cubfan33
08-12-2002, 02:44 AM
I'm adding a word to my labor stoppage lexicon. For months now, I've tried to beat this word into as many players and owners as possible - transparency. Let me add to that another - consistency. All along, the players union - right or wrong - has said that their only option if there's no settlement prior to the end of the season is to strike in order to keep the owners from implementing rules that would make Curt Flood turn over in his grave. Facing the end of the season and the knowledge now that the "luxury tax" is an issue that the owners are willing to go to the mattresses on, the date comes tomorrow. Smarter people than I say that the union will give the equivalent of two weeks notice, so who am I to argue? I still can't believe the players would risk being out on September 11th, but it's possible. Perhaps the union believes that setting the date will be enough to get something done. Perhaps they know something we don't know, but I can't figure out what it is. On the need for and possibility of a strike and on each of the main issues, the players have been consistent while the owners have been like a minor league Worldcom. "No, the losses are bigger than I thought! How did we miss that billion there?" say the accountants - and I'm not sure if it's MLB or Worldcom. There is no consistency in the owners camp, even amongst themselves. Steinbrenner goes in the most visible of locations, the New York Times, and expounds on labor topics. Bud responds on MLBPravda.com and yet I saw zero mention of that million dollar fine. I'll keep my fingers crossed and pray to the Gods of baseball that someone comes to their senses. I don't care if it's Fehr or Alderson or Orza or Manfred ... if someone, even Bud Selig, is willing to save the season, I'll pretty much forgive anything. Short of that, let's call Big Pussy and Paulie to take him out ... or does Sandy Alderson have a Michael Corleone look in his eye?
Back to transparency for a second and a word on why its so tough to talk about baseball intelligently. As bad as trying to find good injury information is, trying to figure out the rules of baseball are worse and beyond that lie the actual back room mechanics like the DL and the waiver wire. I've had three sources with what I'll term "inside access" giving me information, but unfortunately, one appears to have had less access than he let on, which made me rely on inaccurate information. I'll run a line through THAT particular sources name and note that to do the job that Dave Van Dyck and Peter Gammons does is very very hard and that I should leave things like that to them .... though I am both stubborn and principled. I believe that this information should be public and I'll fight to give everyone access in some way, if not broadcast across the Internet.
Before getting to the reason why you read this, I do have a quick administrative note. Some people - and there's no common theme yet - have been missing issues of UTK. I know that Hotmail and MSN have filtered some sites as "spam" and that AOL has often just done weird things that no one can explain. I apologize that sometimes the free services I use to keep costs to a bare minimum sometimes remind me that I get what I pay for. You can always check out the latest UTK at the website (www.willcarroll.com) - Larry, the best webmaster in the world has them up just minutes after I send them out - or at Netshrine.com, where you can stick around for some lively chat.
I'm hard at work on the follow up to my opening piece on pitch counts for Diamond Science, where I'll introduce the new concepts of Established Stamina and the Knife Injury Quotient - Pitcher Verson (KIQ, pronounced "kick"). It's not quite the quest for the Holy Grail, but trying to develop a tool that helps to predict injury that doesn't involve boolean algebra is important to the good of the game and helping it to progress past an era where half the pitchers will end up burned out or faded away to Jim Andrews or Lewis Yocum. Case study number two, Mark Prior, pitched yesterday coming off his 136 pitch outing. The Cubs blew out the Rockies so he was lifted after six innings with only 88 pitches - a smart strategy - but Prior showed no ill effects and more importantly, no loss of velocity.
The people at GE Leasing are having a good day. Why, you ask? They lease most of the MRI's in America and there were a flood of them today in baseball. Barry Larkin is having one on his stiff neck, but no results are available yet. Brian Jordan will have one on his back and the Dodgers are riding a hot Marquis Grissom while Jordan tries to heal some. Both players are lesser, yet important, pieces to each of their teams hopes of winning, so getting them healthy is vitally important. It should be vitally clear that using Grissom for any extended period of time can't do the Dodgers any good, but getting an aging Larkin more time off and using Brandon Larson at 3B while the "best 3B in the NL", Aaron Boone, moves over to short may actually be additive.
The Yankees continue to be cautious as they coast, using their well-planned depth to allow for more rest for Robin Ventura. The always observant Joe Torre saw Ventura limping and will hold him out until he's 100%, giving Ron Coomer an expanded role while Nick Johnson spends some time on the DL. The official diagnosis on Johnson is bone bruise, but this injury is reading more like a sprain. I spoke with a trainer from an opposing team who said "That's not a bruise - that kid has trouble wrists and he'd done something this time. The fall didn't help it, but some of our scouts had noticed he wasn't getting the bat around real well before this."
Down in Atlanta, they'll also test their depth in a lowered economic environment with both Gary Sheffield and Andruw Jones having some nagging injuries. Jones fouled a ball of his leg that is bruised pretty badly and painful, while Sheffield injured his hand while swinging. A worse injury, but more easily replaced, is Wes Helms. His thumb may be season ending. The injury was reported as "his thumb bent back all the way to his arm." There is sure to be ligament damage and his grip will be affected for quite some time. The roster move allowed the recall of Marcus Giles, which could help, especially if Cox uses him all over the field.
The Diamondbacks continue to miss the services of the oddest batting stance in the majors, that of Craig Counsell, while he continues to be bothered by a pinched nerve in his neck. No, Counsell is not the MVP of that team, but he is more valuable than most of his replacements, namely out machine Tony Womack. The D-Backs managed to win last year due to luck and the Pair of Aces, but I'm not so sure that will work again if Brenly continues to handicap his own lineup and make strange in-game moves. The D-Backs got better news with Todd Stottlemyre's "recovery" today after he threw thirty pitches in a simulated game. Stottlemyre's epic quests to overcome his broken body are admirable, but at best, he could be a spot starter allowing for a little more rest for Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson during September. If he's willing to put himself through that to get his team to another World Series, more power to him, but it's painful to watch.
The Angels, of any team currently in the races, have about the smallest margin for error. An injury could of course throw off all the lucky breaks, good management, and hustle of the team. The Angels may have dodged a bullet when Tim Salmon was hit on the hand by a pitch. The incident looked and sounded like a break and it was very reminiscent of the back to back season ending hand injuries to Jeff Bagwell.
The Cards saga with Garrett Stephenson took an odd twist when Stephenson informed the Cardinals that his arm was sore and that he would not report to Memphis for his scheduled rehab start. There's apparently a communication breakdown here, but reports from St. Louis indicate that Stephenson has lost confidence in the management to take care of him and he's taken charge. How this affects the Cards or is resolved remains to be seen. Woody Williams had another decent side session and is scheduled to pitch BP in Pittsburgh on Wednesday where UTK will have someone with a video camera.
It's August and I still don't know the name of Ichiro's dog.
Carlos Delgado was finally placed on the DL with back soreness. It is a retro move and a safe one on the part of a Blue Jays team with little to play for that doesn't involve "next year" in the sentence. I'm a bit surprised that Tom Wilson was at 1B today, but the Blue Jays are a bit short-benched right now, but why not try someone like Joe "Blossom" Lawrence or even Gary Burnham, who's 28 but hitting well at Syracuse. I'd imagine Brian Lesher, who I saw quite a bit of here in Indy a few years ago, will play 1B some, but he was an OF while here. I'll assume J.P. has a plan.
The Indians activated Bob Wickman, but he's not even close to fully healed and he won't be used on back to back nights. (I'm going to institute two new abbreviations that come up again and again - for 'back to back games' I'll use the easy to remember "B2B" and for 'day games after a night game' I'll use DAN.) Mark Wohlers will likely continue to see a lot of late game usage and even some saves.
Back to transparency for a second and a word on why its so tough to talk about baseball intelligently. As bad as trying to find good injury information is, trying to figure out the rules of baseball are worse and beyond that lie the actual back room mechanics like the DL and the waiver wire. I've had three sources with what I'll term "inside access" giving me information, but unfortunately, one appears to have had less access than he let on, which made me rely on inaccurate information. I'll run a line through THAT particular sources name and note that to do the job that Dave Van Dyck and Peter Gammons does is very very hard and that I should leave things like that to them .... though I am both stubborn and principled. I believe that this information should be public and I'll fight to give everyone access in some way, if not broadcast across the Internet.
Before getting to the reason why you read this, I do have a quick administrative note. Some people - and there's no common theme yet - have been missing issues of UTK. I know that Hotmail and MSN have filtered some sites as "spam" and that AOL has often just done weird things that no one can explain. I apologize that sometimes the free services I use to keep costs to a bare minimum sometimes remind me that I get what I pay for. You can always check out the latest UTK at the website (www.willcarroll.com) - Larry, the best webmaster in the world has them up just minutes after I send them out - or at Netshrine.com, where you can stick around for some lively chat.
I'm hard at work on the follow up to my opening piece on pitch counts for Diamond Science, where I'll introduce the new concepts of Established Stamina and the Knife Injury Quotient - Pitcher Verson (KIQ, pronounced "kick"). It's not quite the quest for the Holy Grail, but trying to develop a tool that helps to predict injury that doesn't involve boolean algebra is important to the good of the game and helping it to progress past an era where half the pitchers will end up burned out or faded away to Jim Andrews or Lewis Yocum. Case study number two, Mark Prior, pitched yesterday coming off his 136 pitch outing. The Cubs blew out the Rockies so he was lifted after six innings with only 88 pitches - a smart strategy - but Prior showed no ill effects and more importantly, no loss of velocity.
The people at GE Leasing are having a good day. Why, you ask? They lease most of the MRI's in America and there were a flood of them today in baseball. Barry Larkin is having one on his stiff neck, but no results are available yet. Brian Jordan will have one on his back and the Dodgers are riding a hot Marquis Grissom while Jordan tries to heal some. Both players are lesser, yet important, pieces to each of their teams hopes of winning, so getting them healthy is vitally important. It should be vitally clear that using Grissom for any extended period of time can't do the Dodgers any good, but getting an aging Larkin more time off and using Brandon Larson at 3B while the "best 3B in the NL", Aaron Boone, moves over to short may actually be additive.
The Yankees continue to be cautious as they coast, using their well-planned depth to allow for more rest for Robin Ventura. The always observant Joe Torre saw Ventura limping and will hold him out until he's 100%, giving Ron Coomer an expanded role while Nick Johnson spends some time on the DL. The official diagnosis on Johnson is bone bruise, but this injury is reading more like a sprain. I spoke with a trainer from an opposing team who said "That's not a bruise - that kid has trouble wrists and he'd done something this time. The fall didn't help it, but some of our scouts had noticed he wasn't getting the bat around real well before this."
Down in Atlanta, they'll also test their depth in a lowered economic environment with both Gary Sheffield and Andruw Jones having some nagging injuries. Jones fouled a ball of his leg that is bruised pretty badly and painful, while Sheffield injured his hand while swinging. A worse injury, but more easily replaced, is Wes Helms. His thumb may be season ending. The injury was reported as "his thumb bent back all the way to his arm." There is sure to be ligament damage and his grip will be affected for quite some time. The roster move allowed the recall of Marcus Giles, which could help, especially if Cox uses him all over the field.
The Diamondbacks continue to miss the services of the oddest batting stance in the majors, that of Craig Counsell, while he continues to be bothered by a pinched nerve in his neck. No, Counsell is not the MVP of that team, but he is more valuable than most of his replacements, namely out machine Tony Womack. The D-Backs managed to win last year due to luck and the Pair of Aces, but I'm not so sure that will work again if Brenly continues to handicap his own lineup and make strange in-game moves. The D-Backs got better news with Todd Stottlemyre's "recovery" today after he threw thirty pitches in a simulated game. Stottlemyre's epic quests to overcome his broken body are admirable, but at best, he could be a spot starter allowing for a little more rest for Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson during September. If he's willing to put himself through that to get his team to another World Series, more power to him, but it's painful to watch.
The Angels, of any team currently in the races, have about the smallest margin for error. An injury could of course throw off all the lucky breaks, good management, and hustle of the team. The Angels may have dodged a bullet when Tim Salmon was hit on the hand by a pitch. The incident looked and sounded like a break and it was very reminiscent of the back to back season ending hand injuries to Jeff Bagwell.
The Cards saga with Garrett Stephenson took an odd twist when Stephenson informed the Cardinals that his arm was sore and that he would not report to Memphis for his scheduled rehab start. There's apparently a communication breakdown here, but reports from St. Louis indicate that Stephenson has lost confidence in the management to take care of him and he's taken charge. How this affects the Cards or is resolved remains to be seen. Woody Williams had another decent side session and is scheduled to pitch BP in Pittsburgh on Wednesday where UTK will have someone with a video camera.
It's August and I still don't know the name of Ichiro's dog.
Carlos Delgado was finally placed on the DL with back soreness. It is a retro move and a safe one on the part of a Blue Jays team with little to play for that doesn't involve "next year" in the sentence. I'm a bit surprised that Tom Wilson was at 1B today, but the Blue Jays are a bit short-benched right now, but why not try someone like Joe "Blossom" Lawrence or even Gary Burnham, who's 28 but hitting well at Syracuse. I'd imagine Brian Lesher, who I saw quite a bit of here in Indy a few years ago, will play 1B some, but he was an OF while here. I'll assume J.P. has a plan.
The Indians activated Bob Wickman, but he's not even close to fully healed and he won't be used on back to back nights. (I'm going to institute two new abbreviations that come up again and again - for 'back to back games' I'll use the easy to remember "B2B" and for 'day games after a night game' I'll use DAN.) Mark Wohlers will likely continue to see a lot of late game usage and even some saves.