Matt Harvey’s Elbow Injury Fallout

No matter what happens with his elbow, Matt Harvey of the Mets is still going home to this:

I’m not using that image of Anne V. in an attempt to accumulate gratuitous web hits, but as an example of Harvey being perfectly fine whether he has to have Tommy John surgery or not. The reactions ranged from the ludicrous to the suicidal and I’m not quite sure why. There’s being a fan and treating an athlete as if he or she is part of your family and cares about you as much as you care about them.

Let’s have a look at the truth.

For Matt Harvey

The severity of the tear of his ulnar collateral ligament is still unknown because the area was swollen and the doctors couldn’t get the clearest possible image. Whether or not he can return without surgery will be determined in the coming months. It’s possible. If you run a check on every single pitcher in professional baseball, you can probably find a legitimate reason to tell him to shut it down. Some are more severe than others. Harvey’s probably been pitching with an increasing level of damage for years. The pain was  manageable and didn’t influence his stuff, so he and his teams didn’t worry about it. This surgery is relatively common now and the vast number of pitchers return from it better than ever. The timetable given is generally a full year, but pitchers are now coming back far sooner.

“That’s so Mets”

This injury is being treated as if it’s something that could only happen to the Mets. The implication is that their “bad luck” is infesting everything they touch. But look around baseball. How about “that’s so Nats?” Both Jordan Zimmerman and Stephen Strasburg required Tommy John surgery in spite of the Nationals’ protective measures and overt paranoia.

How about “that’s so Red Sox?” Clay Buchholz has spent much of two of the past three seasons on and off the disabled list with several injuries—many of which were completely misdiagnosed.

How about “that’s so Yankees?” Joba Chamberlain and Manny Banuelos had Tommy John surgery; Michael Pineda has had numerous arm injuries since his acquisition.

How about “that’s so Braves?” Tim Hudson, Kris Medlen, Eric O’Flaherty, Jonny Venters (twice), Brandon Beachy and Alex Wood have all had Tommy John surgery. The Braves are considered one of the best organizational developers of talent in baseball.

Dave Duncan warrants Hall of Fame induction for his work as a pitching coach and had Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter undergo Tommy John surgery. You can go to every single organization in baseball and find examples like this.

The Mets kept an eye on Harvey, protected him and he still got hurt. That’s what throwing a baseball at 100 mph and sliders and other breaking pitches at 90+ mph will do. It’s not a natural motion and it damages one’s body.

The Twitter experts

Some said the Mets should not only have shut Harvey down earlier, but they also should have shut down Jonathon Niese, Jenrry Mejia, Zack Wheeler and Jeremy Hefner. Who was going to pitch? PR man Jay Horowitz? Others stated that they were planning to undertake research into the pitching mechanics technique of “inverted W” (which Harvey didn’t use). I’m sure the Mets are waiting for a layman’s evaluations and will study them thoroughly.

Of course, many blamed the Mets’ manager Terry Collins and pitching coach Dan Warthen. That was based on an agenda, pure and simple. Some have been pushing for the Mets to bring back former pitching coach Rick Peterson. They’re ignoring the fact that Peterson is now the pitching coordinator for the Orioles and their top pitching prospect, Dylan Bundy, had Tommy John surgery himself. Is that Dan Warthen’s fault too?

To have the arrogance to believe that some guy on Twitter with a theory is going to have greater, more in-depth knowledge than professional trainers, baseball people and medical doctors goes beyond the scope of lunacy into delusion of self-proclaimed deity-like proportions.

Bob Ojeda

With their station SNY, the Mets have gone too far in the opposite direction from their New York Yankees counterpart the YES Network in trying to be evenhanded and aboveboard. Former Mets pitcher Bob Ojeda should not have free rein to rip the organization up and down  as to what they’re doing wrong. This is especially true since Ojeda has harbored a grudge after former GM Omar Minaya passed Ojeda over for the pitching coach job and openly said he didn’t feel that Ojeda was qualified for the position.

Now Ojeda is using the Harvey injury as a forum to bash the Mets’ manager and pitching coach and claim that he had prescient visions of Harvey getting hurt because he was throwing too many sliders. I don’t watch the pre and post-game shows, so it’s quite possible that Ojeda said that he felt Harvey was throwing too many sliders, but if he didn’t and kept this information to himself, he’s showing an insane amount of audacity to claim that he “predicted” it.

He needs to tone it down or be removed from the broadcast.

Player injuries can happen anywhere

The winter after his dramatic, pennant-clinching home run for the Yankees, Aaron Boone tore his knee playing basketball. This led to the Yankees trading for Alex Rodriguez and Boone not getting paid via the terms of his contract because he got hurt partaking in an activity he was technically not supposed to be partaking in. Boone could’ve lied about it and said he hit a pothole while jogging. The Yankees wouldn’t have known about it and he would’ve gotten paid. He didn’t. He’s a rarity.

On their off-hours, players do things they’re technically not supposed to be doing.

Jeff Kent broke his hand riding his motorcycle, then lied about it saying he slipped washing his truck. Ron Gant crashed his dirtbike into a tree. Other players have claimed that they injured themselves in “freak accidents” that were more likely results of doing things in which they wouldn’t get paid if they got hurt. Bryce Harper, shortly after his recall to the big leagues, was videotaped playing softball in a Washington D.C. park. Anything could have happened to injure him and he wouldn’t have been able to lie about it. Boone told the truth, but no one knows exactly when these injuries occur and what the players were doing to cause them.

With Harvey, we don’t know how many pitches he threw in college; how many softball games he played in; how many times as a youth he showed off his arm to the point of potential damage. This could have been coming from the time he was twelve years old. In fact, it probably was and there’s nothing anyone could have done to prevent it.

The vagaries of the future

The Mets were counting on Harvey for 2014. They have enough pitching in their system that it was likely they were going to trade some of it for a bat. If they wanted Giancarlo Stanton, Carlos Gonzalez or any other young, power bat they were going to have to give up Wheeler and/or Noah Syndergaard to start with. Without Harvey, they’re probably going to have to keep their young pitchers. That could turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Or it could be a curse if either of those pitchers suffer the same fate as Harvey or don’t pan out as expected.

If Harvey can’t pitch, it’s a big loss. That’s 33 starts, 210 innings and, if he’s anywhere close to what he was this season, a Cy Young Award candidate and potential $200 million pitcher. But they can take steps to replace him. They can counteract his innings with other pitchers and try to make up for a lack of pitching by boosting the offense. In short, they can follow the Marine training that GM Sandy Alderson received by adapting and overcoming.

Harvey is a big part of the Mets future, but to treat this as anything more than an athlete getting injured is silly. It happened. There’s no one to blame and when he’s ready to pitch, he’s ready to pitch. Life will go on.

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Fred Wilpon, The Mets, “The” Truth And “A” Truth

I’m waiting for the inevitable conspiracy theories to morph into absurd leaps of logic. How about something fictional to the tune of, “Jenrry Mejia’s actual identity is Jose Luis Madoff Alvarado and is the product of a love affair between Bernie Madoff and the daughter of a shady business associate in the Dominican Republic 28 years ago,”?

A great fake story can be crafted from Mejia’s current situation to link the ancillary and unconnected drama surrounding the Mets. Reality doesn’t enter into the equation. It’s the story that’s important. Here’s a good plotline: There’s a holdup with Mejia getting his visa to report to spring training. Other players have used fake names to get signed. The Mets were involved heavily with Bernie Madoff. Fred Wilpon is a pathological liar and/or a delusional elderly man—the pieces fit!!!

Except they don’t.

With Wilpon’s press session yesterday inviting agenda-laden questioning of his personal finances in relation to the Mets, the story has legs for a few days. Bolstered by the club’s continued lack of spending, Wilpon’s statement that the financial problems are subsiding and GM Sandy Alderson is free to spend money if he deems it appropriate is inviting eyebrow-raised glances and “yeah, buts”—NY Times Story.

Is the decision to again stay out of the free agent market linked to financial limitations or are they adhering to a plan to clear the decks of dead contracts, rebuild through the draft to put in place a strong foundation, and buy pieces to fill needs rather than create splashy headlines? Does it matter? Do we need answers?

Regardless of the “why,” this is what they’re doing. The strategy is highlighted in the aftermath of the Mets deciding not to give Michael Bourn a fifth year option while simultaneously surrendering the 11^th pick in the draft to get a pretty good player and placate an angry fanbase, possibly severely hindering the future—sort of what the Mets did for years under Steve Phillips, Jim Duquette and Omar Minaya—and wallowing in the mess they were in for most of the previous decade-plus.

Signing Bourn would have been a mirror image of mortgaging the future for the present and doing so in a manner that would reverberate for years to come. Bourn was not worth the 11^th pick in the draft. If Bourn were in the draft now, he wouldn’t be picked that high. When he was drafted by the Phillies in 2003, it wasn’t until the fourth round, so the Mets were supposed to willingly give up that high a pick in a spot where Andrew McCutchen and Max Scherzer were selected?

The Mets could use Bourn, but not at that price especially with Jacoby Ellsbury set to be a free agent after the 2013 season and Shin-Soo Choo also to be available.

I’m not a defender of the Wilpons. I don’t see how it’s possible that they didn’t realize there was something fishy with the Madoff returns. If the money kept rolling in, why ask questions you don’t want the answer to? Did they suspect? They must have. Did they want to know the answer if they asked? Definitely not. But these half-baked predictions of the Wilpon demise—presented by self-styled soothsayers using partial truths hidden under the pretense of research, extrapolations and an end in mind to foresee a cloudy future—have been consistently wrong.

There wasn’t supposed to be a settlement in the Picard lawsuit. There was.

They weren’t supposed to maintain control of the team. They did.

They would be forced into bankruptcy. They weren’t.

They couldn’t afford to keep David Wright. He’s a Met for the next decade.

How many times are we going to have ironclad statements of what “will” happen be wrong before stepping back and accepting that regardless of intentional ambiguity in what’s said, the Wilpons are going nowhere and the Mets’ finances do indicate that they’ll be able to spend on players in the coming year.

This constant digging for evidence against the Wilpons is similar to rehashing the O.J. Simpson murder trial or the Kennedy assassination. It’s over. No one’s going to be prosecuted; no crime will be proved; and the investigation has ended. Independent to irrelevant facts or fiction, the Mets will have money to spend on better free agents than Bourn after this season; they’ve accumulated young pitching talent they haven’t had since the 1980s; and they’ve done precisely what Alderson set out to do in the first three years of the rebuild.

Wilpon’s meeting with the media presents an opportunity to revive a meaningless past and allows the aforementioned investigative reporters and analysts to twist what he says into a new attempt to be retrospectively “right.” But “right” is in the eye of the beholder.

Are the Mets not spending or are they not spending stupidly? There’s a fine but important line between the two. No matter how they got to this point, it was for the best. Had they stuck to the road they were on, there would be more bloated contracts for aging players, fewer prospects, and a longer and increasingly difficult path to getting younger and better—if they ever decided to do that at all. The “why” deserves a shrug as a response. Much like the media experts can subtly alter their facts to suit a designed narrative, so can Wilpon. It’s all a matter of point-of-view.

“The” truth will never be fully known. “A” truth is what we have and it varies based on who’s listening.

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Floating Rumors Like R.A. Dickey’s Knuckler

There was a colossal freakout of rumor and innuendo when the story broke that the Mets would consider trading National League Cy Young Award finalist R.A. Dickey in the right package and/or if they can’t sign him to a contract extension.

Let’s take a look at the whys and why nots, whether this is a real concept or something the media and/or Mets are floating to achieve their own ends.

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Would they trade him? Should they trade him?

The Mets have been discussing contract extensions with Dickey and David Wright. They freed up some money for the immediate future with their agreement to terminate Jason Bay’s contract and to defer some of his $21 million. How much is unknown. They put forth the idea of having pitching to spare; desperately want to keep Wright; are concerned about Dickey’s age, the velocity with which he throws his knuckleball, and can get a lot for him now; and contract rumors are running the gamut from non-existent progress to Dickey wanting five years.

Who knows what’s true and what’s not?

The Mets would trade Dickey, but they would have to get a “look who we got” player in return—a player that the fans would accept. If it’s three minor leaguers the rank and file fan doesn’t know, it’s not going to fly. If the Mets can formulate a way to get Justin Upton or Jacoby Ellsbury, possibly by way of a 3-team trade, then yes, trade Dickey. If it’s a slightly better-than-average bat and a couple of minor leaguers, it’s more self-immolation from the club for which they’ll get deservedly roasted.

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Are the rumors believable and is there a mutual advantage to floating them?

I don’t put much stock in rumors of any kind. It’s “rumor season” in baseball where you can check into five sources and five stories that range from an extension being imminent to a trade being “done”. It’s a hand-in-hand agreement the media has with the teams that the reporters will get a nugget to garner webhits and readers and the club will toss out a story to see how it goes over. The Mets could very well be conducting market research to see what the fans are going to do if they trade one of their favorites. The rumors are believable as a consideration, but not to be trusted in what they’re saying as “fact”.

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Will they trade him?

I find it hard to envision the Mets trading Dickey whether they sign him to an extension or not. They may have some pitching depth, but it’s not on a level with the Rays and Giants where they can deal a legitimate starter and have a youngster or cheap veteran step in and still win. They can’t deal Dickey and expect Zack Wheeler to seamlessly slide right into the vacated spot. Dillon Gee is returning from a blood clot that could not only have been career threatening, but life threatening. Jenrry Mejia is still a question mark as a starter. Jeurys Familia’s control and performance late in the season showed he needs more minor league polish. Collin McHugh and Jeremy Hefner are journeymen. In fact, with Johan Santana still trying to regain full strength, Chris Young mediocre, and Matt Harvey and Wheeler on innings/pitch limits, the Mets “strength” in starting pitching is just as much of a float as the concept of trading Dickey. It’s kindasorta there, but not really.

If the Mets pull the trigger on Dickey, they had better have Wright’s deal locked up to say to the fans, “Look at the shiny toy,” like a dog in order to distract him to the fact that he’s going to the vet to be neutered. Otherwise, Dickey’s going nowhere.

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National League East—2012 Present and 2013 Future

Click to read about the AL East, Central, and West.

Here’s the NL East.

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Washington Nationals

For some it’s a validation and for others it’s an unsatisfactory and paranoid result, but now that the Stephen Strasburg debate has been concluded once and for all, the Nationals are moving on without their best pitcher. They’ve taken a tremendous and rapid leap forward to the playoffs and an all-but-certain division title. They look identical to the Braves of 1991 with a young pitching staff; power bats; and an ownership willing to spend to keep the team together and aggressive enough to improve. They also have something those Braves never had: a bullpen. It’s that bullpen that will counteract the loss of Strasburg for the playoffs. In fact, it’s probably more important to have a deep, versatile bullpen in the playoffs than it is to have a great starting rotation. That’s something else the dominant Braves of 1991-2005 proved year-after-year.

The Nats are here to stay and we’d better get used to them being in the playoffs on an annual basis.

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Atlanta Braves

The Braves overcame their collapse better than any other team in recent memory that experienced a similar meltdown. Part of that is due to manager Fredi Gonzalez’s acquiescence in not overusing the bullpen early in the season; Jason Heyward’s comeback season; Michael Bourn’s full-season in his walk year; Kris Medlen’s second-half brilliance with the club overcoming underachievement from Tommy Hanson, ineffectiveness from Jair Jurrjens, the injury to Brandon Beachy, and the stagnation of Randall Delgado.

Their ownership doesn’t spend a lot of money, so it’s hard to see them keeping Bourn. Brian McCann is a free agent after 2013, but with Chipper Jones’s money coming off the books and McCann’s status as a Georgia native, that will get worked out.

With or without spending, the Braves have enough young talent to be contenders for the future.

On a note about the Braves’ bullpen, Craig Kimbrel has been all-but unhittable. I get the sense that the NL Cy Young Award voting will split between R.A. Dickey and Gio Gonzalez and Kimbrel’s going to win it.

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Philadelphia Phillies

Now that the dreams of a miraculous comeback suffered a deathblow in Houston by losing 3 of 4 against the rancid Astros, then resuscitated briefly by humiliating the Mets, the Braves all but ended the Phillies’ hopes over the weekend as Roy Halladay got blasted on Saturday in the game the Phillies absolutely had to win.

Now what?

They underachieved in 2012 with a payroll of $170 million-plus and are very old. They re-signed Cole Hamels and with he, Halladay, and Cliff Lee, along with Jonathan Papelbon in the bullpen, they’ll be playoff contenders in 2013. The vault is not going to be as wide open as it was, so any thoughts of Zack Greinke should end now. They’ll need starting pitching so it’s more likely that they pursue a Dan Haren type—a good starter coming off a bad year and on a short-term deal. They need a center fielder and there’s been talk of a reunion with Michael Bourn. I would not overpay for Bourn, but GM Ruben Amaro Jr. tends to go after what he wants regardless of cost. I’d also expect Ryan Madson to return to the Phillies as a set-up man following his Tommy John surgery and lost year with the Reds, and he’ll be good.

It appears as if all systems are go for Chase Utley to move to third base, but his knees are a chronic problem. If he’s unable to start the season again, then the Phillies will be right back where they started from trusting Freddy Galvis at second and having a black hole at third. They desperately need an outfield bat of the Cody Ross variety—affordable and pretty good. If I were Amaro, I’d call the Indians about Asdrubal Cabrera.

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New York Mets

Because of their second half nosedive, they’re still viewed as something of a laughingstock, but when examining even worse situations such as the Marlins, Astros, Red Sox, Cubs; and teams that spent big and haven’t gotten bang for their bucks with the Tigers, Phillies, Angels, and Dodgers, the Mets are in a pretty good position.

The young pitching prospects Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler will join Jonathon Niese and R.A. Dickey in the rotation at some point in 2013, and they also have young arms Jeurys Familia and Jenrry Mejia. Jason Bay and Johan Santana are coming off the books after 2013 (unless they can trade one or both for commensurately expiring deals), so they’ll have money to spend after 2013.

This doom and gloom is based on looking for reasons to tear into the organization. The low minor leagues is increasingly well-stocked.

They need a catcher who can hit and desperately have to get a bat for the middle and top of the lineup. Names to pursue are Justin Upton, Shin-Soo Choo, Dexter Fowler, Ian Kinsler, B.J. Upton, and Shane Victorino.

I’d stay away from Bourn.

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Miami Marlins

I wrote about them yesterday, but just when it seemed as if it couldn’t get worse, it got worse.

Heath Bell went on a radio show and basically called manager Ozzie Guillen a liar. The host of the show, Dan Sileo, prodded Bell while doling responsibility on everyone but Bell. It’s an awful interview by an awful interviewer topped off by ridiculous baseball analysis. You can find it here.

Whether or not Bell is accurate in his criticism is irrelevant. That Bell still can’t keep quiet is indicative of one of the main problems the Marlins have had: no veteran leader to stand in the middle of the clubhouse and speak up. It was Bell’s dreadful performance that, more than anything else, set the stage for the Marlins’ terrible season. But he…won’t…shut…UP!!!!

Braves’ manager Gonzalez, who was fired by the Marlins, said of Marlins’ owner Jeffrey Loria:

“There’s not a manager dead or alive that Jeffrey thinks is good enough. Not Connie Mack, not anyone.”

Loria called the comments “classless.” Does it help that the comments are 100% true?

It’s going to get worse from here for the Marlins as they plan to cut payroll from $95 million to $70-80 million. (Bet on the under.) It remains to be seen who’s going to get fired and who isn’t, but they’ll desperately try to unload Bell and if that means attaching him to any deal in which a club wants to acquire Josh Johnson, then that’s what they’ll do.

I believe Johnson will be traded this winter; Jose Reyes will be traded during the season in 2013, as will Ricky Nolasco.

All of that said, the Marlins do have some young talent with the acquisitions they made of Nathan Eovaldi, Jacob Turner, and Rob Brantly to go along with the monster Giancarlo Stanton, so they’re not going to be an atrocity and they certainly won’t be as bad as they were in 2012.

Those advocating or actively pursuing a new stadium for the Rays need to take note what’s happened with the Marlins. Florida fans are simply not invested enough in baseball to make it a worthwhile expenditure for either private investors of public referendum. The ballpark should not have been built. Either the club should’ve been contracted, allowed to move to a baseball-friendly venue in the United States, or they should’ve sat tight and waited out the end of the Castro regime in Cuba, hoped for a new, free country 90 miles away from Miami, and moved the team there.

An MLB team in Cuba would be huge. Instead there’s a beautiful new park in Miami with few fans and a top-to-bottom case study in dysfunction and absence of responsibility. It’s a train wreck.

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Mets Minor League Slash Adds to the Perception of Being Broke

The Mets are dropping their single A team in Port St. Lucie of the Gulf Coast League—NY Times Blog.

In truth, the Mets eliminating one of the minor league teams isn’t that big of a deal.

Coinciding with the prevalent money issues; the upcoming Madoff trial; the $40 million bridge loan the Wilpons recently took from Bank of America; that they’ve yet to pay back the $25 million loan of a year ago from MLB itself; that they let Jose Reyes walk without a fight; and have spent little on Major League players this winter—among many other things—makes the decision to dump the single A team simply look bad.

The elimination of one of the Mets nine minor league teams isn’t going to cut enough money out of their spending that it’s going to make a significant difference to organizational finances. As the Times piece says, the Mets were one of three Major League franchises with nine affiliates; the decision, as Jim Duquette says, is more philosophical than cost-cutting. I think it’s more cost-effective to keep or expand the reach into the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and even places like Africa and the Middle-East than it is to have that extra A team with a load of players who—barring a sudden growth spurt; the discovery of a new pitch; a mechanical tweak at the plate or on the mound; or some other unforeseen stroke of luck—have almost zero chance of making it to the big leagues.

The players listed who have played in the St. Lucie affiliate are Edgardo Alfonzo, A.J. Burnett, Octavio Dotel and Jenrry Mejia; some star players—Pedro Martinez among them—have gone down there for rehab assignments.

Even if the Mets weren’t in such dire financial circumstances, they might have done this anyway.

This maneuver and the club’s financial troubles are probably independant of one another with slight, if any, connection. The baseball people don’t feel it’s a necessary outlay; as piddling as the savings will be, ownership should be happy to save a few pennies, but in the scope of the greater storm clouds hovering over the Wilpons, the money’s not going to make a difference one way or the other.

But the perception that the Mets are cutting down to the bare bones is evident and there’s no airtight defense for the allegation that they don’t have the money to run the team the way they have in the past, because they don’t.

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A Mets Thing

Since Chris Young and Jenrry Mejia were scheduled for surgery on the same day, I can see the following happening to the Mets and only the Mets.

Doctor: We’re ready to put you under now. Just relax and breathe normally; begin counting down from 100 and you’ll just got to sleep. When you wake up, your elbow will be as good as new Mr. Mejia.

The patient begins to squirm and act panicky; nurses and orderlies are called to hold him down; restraining his large frame on the table, just before he falls into unconsciousness due to the anesthesia, he manages to utter the words, “I’m not Mejia, I’m Young!! Shoulder!!! Shoulder!!!”

The doctor peers down at the 6’10” frame and pale skin of Chris Young, shakes his head and says, “Athletes are the biggest babies. Now, let’s fix this young man’s elbow!”

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Sound farfetched? Maybe. But it is the Mets we’re talking about. All things are possible. All….things.

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I published a full excerpt of my book here.

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The Mets Injuries Are Irrelevant For 2011

Two season-ending injuries have hit the Mets pitching present and future.

Jenrry Mejia needs Tommy John surgery and Chris Young re-injured the same shoulder (with the same injury) that was repaired last year—NY Times Story.

It doesn’t matter much in a team sense.

In the best case scenario—barring anything borderline miraculous—all the Mets could count on from Chris Young was that he was healthy and pitching well toward the trading deadline so they could get a couple of prospects for their minimal guaranteed investment of $1.1 million.

And the likelihood of that, as I said repeatedly from when Young was signed, was nearly non-existent.

He wasn’t going to stay healthy and he didn’t stay healthy.

The Mets aren’t contending this year with or without Young; so he’s hurt and they won’t have to pay the possible incentives to finish pretty much in the same place without Young as they would’ve with him.

What’s the difference?

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As for Mejia needing Tommy John surgery, it’s not as if the injury is a remote experience for a pitcher.

It’s prevalent and goes with the territory. Pitchers come back stronger and throwing harder after the procedure.

When Mejia’s back, he’ll be back; then he’ll pitch. Hopefully he’ll be good.

There’s not much to say other than that.

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On another note, Franklin Rabon sent me the following about R.A. Dickey.

Needless to say, it’s highly likely that Kyle Farnsworth is flying to meet the Mets and take Dickey’s lunch money leaving him to sob to Frodo, Bilbo and the other hobbits, wizards and whatevers.

I approve.

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I’m administrating a discussion group on TheCopia.com. Click on the link to leave a comment or start a new topic. Check it out.

****

Please purchase my book, Paul Lebowitz’s 2011 Baseball Guide.

I published a full excerpt of my book here.

It’s available now. Click here to get it in paperback or E-Book on I-Universe or on Amazon or BN. It’s also available via E-book on Borders.com.

It’s out on Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook.

If anyone would like to purchase an autographed copy, leave a comment; Email me; contact me on Facebook or Twitter.

Become a fan on my Facebook fan page. Click on the link.

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Travels In The Blameatorium

Rangers closer Neftali Feliz has been placed on the disabled list with shoulder inflammation.

Naturally this is leading to the factional dispute exploding in full-force as to where the blame for this lies and what to do about it.

The obvious culprit is the attempt to make Feliz into a starter in spring training only to move him back to the bullpen when no clear-cut replacement as closer emerged. The age-old argument of whether or not a pitcher who can perform capably in both roles popped up again.

Would Feliz be of more value as a starter or reliever?

Does it matter if he’s on the disabled list?

In a similar vein as saying the sudden alteration in thought-processes and physical requirements could have played a part in Feliz coming up hurt, this is being treated as an opportunity to express the differing viewpoints with the injury as a lever to reopen that (supposedly for 2011 at least) closed door.

Michael Bates writes that the Rangers should start Feliz here on ESPN’s Sweet Spot.

Bobby Valentine said on Twitter: “I mentioned in spring training that Feliz would have a bad shoulder.”

Bates presents a numerical and historical foundation for his beliefs.

Given his intelligence and breadth of experience, Valentine is qualified to make such a prediction and gloat about it.

You can make a realistic case for both sides being right.

Feliz is still young enough that it’s unfair to pigeonhole him as a closer for the rest of his career if he’s able to start and turn into Derek Lowe—a good closer who became a consistent, durable starter.

People forget that Mariano Rivera was tried as a starter, didn’t have the stamina to maintain his stuff for the duration of a start and, more importantly, has the ice in his veins to get the big outs in a post-season game. Rivera was 26 when he made it to the big leagues to stay and was discovered to be a brilliant reliever almost by accident.

There’s no way to pinpoint why Feliz’s shoulder acted up, but that switch—physically and mentally—is a circumstantial aspect of the injury. He was a closer who appeared in 70 games last year and pitched into the playoffs all the way through to the World Series in high intensity situations; then he was tried as a starter this spring, worked as a starter, then was moved back to the bullpen.

It’s a different role; a different mindset; a different job. You can’t pigeonhole an individual into a position he might not be able to handle based on an ironclad set of principles that don’t and can’t apply to each and every person.

Prior to the Mets-Braves series, Capitol Avenue Club posted a Q and A with Joe Janish, a Mets blogger. In the piece, regarding Jenrry Mejia, Janish said:

Mejia has looked good so far in two AAA starts, but I’m wary to pin high hopes on him just yet because he has dangerous mechanics that will contribute to chronic arm problems. If Mejia ever corrects his delivery, he still needs to develop an off-speed pitch to be an MLB starter.

And Janish knows about Mejia’s mechanics and the proper “corrections” that need to be made how?

An experienced and heretofore respected pitching coach, Joe Kerrigan, tried to “correct” the mechanics of former top draft pick Brad Lincoln and was fired in part because of Lincoln’s inability to adapt to the changes and still maintain his stuff.

The same thing happened with Zach Duke as Jim Colborn, Jim Tracy‘s pitching coach with the same hapless Pirates, altered Duke’s mechanics and saw the “phenom” that Duke supposedly was (but really wasn’t) degenerate into a conspicuously hittable and mediocre pitcher.

So which is it?

Has anyone who’s exhibiting this after-the-fact armchair expertise ever stopped to think that the motion could be part of the reason why he’s effective? Why his pitches have the movement they do? That the deception or uniqueness of motion is an integral part of his “skill set”? (Another preferred term transplanted from the corporate world.)

Are they supposed to be starters or relievers?

Are the mechanics supposed to be “fixed” or left as they are?

It’s everywhere.

Phil Hughes is having the entire social network diagnosing and making suggestions as to how he can regain his lost velocity; and I guarantee that if Yankees pitching coach Larry Rothschild‘s long toss program doesn’t yield the desired results, Hughes will grow so desperate that he’ll try to incorporate any piece of advice he gets, regardless whether said advice is coming from an idiot or not.

Pitchers who have picture-perfect mechanics like Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan don’t come along very often. Much like there aren’t many pitchers who have the all-around ability to perform both jobs as starter and closer, you can’t shove a square peg into a round hole and not expect bits of the peg to be whittled away.

The facts are as follows: Neftali Feliz is on the disabled list; no one can directly say why because he might’ve gotten hurt if he was used exclusively as a closer in spring training or if he became a full-time starter.

Then that (whichever “that” you choose is based on your position in the argument) would’ve been the “reason” presented for his injury.

Under no circumstances should he be shifted into the rotation until next season; if they do it, it has to be over and done with. No looking back.

But we’ll still have the moles emerging from their holes to express their retrospective predictive expertise and analysis of Feliz, his mechanics, his use and his future.

It’s up to you whether or not to take it seriously.

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