Yeah, I'm not overly concerned with spring results, but I'm a bit concerned that he hasn't appeared in eight days. Has he been pitching in minor league games or is there some minor injury I haven't heard about?
Carson Smith diagnosed with strained flexor muscle and will start season on DL
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
- Start date
I imagine they're just bringing him along slowly. He "debuted" in a simulated game on 3/9 and debuted in a real game on 3/12. Made another appearance on 3/16 (the all cutter game). So it's been six days since he saw game action, but with no reports of injury, we have to assume he's just continuing to throw on the side (maybe in minor league games) and is on track to be ready to go in 12 days.
Lots of things can be factors here. With guys like Lee and Cain you could look at usage. Buchholz you could look at his lack of fortitude. Nathan was older. Vargas and Fister? Sure. All starters though. I think someone who is 26 years old might be able to beat this without surgery. At the same time I wouldn't expect him back before June just to be safe.
And it turns out I was looking at 2015 Spring Training where he made only three appearances all spring and allowed 7 hits and was generally not getting results. Then he went out and allowed two runs in seven innings in April. So...nevermind, he'll be fine.
I have no issue relying on Workman and I've thought for awhile he will be a nice return addition to the pen (assuming he's fully recovered and can pick up where he left off). People forget pretty easily how nails he was in 2013. Different profile than Carson but still a quality arm that I think is reliable.
Pineda had that last year and he missed a month
http://www.si.com/mlb/2015/07/30/new-york-yankees-michael-pineda-disabled-list-injury
Is anybody else on the Red Sox going to die? Need to start planning for my fantasy draft.
His lack of that quality that makes a guy go out in the fourth game of a World Series with his team trailing two games to one, when he's clearly running on fumes after missing most of the second half of the season, with a fastball sitting 88-89, and somehow put up a four-inning, one-run performance that keeps his team in the game just long enough to get to the opposing starter and tie the series. We know Clay Buchholz could never do a thing like that.
The guy is a wussy. Always hurt. So anytime he goes on the DL it's always going to be an extended stay.
Or the SoSH Death Pool...I mean you never really know right?
http://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/2016-death-pool-diviners-of-the-deceased.12217/page-4
I'm just saying that when you're looking to figure out an injury timeline Clay is someone you can't use as an example. He's hurt every year.
Are you claiming you can't tell exactly what is in the mind of a baseball player based entirely on what you see on the TV and press reports? I mean come on, it's obvious he's a weak pu... err wimp.
With Smith on the DL, maybe we should look into The Hopper. Badenhop is with the Nationals on a minor league deal, and just got reassigned to their minor league camp. If we wanted to bring in another vet RH arm without committing to a roster spot, he presumably could be had for basically nothing.
He doesn't strike anyone out, but his heavy sinker is effective at getting outs anyway. And his low velocity offerings could "give a different look" to the bullpen.
Might be worth bringing in, he was very good here 2 years ago.
He doesn't strike anyone out, but his heavy sinker is effective at getting outs anyway. And his low velocity offerings could "give a different look" to the bullpen.
Might be worth bringing in, he was very good here 2 years ago.
What do his injuries have to do with his intestinal fortitude? A guy gets hurt so he's a "wussy"?
Might want to walk this back a bit.
We might have different opinions here. When I look at Clay, I see a pitcher who has a track record of missing a lot of time and being unreliable due to a litany of injuries. Maybe he isn't a wuss. But he's absolutely undependable and not someone you should use as a measuring stick for injury time frames. His body for whatever reason takes longer to heal. I guess you can't go and call Josh Hamilton or Ryan Zimmerman wusses either but you know when they get injured it's not going to be a 15 day DL stint with an immediate activation. Same deal with Clay.
"Oft-injured" is not the same as "being a wuss" and it sounds like you already know it. A pitcher injuring his shoulder isn't and shouldn't be the basis for a character judgement.
No one was more fragile than Jed Lowrie and he was immensely frustrating as a player because of that, but that certainly didn't make him a slacker or a wuss or whatever other term one might come up with. Undependable? Sure. Unreliable? Why not. But his injuries weren't character flaws.
Workman isn't expected back for a while. Last seen talking "late in the season." https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2016/03/11/red-sox-notebook-pitcher-brandon-workman-has-take-patient-approach/0B72GzqWbjtrqhQ5bSFZtO/story.html
You've lateraled from one baseless argument to another. Why don't you just say you just don't like Clay and/or you have no confidence in him being able to have an injury free season. Either is perfectly fine, but you don't have to invent stuff about his work ethic, pain threshold, or physical body. There are a ton of pitchers who have inter-related and nagging injuries. What makes Clay so frustrating is that when he's healthy and "on" he's one of the best in the game, yet we haven't seen a sustained run of that due to his injuries.
(Let's put it this way, do you honestly think Clay would forgo a Cy Young type season just because he's unwilling to deal with "discomfort", or is it more likely he's been genuinely impacted by injuries.)
Not at all and I like Clay. I just don't think that he can stay healthy. It's not inventing anything though. Take a look at his history. Clay is never healthy through a full season. What does that tell you about his body? It's not baseless at all. In fact it's probably the main thing from keeping him from being a Cy Young contender. Different bodies have different thresholds of pain. I just look at the numbers and see a pitcher who cannot be counted on to throw 160 innings a season. Is it wrong to draw conclusions? Perhaps. But it's equally wrong to draw a parallel to an injury Clay has had in the past and use it for a timeline with Carson Smith.
It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Clay's threshold for pain and by using that term you're both implying he could pitch through it and yet again making it into a character issue ("hurr durr, he needs to just gut through it"). It has everything to due with how fragile his body is. Injuries happen and unless the guy's been faking them (pro tip: he hasn't) then the only thing to do is hope he can recover from them again.
And of course he's got a long injury history. No one is disputing that. Everyone would love to see the guy we saw for the 1st half of the 2013 season replicate those results over a whole year. But his injuries are real, and as we saw in the 2013 World Series he can't be expected to go out there while injured and throwing 86 and still be effective (even as he got through those 4 innings on absolutely nothing).
Woah. I don't think anyone is accusing the guy of faking injuries. I never did once. I don't really think anyone playing professional baseball would be dumb enough to fake an injury. It's not a character issue. He's fragile. That's all. Just like Ryan Zimmerman. When Zimmerman gets a strained hammy you know he's out for half the year while someone like Mookie might be back in 15 days. Everyone's body reacts different. Maybe I was out of line calling him soft initially. I was simply looking at past history and results. He's not a 180 inning starter. At least you cannot count on it. His best season he only threw 108 innings before he of course got injured again.
But once again you cannot compare Buchholz to Smith regarding them having similar injuries in their careers.
The most important indicator of future injury for pitchers is a previous injury.
This is not new or surprising information.
BP had an article in 2013:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=19653
Briefly, of the starting pitchers who had an injury during the year, 73% had a similar event the previous year, while only 5% did not have a similar injury the previous year. A DL trip is 8x more likely if the pitcher has a DL the prior year or even in the prior 2 years. Although even for pitchers who spent time on the DL, the chances of a repeat visit is still under 50%.
So to me, it is not about being soft but clearly about the tendency for pitchers who have been hurt previously to have a tremendously higher risk to be injured again. Nothing surprising except for the magnitude of the predictive value of a prior injury.
I would also say that the market for pitchers does not adequately take into account the chance of an injury. I will let someone else more capable to do the modeling, but assuming the average DL trip is about 66 days (per Jeff Zimmerman on Fangraphs who has a number of articles in the subject:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/starting-pitcher-disabled-list-analysis-1-of-3/
It seems that pitchers with recent history of an injury manage to get contracts that don't adequately discount for the statistical expectation of time lost (8x the risk) due to their next potential injury. I am hopeful that someone else has a more factually based analysis on my hunch.
This is not new or surprising information.
BP had an article in 2013:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=19653
Briefly, of the starting pitchers who had an injury during the year, 73% had a similar event the previous year, while only 5% did not have a similar injury the previous year. A DL trip is 8x more likely if the pitcher has a DL the prior year or even in the prior 2 years. Although even for pitchers who spent time on the DL, the chances of a repeat visit is still under 50%.
So to me, it is not about being soft but clearly about the tendency for pitchers who have been hurt previously to have a tremendously higher risk to be injured again. Nothing surprising except for the magnitude of the predictive value of a prior injury.
I would also say that the market for pitchers does not adequately take into account the chance of an injury. I will let someone else more capable to do the modeling, but assuming the average DL trip is about 66 days (per Jeff Zimmerman on Fangraphs who has a number of articles in the subject:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/starting-pitcher-disabled-list-analysis-1-of-3/
It seems that pitchers with recent history of an injury manage to get contracts that don't adequately discount for the statistical expectation of time lost (8x the risk) due to their next potential injury. I am hopeful that someone else has a more factually based analysis on my hunch.
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Good finds, IML, though you might want to edit your post so the ");" isn't part of the hyperlink, otherwise the page doesn't load without manual editing of the address.
You can't use the phrase "Different bodies have different thresholds of pain" and expect that people wont interpret that as a manliness assessment.
Haven't seen him throw this year, but it sounds like a good idea to me to get Badenhop to Ft. Myers.
Tim K on ESPN just said Farrell told him that Carson Smith will be ready to pitch in a major league game in mid-April.
