Sunday spring training news
DMZ · March 5, 2006 at 11:59 am · Filed Under Mariners
Gil Meche is out indefinately with a strained oblique muscle.
News Tribune goodness:
Dobbs, Morse getting into swing of things
Ichiro auditions for lead role
Sunday is the Seattle Times day, as the PI guys (I presume) get to relax under the terms of the joint publishing agreement:
– Foppert!
– Kazu Sasaki’s a baseball analyst now
Update: M’s got stomped by the Padres again.
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Obliques seem to take a long time to rehab. So much for Hargrove’s “set rotation”
Second baseman Pokey Reese’s contract was terminated Sunday by the Florida Marlins, who said they were disappointed not to receive an explanation regarding his abrupt departure from spring training.
“I think that the 72 hours that have passed is more than a reasonable amount of time for him to offer some explanation for his unexcused absence,” Beinfest said. “We still do not have that explanation, and we’re moving on.”
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2355381
I’m totally pulling for Foppert.
My hope is that Mickey Lopez can somehow secure the starting 2B job for the Marlins.
Perhaps more funny, is that in the MLB.com article, they mention…Lenny Harris (!) as a possible starting second baseman.
Wasn’t an oblique strain that side lined Spiezio for most his stay on the Mariners? Great opportunity for Foppert.
What is it with the M’s and strained obliques? (Spezio, Wilson come to mind.) Haven’t they ever heard of crunches?
Seriously though, could this be the proverbial “blessing in disguise” we’re been waiting for? If Foppert has a great spring while Meche is out….
Would Meche have ANY value in trade if he gets beaten out for our rotation?
Value is an open spot on the rotation with Gilliam being kicked to the curb. There’s value in that.
No.
Actually, that’s not true. There is always a “greater fool” who would trade something to take Meche off our hands, but we would be selling low if we traded him because an injury kept him out of the rotation for a few weeks.
I got the new BP yesterday. Interesting column about how a pitcher who goes from starting to relieving will put up better stats – at least stats that look better. But the truth is that the pitcher himself isn’t better. He is simply benefitting from a demotion to a job that suits his skills.
My guess is that Meche-the-8th-inning-set-up man, or even Meche-the-closer, is not at all beyond his skill set. (Given his injur history I suspect it is the ideal role for him.) In fact, he could flourish in that role. And THAT version of Gil Meche has tremendous value to the Ms, both as a player or as a component of a trade.
(Meche-the-reliever + Morse + another of our middle infielder guys would provide actual value in a deal.)
Actually crunches do little to nothing for obliques. You need to be playing tennis / chopping wood / swinging a bat / throwing off the mound / using specialized equipment to work them. Which I suppose is why they’re so easy to strain in sp if you haven’t been keeping up with any of that in the offseason.
Meche gets paid so much money that to have any value in a trade he’d have to be fairly elite.
I want to revise and extend my remarks. Meche probably wouldn’t “flourish” in the role of a reliever. I do think he would be likely to put up stats that looked better. And while I don’t know him, and therefore can’t speak to his frame of mind, I’ll suggest that he might have a more positive outlook if he wasn’t facing the pressure of being a starter.
“…I’ll suggest that he might have a more positive outlook if he wasn’t facing the pressure of being a starter.”
Choska – Don’t you think relievers face *more* pressure than starters? Crappy pitchers are crappy no matter what role they’re in – you can just hide them better, so to speak, in relief.
PECOTA, for what it’s worth, sees Foppert as one of the few people who could under-perform Meche. But that’s likely as much due to the injury as anything.
boy, you just can’t keep those Padres down….
This is a good question.
I was about to write that it depends on how the reliever is used. You have your closers and your ace set up men who are brought in for high leverage situations, and certainly there is lot of pressure in that situation.
However, relievers do have the advantage of knowing they don’t have to have three good pitches in order to go through, say, the Yankees lineup three times in one day. Even your most elite closer only has to get three or four guys out.
I guess the perception of pressure is entirely up to the guy coming in. If a reliever can only focus on the fact that he is bring brought in to face David Ortiz on a 2-0 count with 1 man out and two men on, then that’s a lot of pressure.
On the other hand, if the reliever comes in focusing on the fact that Ortiz hasn’t seen him pitch in months, then the pressure ought to be on Ortiz. The reliever doesn’t have to worry about mixing up his pitches, or trying to throw a pitch he doesn’t really have. And, frankly, he didn’t put two men on and fall behind Ortiz, so all he needs to do is come and throw. Of course, that’s easy for me to type. 🙂
Overall, I think that if a guy who isn’t suited for the role of a starter is in that role, then he will feel a ton of unproductive pressure. However, if he is playing a role that is better suited to his skill set then he should feel a lot more confident and, therefore, less pressure when he needs to come in and face Ortiz.
(And boy we are getting killed by San Diego. I know these types of games are meaningless, but getting killed like this three days in a row is almost alarming.)
To echo something DMZ said, Meche gets paid so much money that it would seem part of his responsibility to be WORTH that money to work out those obliques in the offseason. Don’t tell me all his other previous injuries prevented working out the parts that were healthy? If he keeps going like this, pretty soon you can name on the fingers of one hand the parts that HAVEN’T undergone rehab…
Wow, all this Meche talk, and not one mention of the one big happy upside to Meche’s oblique:
We’re talking about Jesse Foppert getting the rotation spot, not Ryan Franklin.
Obliques are more likely to be strained if they are OVER trained, rather than UNDER trained. Given that the trunk, after the hips, is the primary accelerating force for pitchers & hitters, I’m surprised oblique strains don’t happen more often.
Didn’t Soriano have a strained oblique last year? Or was it another trunk muscle?
Didn’t Soriano have a strained oblique last year? Or was it another trunk muscle?
Yep. Though it was 2004, before his Tommy John injury.
I always wondered if there was a connection between the oblique injury and the elbow injury…
compensating with your arm is a shortcut to injury….
according to Griffin via KOMO, it is a mild strain, & Meche is being kept quiet to make sure it isn’t aggravated; prior to the injury it had been said that Meche had come into camp ahead of schedule in his conditioning, etc., but perhaps #18 is on the right track.
the other obliques in living memory are Soriano, Dan Wilson, Ben Davis….
Obliques are cool!
They are kind of like the forgotten, unsung abdominal muscle.
Forgotten until you actually go out and chop some goddamn wood…
Is the Torrealba & Foppert for Winn trade looking better and better?
1-We have Foppert.
2-We have Carvajal after trading Torreabla
3-We didn’t have to be on the hook for Winn’s next contract at $8M/yr, not that we necessarily would have, but still you can’t underestimate the M’s front office in rewarding good guy vets on this team.
Having followed Foppert’s career at a distance from when he was playing in the Giant’s farm system and then for the Giants, I have to say “yes”, I’m pulling for him, too.