From The Desk – TJS, Will Toffey, Ronny Mauricio, Ed Hearn, Nick Cafardo

Good morning.

Why Tommy John Is Against the Surgery That Bears His Name –

            It doesn’t bother me to watch my legacy being upstaged by an operation that has saved plenty of ballplayers’ careers. What does bother me is that my name is now attached to something that affects more children than pro athletes. I was in my 30s and playing major league ball for nearly a dozen years before needing the operation. Today, 57 percent of all Tommy John surgeries are done on kids between 15 and 19 years old. One in 7 of those kids will never fully recover.

But this is about more than just baseball and elbows. It’s about the way we are raising our children. The nation’s youth-sports industry is a $15 billion business — and more and more, that business pushes children to make decisions early about which sport they want to play, and then to pursue that sport to the exclusion of all others. And kids’ bodies are paying the price. The rate of ACL tears in kids has been increasing by 2.3 percent per year for two decades, and about 1 in 5 teens in contact sports have had at least one concussion. And if a child is spending more than eight months annually in one sport, he or she is nearly three times more likely to experience an overuse injury in their hip or knee.

13. Will Toffey, 3B Video

Drafted: 4th Round, 2017 from Vanderbilt (OAK)

Age     24.0    Height 6′ 2″    Weight            205     Bat / Thr         L / R     FV       40

Tool Grades (Present/Future)

Hit       Raw Power     Game Power  Run     Fielding          Throw

40/50       50/50                  30/40      50/50      50/55             70/70

Toffey was scouted heavily as a senior in high school as his teammate, right-handed pitcher Austin DeCarr, went in the third round to the Yankees and signed for $1 million; Toffey was a Yankees’ 23rd round pick, but he ended up going to Vanderbilt. He was an eligible sophomore in 2016 but hadn’t progressed much in two years, still not showing much power or loft at the plate to make pitchers pay for using his eye to get into good counts. That changed in 2017, when Toffey’s OPS jumped 424 points. He went from 0 homers to 12 and cut his strikeout rate by over 5%, all while continuing to show above average defense at third base. Since he was 22 years old during that breakout season and has only average raw power, some scouts weren’t sold on Toffey’s everyday potential, so he lasted until the fourth round where Oakland took him. Toffey was traded to the Mets this summer in the Jeurys Familia trade. He needed to perform and move quickly through the minors to stay on schedule to reach his everyday upside and he’s mostly done that. Toffey will open in Double-A at age 24 and could get a big league look in late 2019 if he keeps hitting this way, but if he shows more corner platoon upside, as scouts expect him to, he’ll work through some growing pains in the upper levels this year.

Fangraphs top 100 prospects –

            #68 – SS Ronny Mauricio - This is what Fernando Tatis, Jr. looked like at age 17.

Much of scouting teenage prospects has to do with identifying good athletes and good frames, and like many of this century’s All-Star, power-hitting shortstops, Ronny Mauricio is both. A broad-shouldered but lean 6-foot-3, Mauricio looks like Manny Machado, and Hanley Ramirez, and Carlos Correa, and a host of other super talents all did at age 17: long-limbed, with surprising grace, flexibility, and coordination for someone this age and size, and possessed of physical gifts that might enable them to stay at shortstop while also growing into huge power. The Goldilocks Zone.

But Mauricio is also more than just a frame/athleticism/projection bet. He has relatively advanced feel to hit for a teenage switch-hitter, his timing is fine, and he hasn’t exhibited any confidence-altering, contact-related red flags, like lever length or poor plate discipline. He may outgrow shortstop but if he does, it means big power on a plus-gloved third baseman. We were surprised by Mauricio’s GCL assignment, and then surprised further by both his admirable statistical performance there and his late-season promotion to Kingsport. He might be ushered through the system more quickly than we anticipated when he signed. Regardless of where he’s playing, once Mauricio turns a physical corner, he’s likely to rocket up this list.

Ed Hearn Former World Series champion Met, who overcame obstacles to inspire others –

            Ed Hearn was 25 when he finally got his shot in the big leagues, and, as life would have it, he won a World Series later that year.

The following spring, at 26, the Mets’ backup catcher was traded for one of the best pitchers in New York history — and, in turn, helped complete one of the most reviled transactions in Kansas City Royals history. It also was that season, 1987, when his baseball life effectively ended.

Six years later — after battling disease, undergoing his first kidney transplant and dealing with the mood-altering medication keeping him alive — he tried to take his real life, too.

Boston Globe baseball writer Nick Cafardo  dies at Red Sox spring training at 62 –

              Boston Globe baseball columnist Nick Cafardo died suddenly while covering Boston Red Sox spring training in Fort Myers, Fla., Thursday.

He was 62.

Cafardo suffered an embolism at the team’s training facility and team medics were unable to restore life-sustaining functions, according to The Globe.

“Nick was one of the best people to ever walk through our doors — generous with his time and insights, immensely knowledgeable, deeply devoted to the Globe,’’ the Globe’s editor, Brian McGrory, said. “He had a view of the Red Sox and the game on a national scale that is virtually unrivaled.