cmathewson

Point is, he played in those games as a pinch runner/late-inning defensive replacement for Willingham. Both times he started and played a whole game he was unavailable the next two days. The second time, they put him on the DL. If that was all he could do on the bum leg, it wasn't enough to stay off the DL. Given the nature of the injury, it was a huge risk letting him play through it. When he told Gardy he couldn't play for a whole game, they should have DLed him then and there. He told him that on March 26, and again after the season started. According to reports, Gardy asked him several times in the first week if he could start in place of Hicks and he said "no". If that's the case, why did they wait for him to aggravate the injury before they DLed him?

Oh I forgot... After reading the disclaimer... "And I will be telling my wife Gail when I get home that she will NOT be disseminating."

In today's game, if you pitch seven innings a start, you win Cy Young awards, like Johan Santana He's about to throw his 100th pitch. I hope he doesn't blow up He left it up...but on the replay it was not a bad pitch, the hitter just dropped the head of the bat and got good wood on it Too many pitches this inning He really stays back good, gets to that balance point, and then explodes toward home plate Ch EEE cago

Charley Walters: Analytics could have helped my Minnesota Twins career - TwinCities.com

I guarantee you Anderson does the kind of analysis Parker did on Pelfrey this morning, which is going to give his pitcher more stuff to work on than any results-based metrics. Let the FO focus on WAR and the coaches focus on Pitch F/X. As far as I'm concerned, the coaches don't need to clutter their minds with those decisions.

Great analysis. If this keeps up for two more starts, they'll make a change, regardless of what Gardy says. Option him out (assuming he accepts). Let him work on staying taller, getting that "good downward plane," working quicker, and not having to horse the ball up there. Shades of Nick Blackburn, who pitched worse the harder he threw the ball.

I tried to argue this on another thread. Thing is, the maths don't really work. High contact does not equal low WHIP. It only does if the pitcher has a low BABIP.

I was going to say, how can you do that when you have just experienced an impact fracture to the testicle? Blue pills aren't going to help much either.

Reading between the lines of the article, they definitely do not want to publicize just how savvy they are statistically "for competitive reasons".

I like both Berardino and Miller. They go above and beyond. They don't just talk to the same five sources all the time and mail in a column. And they're prolific, when allowed to be. As for the content of the article. Goin is my new hero.

They have missed worse. They missed the severity of the first Mauer knee injury and it almost ruined his career just as it was starting. Everyone knows about the torn meniscus. Only after the season did a sports writer interview his father (the medical staff doesn't discuss injuries for obvious reasons). He said Joe had a significant injury to the cap on his femur, which went undetected until his second MRI (after he struggled to return from surgery). If they had found it on the first MRI, Joe would never have played after surgery. Playing on it made it much worse. Point is, they miss stuff. Hairline fractures are the hardest to find.

Reading the sarcasm as intended (I hope), I get your point. But I can excuse the player in his first full year of the majors after getting sent down from spring training four consecutive years and spending six years in the minors out of college. It was the most bitter of ironies that he was hurt just before making the team, when he had a good chance of eventually winning the starting job. If he could only play through it,....

This, in a nutshell is my issue. I get that sports medicine is hard and these things happen once in a while. But every freeking time it's the same pattern. Meanwhile, Gardy is without that player or a suitable replacement for weeks. Last year, Plouffe was unavailable but not on the DL for weeks before they finally put him on. Gardy was playing with a 24-man team for much of last year between him and the others. In this case, the eventual diagnosis doesn't even make any sense. A stress reaction is the precursor to a stress fracture. It is a thinning in the bone caused by stress, not blunt-force trauma. But the injury was caused by Mastro fouling a ball off his leg. And, as Thrylos said, you can't diagnose a stress reaction with an MRI. You can find a fracture with an MRI. So the only reason they are doing the MRI is to find a fracture. I said this weeks ago. He probably never had a bone bruise. He probably had the kind of fracture Hunter had, which is sometimes called an impact fracture, like when a rock hits the windshield and leaves hairline cracks radiating from a central point. I'm no doctor, but I had this kind of fracture in my youth. They often don't show up on an X-Ray until they start healing. They are typically diagnosed as a bone bruise until they show up in medical imagery. At this point, a bone bruise should have healed. Instead it's getting worse. So they are probably looking for the signs of a hairline fracture. When they find it, they'll be wondering what might have been if they had immobilized the leg right away and allowed it to heal, rather than allowing the cracks to grow by sending the player into live action. I sometimes wonder if the medical staff even leaves the training room until the game starts. Guys are limping around out there in warm-ups and they only hear about injuries when the player seeks treatment. I had hoped the shake-up in the medical staff would have changed the outcomes for these injuries. It's not a good sign that we see the same pattern in the first major injury this year. What happens now? Well, it leaves the Twins dangerously thin in center field. Hicks is here to stay, and is showing signs of competence. And Arcia is probably here for the long haul as well. I'm sure Escobar is taking fly balls out there in practice. The twins will limp along as they always do. But it doesn't have to be this way.

And you get a gold star. Sabathia gives me hope for Price, but let's be real. He'll get Verlander money. Nobody should get Verlander money.

Yes, that's the key. The Mets invested so heavily in Santana, they basically were done for. (That, and their owners were Bernie Madoff's best clients.) The history doesn't really look too good on long-term $100+ million contracts for pitchers. Find me one that worked, and I'd give you a gold star. None of the guys who were available this past offseason were worth it. Greinke was the best guy out there and he is almost guaranteed not to be worth it. The Tigers and Mariners signed their guys before they became available. Those two have the best shot at justifying investing in an ace. All that said, if Price wants to come pitch for us at a reasonable rate, I'd have him. If there's ever an argument for going for it, it's after this year, when there are some decent guys available.

I know a lot of people on this board were looking at 70 wins or less. And Vegas agreed with them. But I never understood that. They were basing their conclusions on last year's rotation, which was an utter disaster, mostly due to injuries and lack of depth. You can't look at this rotation and say it is no better than last year's with a straight face. I doubt if Correia's line is sustainable. But other guys have plenty of room to step up. Diamond and Gibson e.g. Worley has had only one good start. Pelfrey's labored. And there's a lot of guys waiting for opportunities if he doesn't turn the corner. In short, they're getting about what you would expect by way of starting pitching at this stage, and they should improve. I said it before the season and I'll say it again, I see no reason to think this team will not be a .500 team at the end of the year.

This is a good argument to move Gibson up sooner rather than later. Some were calling for Hendriks to return. I don't think we'll see that any time soon. He's had four opportunities in the last year. Time to give Gibson a shot when a spot opens up, which could happen after Saturday's Rangers game with Hernandez on the mound.

We needed pitching. According to Antony, they were not shopping Revere so soon after trading Span. But they were blown away, getting a #3 starter for this years' rotation and a #2 starter for next years' rotation, for a guy who struggles to get on base at more than a .333 clip and has no power.

So we traded two center fielders before the season for a sizable haul because they are extremely valuable in the marketplace. They are extremely valuable because they are extremely rare. Expecting to have four or five capable major league center fielders at one time is ludicrous, especially after trading two in the offseason. Our current backup is Ramirez if we're talking about a game here or there. Escobar can also play out there in an emergency.good

Good, we get until May 20 or so to make a decision. By then, the situation should be clearer.

How much time do they have before they make a decision? I thought it was 20 days from the time his rehab started on the 20th, after which, they have to either activate him or DFA him. But I'm not sure.

The Twins have 5 center fielders between AAA and the majors: Hicks Mastroianni Benson Boggs Thomas The Mastroianni injury has lingered, somewhat unexpecedly. Benson slumped a lot more than the club expected. Boggs and Thomas are not on the 40 man. As we showed, the difference between Boggs and Borbon is practically negligible. If the team felt a need to make a move, they would have made room for Boggs. But they are trying to give Hicks a real chance and not cutting it short. I'm glad they did, cause if you sent him out after that game against the Royals, there's no telling how long it takes for him to get his confidence back. BTW, Borbon was not an option: The Cubs claimed him before the Twins had a chance. As bad as the Twins were last year, the Cubs were worse, so they had first dibs.

I took a different tack. I thought that they had an OK stop-gap rotation late last year with Diamond, De Vries, Deduno, Hendriks and Hernandez. Whatever pitchers they added would improve that. I was pleased with the Worley acquisition. I thought Corriea had a chance to eat some innings. And I thought between Pelfrey and Gibson, they had a decent upgrade for one of the guys in the bottom of the rotation. Whatever happened, they had depth, which was the most they would need in a transition year. That it was a transition year was clear from the roster: five positions with less than one full year of major league experience at the position. Why spend a ton of money in a year when everything has to go right to win? My main complaint was with Correia's second year. But, whatever. We've DFAed guys to whom we owed more (Blackburn).

Pelfrey has thrown more than 0 innings in April.

For the record, I don't think it's too soon to declare that Correia and Pelfrey have exceeded expectations. I have my doubts that it will continue with Correia. I'm actually expecting better from Pelfrey as he adjusts to the stuff his arm will give him. But if you'd told me that Correia would pitch over 30 innings in April and Pelfrey over 25, I would have not believed you. With that info, I would expect the Twins to be above .500 for the month. Let the innings eating continue.