In unwelcome news for the Mets, left-hander Steven Matz is dealing with elbow irritation and won’t make his scheduled start Monday, Anthony DiComo of MLB.com was among those to report (Twitter links here). Doctors have assured Matz that he doesn’t have ligament damage, per DiComo, and the 25-year-old insists he’s fine and will throw off flat ground Monday. However, general manager Sandy Alderson is concerned about Matz. “It’s worrisome that he continues to be injured,” said Alderson. Matz’s stellar rookie campaign last year ended in August because of a “massive” bone spur in his elbow, which led to October surgery. Before that, he logged a 3.40 ERA, 8.77 K/9, 2.11 BB/9 and 51.1 percent ground-ball rate in 132 1/3 innings. Fortunately for the Mets, they do have enviable rotation depth to fill in for Matz if he should miss regular-season time. “This is why we have (Robert) Gsellman and (Seth) Lugo,” a team source told Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News (Twitter link).
More from the East Coast:
- Likely to go without injured shortstop Didi Gregorius for the first month of the season, the Yankees are scouring the trade market for help, according to Brendan Kuty of NJ.com. Ideally, the Yankees would like to acquire an inexpensive player who’s on an expiring contract and has minor league options remaining. New York is reportedly eyeing the Diamondbacks’ Nick Ahmed, who checks two of those boxes (he’s cheap and comes with options), while the club’s uninterested in pricier shortstops in the Reds’ Zack Cozart and the Tigers’ Jose Iglesias. If no trade materializes, the Yankees will choose an Opening Day shortstop from an in-house group consisting of Ronald Torreyes, Pete Kozma, Tyler Wade, Ruben Tejada and Starlin Castro.
- Considering they’re not on the Red Sox’s 40-man roster, outfielder Rusney Castillo and first baseman/outfielder Allen Craig are already facing uphill battles to achieve relevance in Boston. Moreover, their onerous contracts make even short promotions to the majors unlikely, notes WEEI’s John Tomase (via colleague Rob Bradford). Castillo, for instance, would cost the Red Sox $56,596 per day to keep on their 25-man roster. Thus, a two-week stint with the Sox would cost $800K and push them over the luxury-tax threshold, which they’ve been careful to stay under. Castillo and Craig have upped their stock this spring, writes Bradford, but the team unsurprisingly sent the pair back to Triple-A on Sunday. They’ll combine to make $21.5MM in the minors this season.
- Nationals reliever Koda Glover is reportedly likely to win their closer job, which is the role he has wanted since the team selected him in the eighth round of the 2015 draft, details Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post. The first time Glover reported to the Nationals, they had him fill out a questionnaire. One of the questions asked, “Are you a starter or reliever?” Glover wrote, “I’m a closer,” which has “reverberated through the organization ever since,” per Janes.
Here we go again. Under “TC’s” watch the first pitcher of the season goes down. Burning thru young arm is his career legacy.
How is this Collins’ fault? The kid has been injuries almost every year since he was drafted. Get real.
I agree. This kid seems injury prone. 2 years back he slept funny & got a kink in his neck. That kept him on the mend for the final 2 weeks of the season. So much talent & yet, just doesn’t seem conditioned well. Good thing they have depth.
I wouldn’t call myself a big Collins fan, but blaming him for the injuries faced by the young starters is absurd. As metseventually noted, this is certainly true for Matz, who has a long injury history prior to reaching the majors.
I’m a Yankee fan but I think Collins has done a great job with NYM
You can’t blame a manager for an injury. What, did he go and break the kid?
Lol at a Yankee fan talking smack about the Mets developing pitchers. The Yankees haven’t developed a decent starting pitcher in like 20 years, while the Mets are doing it as well as anybody in baseball.
Collins is really careful with pitch counts and usage. The Mets, as an organization, value extreme velocity both with the fastball and the slider. That’s bound to produce arm troubles.
Hah, hah. True!
Why would you listen to a Yankee fan about the Mets of course he doesn’t know what he is talking about
Hello Mets fans. Just look st the team’s track record. TC burns pitchers out by overusing them. Want to look at history? Check out Johan Santana’s record after coming back from injuries. What happened when your boy left him in to finish the “No No”
His career was no no.
With this young staff over the past few years I t’s just coincidence or bad luck right?
Wrong. Ding dong. Overuse period.
News flash: Young pitchers who throw 95+ get injured.
The Mets young, homegrown starters put up a 17 WAR last year, and you have no idea what you are talking about.
So, he should have pulled out the guy who was about to make history for the Mets? TC and Santana have been interviewed about this so many times and since then TC has managed his rotation so carefully.
Once again- get real, to worry about the Yankees who have a ton of their own problems.
Worry about your Yanks. Exactly! Where are YOUR homegrown up in the Bigs star pitchers? Waiting, waiting…still waiting lol
I’m a closer.
He definitely Stood up, mic dropped, and then left the room immediately after saying that
How does stashing a player in the minors get them off the payroll for luxury tax purposes ? If that is true, why did the Yankees put ARod there if he’s so good with the younger players ? Something doesn’t add up. NYY could have DFAed him, someone would have to take on 1.3 years at $20mm a year, which no one would do, then send him down barring a clause in his contract that prevented it (which ARod probably has). That Sox post made no sense…
Craig and Castillo had options, ARod didnt. ARod would have just declined his assignment.
Connor–if the Red Sox were able to trade either or both Craig and Castillo, but to get it done they needed to include some money, would that money count against the cap/mansion tax?
It would. For example, Brian McCann still counts against the tax for the Yankees because they absorbed $5.5MM this year in trading him.
Thanks for the response. I suppose that means that if the Red Sox are that close to the Luxury Tax line, it decreases the likelihood that either will be traded. You would need a team willing to take on their entire salary, and likely the only reason Boston could manage that would be to include prospects with them. Might be worth it if they wanted to make other moves to take on additional salary elsewhere, but it would be a high price to pay.
Smh too, how does guaranteed MLB contract, in minors or released not count against payroll..? Dodgers ate all that dead money last couple of seasons, it counted toward luxury tax..?
No not all of them. The players who were out righted I.E. Sierra, Arrumbarrena, Toscano did not and do not count against the threshold tax.
If you have enough service time to deny an outright assignment a contract is guaranteed. If you don’t own the service time required, and you refuse assignment contract is void. That’s the catch.
The dodgers ran up dead money with old expiring contracts. All with players who had enough service time to refuse assignment without consequence. The one exception being Guerrero. His agent was smart enough though to place a clause in his contract to manuver around that. That clause was, “Can’t be sent to the minors without his consent.”
So it makes sense. The caveat being you can’t outright a player to solely escape threshold tax consequences. It really comes down to service time and/or contract clauses. The Dodgers escaped ~11M against the cap, which saved them 5 mill in extra taxes.
Sucks with matz. So much potential but he can’t stay healthy. I think half of it is mental because there never really is a huge issue. Bone spurs yes, but other pitchers pitched through that before and got surgery in off season without fans ever knowing anything about it. When healthy, he has the stuff (helps being lefty) to be the best of the bunch. But I don’t think he has the mental fortitude to allow himself to get there. Not anytime in the next few years anyway. He has to toughen up, grow up, pitch through discomfort like the rest of MLB pitchers and know when something is serious or not. He isn’t 20. He already is 25. His prime years are now. Man up, and go. And god forbid there really is something, I apologize in advance, but based on this article, and most of mid season last year, there is no reason for alarm and no reason he can’t be pitching.
He’s already been diagnosed as having a “massive” bone spur. He’s years away from big dollars. Where’s the incentive? You seem sure he’s weak-minded, but you have nothing to go on beyond the fact that he’s hurt.
To be fair, Matz made 22 starts last year, with a bone spur that doctors described as “massive” after the procedure.
As somebody who threw with bone spurs, there is a vast difference between them, one pitcher can have spurs that are smaller and pitch threw them, another person can have the “same” injury and be totally unable to throw without severe pain.
If true, the statement about Glover’s questionnaire answer is just about one of the dumbest things I’ve heard in baseball in a long, long time and makes me think anyone off the street can evaluate players, if that’s standard practice. Yes, I understand that was probably just a personal assessment test that showed personal confidence that has been backed up by play ever since, but a simple answer on question where he had 50% likelihood of answering correctly is silly at best. No, WSH didn’t get one of the numerous elite closers they were interested, but rest assured, our rookie with less than 20 IP in MLB to his career answered “closer” on his entry questionnaire. Where is Pap when someone needs to be choked out?
You might be reading way to deep into this.
Yes…and they still need a “closer”. lol
Agreed. But they’re grabbing at straws here to justify giving the closer gig to someone with almost no experience, though they have Shawn Kelley on roster. That’s risky, but let’s see how it plays out.
They don’t call him Dusty because he’s a forward-thinker and trailblazer.
No matter how small or high success rate, with any surgery there is a chance that you will never throw pain free again. In my short career I had labrum and elbow surgery. All my velo came back, my MRI’s were spotless but the pain never went away. As long as there is no structural damage, or reason to believe his problems will cause damage he may need to accept the fact that he won’t throw pain free and that he’ll have no career if he takes 2 months off every time something hurts
Braves would take Rusney Castillo and his cap money for first round draft choice Braxton Davidson and $50Million cash from Boston.