27335_s2_

 

Yes and this is why when I first heard of the plica at the end of the season and read about it, I had renewed optimism for Buxton. That's because it is usually successful. I've been posting about this since then and now watching him joyfully run around, it looks promising. This could be a fun season.