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8/15/24

Tom Brennan: Injuries? Almost Always Worse Than They First Say


MARTE HAS ALWAYS MISSED LOTS OF TIME, INCLUDING AS A MET

Injuries are almost always worse, and often significantly worse, than first reported to we the fans in Metsville. 

Let’s go down the list just for this year: 

Kodai Senga was supposed to miss a period of time, a handful of weeks. 

He then missed nearly 4 months, before his very unfortunate calf injury placed him in Double Jeopardy.

There was honesty about the latter injury, though, perhaps because they needed Kodai on the 60 day IL for 40 man roster space maneuverability.

Ronny Mauricio was supposed to be out for the bulk of the season, but now he’s had a setback and naturally is out for the entire season. 

Drew Gilbert, # 2 prospect, was supposed to be out a short period of time when he first got hurt. He instead missed close to 4 months. His return so far has not been auspicious. Which has me suspicious.

Jett Williams, # 1 prospect, looked like he’d be out for a few weeks with his wrist injury. It turned out to need surgery and there went many weeks and in fact his entire AA regular season, save for 39 early at bats. 

Jacob Reimer (# 15 prospect at the time) pulled a hammy early in the spring, was expected to miss some time, but he returned much later than initially indicated, in late July. No HRs since his return.

Starling Marte was supposed to be out for several weeks but get back sometime in July. It is now mid August, and he’s only now getting closer to his return. 

Sean Reid Foley was supposed to be out a short period of time, but his hiatus got significantly lengthened. 

Dedniel Nunez, who first was reported as hopeful returnee as soon as his IL stent was to end on August 8, now it looks like the end of August instead, or twice the time. 

Sure, one can come up with a few examples to the contrary.  

Francisco Alvarez returned quickly, probably quicker than expected. 

It appears that Reid Garrett was able to return fairly quickly, about according to the original timetable. 

The status of Christian Scott remains iffy, so he could fall into either the expected, or slow, column. 

David Peterson did return right at the end of the 60 day IL stent at the beginning of the season, although I think that one was not surprising - they knew he'd miss close to 60 days at the start of 2024, so they put him on the 60 day, and he could not return until that ran out.   He was able to throw 6 outings spanning 24 innings prior to his return, and likely could have returned a few weeks sooner, if the 60 day IL stay was not a block to that.

But this franchise has a long history of guys taking longer than expected to return. Look no further than Jake deGrom, who was constantly pushed back in his return to the Mets after his two Cy Young years. 

Edwin Diaz last year had real hope that he would return before seasons end, but he didn’t, in part because the team had fallen out of the race. 

One can think back to Ike Davis, who had a slight collision with David Wright by the mound, missed a tremendous amount of time, and really was never the same again. 

David Wright himself always seemed promising as to his return timing from injury, but it was often delayed and ultimately career-altering. 

I think this is a long enough list of examples, however, and I did not attempt to go back and exhaustively try to come up with a full comprehensive list of the injured taking longer than expected to return in order to make my case. 

Part of it is no doubt psychological - let opposing teams think important Mets guys are closer to return and closer to making the Mets a more formidable adversary.

Do you agree?  Who would you add to this quickly cobbled together list? 

Or am I just being a pessimist? A Debbie Downer? 


BIG WIN, FOLKS

9-1 win. The often under-appreciated David Peterson moves to 7-1. He is my ace. You pick someone else if you feel it is necessary.  Pete 4 for 4, 3 RBIs, Lindor 2 for 5, 2 RBIs, with one of those knocks being his 100th Mets HR.


SOME HURTFUL DRAFT FACTS

These NY Mets in 2022 drafted Kevin Parada 11th and 4’6” Jett Williams 14th overall. 

The former has been a floundering strikeout machine. The latter played for about a week this year before getting hurt and missing an entire year of development, with us all hoping the injury will not be a long term hindrance.

But the picks just past Parada are also floundering K machines too, right.

Nope.

Who could they have picked instead?

Jace Jung, 2B, was selected at #12 by Tigers, one pick after Parada…he is doing very well in AAA. 

Zach Neto was selected two picks after Parada. He is already in the bigs and having an excellent season at SS for the California Angels (4.1WAR) and hit a key 3 run homer off of Huascar Brazoban to start the Mets’ recent nosedive. 

Chase DeLauter, OF, was the 16th pick. He has missed some time due to injuries in 2024, but is playing well in the minors and is Cleveland’s #1 prospect. Parada is now the Mets’ 25th ranked prospect.

OF Justin Crawford was drafted 17th out of HS by Phillies. Excellent season so far in 2024, and was promoted about a month ago to AA. Phillies’ # 3 prospect. 

And, of course, the Mets’ first rounder of 2023, Colin Houck (32nd overall) with 149 Ks in 94 games.

My brother Steve’s reaction? 

“And you’re surprised?” 

Me: “Not at all.”

Hopefully the new regime is better at drafting than the prior ones. 

Or, just bring out a dartboard and draft that way. With a blindfold required.

If your dart goes awry and hits Mack in the butt, draft him. His strikeout rate is lower than Parada and Houck.

Draft results could only be better, not worse, using the dartboard method.


SPROAT JUST 3 INNINGS BECAUSE….

No, he was not injured and no they were not limiting his pitch count. The S Mets’ site reported: “In the bottom of the third, Rochester tied the game 1-1. With runners on first and second and two outs, Darren Baker hit a single into shallow left field. With the runner from second base, Jackson Cluff, rounding third and trying to score, Yolmer Sánchez threw a perfect toss to home plate that appeared to get Cluff at home plate as he went standing into the bag. However, Cluff was ruled safe for game-tying run and an RBI single for Baker. 

“After the next batter grounded out to end the inning, Brandon Sproat was ejected from the game protesting the safe call, and pitching coach Grayson Crawford was ejected protesting Sproat being ejected from the game.”

And Baty hit a 440 footer. He seems to be emerging from his hitting coma.

And Gilbert was HBP his first time up and exited the game. More ABs missed.







24 comments:

  1. I openly speculated that Peterson would return better from his hip surgery. He has. The NY Post notes, “Much of his newfound success can be credited to his healthy hip, which Peterson underwent surgery for in the offseason after playing through discomfort in 2023. “I think that’s where it starts. I think feeling healthy, feeling no pain, feeling like I can move my body the best way possible, I think has helped everything,” Peterson said.

    So…please…stop looking at Peterson in the rear view mirror of his pre-2024 injured performance. A healthy Peterson might just be the guy who I hoped he might be with a return to 100% health, namely our Cole Hamels.

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  2. D’Andre Smith is hitting .387 in 9 August games for Brooklyn. Another player who missed much time in 2024 due to injury, he has just 99 ABs this season.

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  3. https://www.prospects1500.com/2024-nl-east-midseason-top-50-prospects/

    They have Parada as 14th, Houck as 12th.

    Peterson isn’t an ace. He the best of a bunch of mid-rotation starters that Stearns is using to try to win while waiting to clear the Luxury Tax problem.

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  4. With both Rocker and Parada, as well as Houck, the Mets took a player that wasn’t supposed to be there. And it seems the league as a whole knew a bit more than the Mets.

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  5. For the second time this year, a former reliever of theirs has put a motivation in them that they couldn’t put in themselves. Hopefully it lasts as long this time too! I would believe it’s a bad thing that they needed an exterior motivator?

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  6. Injuries are part of this game

    Some teams have double the Mets chain

    The Braves are decimated with injuries

    And yet they won more

    Drop phone

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  7. He’s my ace and I am sticking with it LOL. And Mack, true on the # of injuries. I am just focused on overly optimistic initial recovery forecasts (is Matt Allan pitching in the Bridge League)? The Disappoint-Mets need to get on a major roll.

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  8. Gus, I did see the recent MLB ranking of 25 for Parada, a serious drop. His strikeouts, and not being a defensive Johnny Bench, has him there, and I believe rightfully so.

    Houck may be fine next year…he came in raw…but his strikeout rate remains really high, even this deep into his first full season. He needs to spend the entire off season working on his contact weak points.

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  9. You all will find my prospect list missing many of the usual suspects

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  10. Tom, didn’t Houck play major D1 ball? What’s so raw about him and why do we keep making excuses?

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  11. MLB has their newest top 30 prospects posted. They have added four 2024 draftees, along with two recent International signings, in their top 30. We are seeing some older prospects dropped or traded and no longer a part of the future.
    Looking forward to Mack's new list.

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    1. Mack’s list is always good food for thought.

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  12. Gus, no - he just played HS and some Summer leagues. He got off to a miserable start this year, seemed to be coming around in June. With 64 games under his belt in St Lucie by then, he then fanned 52 times in his last 31 games. THAT part worries me.

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  13. I thought Japanese players were the most physically conditioned athlete's in the world and Senga coming back from 4 months on the IL pulls his calf after one 5 inning stint..... really? Two Championships in 63 years pretty much spells it out how badly we've drafted now in our 7th decade.

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  14. For anyone interested, there is an article written in The Athletic today about the success the Baltimore Orioles have had with producing good hitters. While they are kind of mum about it, there is a belief they draft for Vertical Barrel Angle which is what creates lift.

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  15. An excerpt for the piece:
    “ They draft guys with present power and improve their launch angle and swing decisions,” said a rival assistant general manager with player development responsibilities. “That present power is there in the form of top-end exit velocities, not necessarily slugging percentage. They teach better Vertical Bat Angle to reduce ground-ball rates. Swing decisions plus better VBA equals power production when those top-end exit velocities exist.”

    Now we’re getting somewhere. Take raw power, add swing decisions and improve their bat paths, and you start pumping out some really good hitters? And how do they add all that? How do they improve their raw, young hitters?

    “They have a lot of young coaches and throw short box with them — so those are relatively live arms, from up close, forcing the hitters to adapt and see the ball out of a release point,” said a rival director of player development. “They use weighted bats at most levels as part of the regular process to keep bat speed up. They focus on making good swing decisions and help hitters internalize that as they come up through the minors.”

    This starts to line up with things that even the Orioles will admit they value.

    “Our training environments are very competitive, very difficult,” said Blood. “That leads to more efficiency, in terms of learning skills.””

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    Replies
    1. The Orioles built a great chain because they had the worse record in baseball for like 66 years

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  16. I remain optimistic that Parada and Houck will develop into solid MLB players.

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  17. Gary, don't forget Fujinami, who was hurt for a good stretch this season. He will remain a complete enigma until next season, when he will excel for another major league team.

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  18. Ray, I wish I could share your optimism on those two.

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  19. Mack and Gus, looking at their "optimize power" teaching skills, maybe we can trade Alvarez to the Orioles for a few weeks, and they can put his removed home run swing back together, and then ship him back to us.

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  20. Gus, a big problem for the Mets has been drafting small, low power hitters over the last many years, and wondering why virtually all fail, and almost all the rest are mediocre at best. Pete was a good pick for sure, although Bichette was also available. Who else? They got lucky with McNeil a 12th rounder. Mack tires of me saying it, but the Mets went for smooth swing small Dom Smith rather than high risk, high reward Aaron Judge. Who is breaking records, not scraping along like little Dom.

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  21. Mets cleaned house yesterday of pro, domestic and International scout leaders

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  22. Mack, that is the best news I heard all day

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