As expected, Reds starter Homer Bailey underwent Tommy John surgery today, as MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon reports. Though his previously-repaired flexor mass tendon apepared in good shape, Bailey’s UCL was determined to be completely torn, leaving little in the way of options to avoid surgery.
- Likewise, Rays righty Alex Cobb was found to have a fully torn UCL, as Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports, meaning he too was virtually assured to require a TJ procedure. Cobb says the best-case scenario would have him return late in 2016. Fellow Tampa hurler Matt Moore has continued to build his way back from his own UCL replacement, with MLB.com’s Bill Chastain reporting that Moore was able to throw all of his pitches in a live BP session. Moore says he is targeting a mid-June return to the big league bump.
- Though his shoulder has shown some evidence of progress, Rangers lefty Derek Holland will wait an additional two weeks before he begins throwing, as Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram tweets. Though Texas has enjoyed a somewhat surprising contribution from its starting staff (3.71 ERA, 9th in baseball), peripherals suggest that some regression is forthcoming. Regardless, Holland’s health is critical to the club, both this year and — perhaps even more so — in the future.
- Orioles catcher Matt Wieters is set to catch seven innings tomorrow as he continues to work fully back from Tommy John surgery, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com tweets. Wieters’ ability to return to health and productivity will go a long way toward determining his free agent earning power next winter, of course. It will also tell on Baltimore’s ability to compete for a postseason slot, though replacement Caleb Joseph has been a revelation.
- The Mariners appear unlikely to see righty Hisashi Iwakuma return until early June, at the soonest, per Bob Dutton of the Tacoma News Tribune. Manager Lloyd McClendon says that Iwakuma is “probably still two to three weeks from going out [on a rehab assignment]” and will then need to throw a few outings before making it back to the big leagues. As with Wieters, Iwakuma needs to get healthy and show that he can continue to be effective in order to bolster his open market case. The scuffling Mariners, meanwhile, are not only firmly in need of his services, but also must assess whether they will be in the market for rotation help over the summer.
- Red Sox outfielder Hanley Ramirez is not likely to need a DL stint for his left shoulder sprain, manager John Farrell tells Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe (Twitter link). Boston seems to have dodged a bullet with the injury situation, as the club can ill afford an extended absence from the player who has paced the club in hitting thus far.
Cool
Might as well have everyone in MLB have tommy John
It will also tell on Baltimore’s ability to compete for a postseason slot, though replacement Caleb Joseph has been a revelation.
He might be a revelation, but he not a full time catcher.
The problem is DD acquires players (although Joseph was here b4 DD) and then Showalter doesn’t use them or use them properly. To me that’s a problem and that is why the O’s are struggling this year.
I’m sure letting Cruz/Markakis go away and then replacing them with virtually nobody didn’t help. Unless you consider 2 weeks worth of Jimmy Paredes your savior and or Travis Snider a suitable replacement. Perhaps your GM not making a single move until he figured out Baltimore wasn’t going to let him go to the Blue Jays wasn’t the smartest thing in the world.
The reality of Baltimore’s bad start has to do with the lack of quality pitching from Bud Norris and Chris Tillman.
What’s the problem with replacing Markakis with Snider? They’re both expected to be 1-1.5 WAR players, and one is exceedingly cheaper than the other.
The point was that Snider’s not going to put up half the offensive production either Cruz or Markakis was going to put up.
And the fact his defense has been just okay at best.
No, the Orioles have issues and I just don’t see them doing all that much this year.
Snider and Markakis are expected by projections to put up nearly the exact same production. The Orioles were never going to replace Cruz, but part of that was off set by having a more capable defender and base-runner in left. The Orioles cheaply replaced Markakis with Snider. Snider isn’t that good, but neither is Markakis, and the Orioles deserve credit for getting a player in Snider whose production won’t be materially different than Markakis’.
Okay, tell me this at the end of the year because right now the Orioles have Manny Machado leading off. Projections are usually wrong by the way.
I’m happy to wait until the end of the year to make evaluations on moves. I don’t know what having Machado lead off (who’s hitting better than he ever has) has to with Markakis or Snider.
Projections aren’t usually wrong. They’re imperfect, but they’re credible for a reason. They get things wrong, but that doesn’t make them non-useful.
Machado’s never been a walk guy and he’s never been a guy who’s hit above .283. He doesn’t get on-base enough to offset the lack of speed he’s not going to score many runs. Markakis is at least a good OBP guy who gets on enough to score a lot of runs when Jones and Davis hit those homers. Delmon Young’s batting cleanup by the way.
Manny Machado is 22 years old and getting better at baseball. Why is this surprising?
He’s walking in 10.5% of his plate appearances. He’s swinging way less on pitches outside the zone (19.7%), swinging less overall, and still punishing mistakes. Sounds kind of like an ideal lead off hitter (someone who takes pitches, walks, and hits when a mistake is made).
Machado hits for demonstrably more power than Markakis, and that is accounted for in wRC+. Fangraphs has an article titled ‘Manny Machado’s light bulb turned on’. You should probably read it.
Kevin Pillar was hitting 5th earlier this week, by the way.
There are loads of guys who have good starts to the season because of the small sample size and end up regressing to what they should be. Dayan Viciedo had a high walk% for the first month of last season too, some guys are natural free swingers and end up regressing to what they should be in that regard.
Kevin Pillar isn’t very good offensively and John Gibbons should know this. This was never a Blue Jays vs Orioles argument until you brought that up.
Machado is 22 years old. He’s going to get better. When swing data supports the notion that he’s becoming less of a free swinger, and you contextualize his walk rate with numbers consistent with someone becoming more selective, then the numbers become more convincing.
It’s okay to not be convinced by Machado’s first month, but everything he’s done up to this point in his age-22 season points to a change in approach, which is wholly encouraging.
I just don’t get the inclusion of Delmon Young in this argument.
The lack of quality hitters replacing both Markakis and Cruz has forced Delmon Young to bat cleanup behind Adam Jones for whatever reason.
Travis Snider has hit as well as Nick Markakis this year. That production has been replaced.
The Orioles were never going to replace Cruz’ offensive production. They were going to get parts of his production back by playing better defense and running the bases better.
Wait until the end of the year. I hate 100 plate appearance sample sizes, Juan Fransisco was on pace to hit 40 homers with his 100 plate appearances last year.
I’m happy to wait until the end of the year. I prefer larger sample sizes as well. That said, all of Machado’s swing data points to him becoming more selective, and that bodes very well for Manny.
Also, Juan Francisco was a productive hitter in 2014. He just has a tremendously wide variance as a player. If you have patience with those players, you’ll still see good results over the course of a full season.
Absoltely not, Juan Fransisco had a near .100 average against ANY breaking ball and it got to the point where he’d see curveballs down the middle of the plate and either swing through it or let it be called a strike. He was overexposed hitting everyday and the Jays knew they made a mistake, which is why he sat on the bench the final 2 months of the season.
Texas has had some good starts out of Colby Lewis, Wandy Rodirguez and Ross Detweiler the last week or so. All of these are end of the rotation guys but they Rangers are desperate right now. I suspect the world will return to normal with these guys soon. They are who they are. However Nick Martinez may be the real deal. Five of his six starts have been good to excellent.