Wednesday, March 22nd
DMZ · March 22, 2006 at 8:30 am · Filed Under Mariners
Mariners won yesterday [PI], and Beltre got a homer. Borchard’s got a new locker [TNT]… for now. The Times has a story on Nageotte and Blackley.
Mariners won yesterday [PI], and Beltre got a homer. Borchard’s got a new locker [TNT]… for now. The Times has a story on Nageotte and Blackley.
The TNT article contains news of six more cuts, including Clement and Tui, which reminded me that there was an article at Baseball Prospectus yesterday concerning the difference in the hitting environments between the Midwest League and the California League. BP fingered Clement and Tui for potential breakout seasons, and also mentioned OF Michael Wilson as a possible sleeper in the system. Since I haven’t heard much about Wilson, I’m wondering if anyone can enlighten me/us as to what kind of prospect he is. Dave? Derek?
Ryan Franklin is pitching against the Braves on ESPN.
“Bouncy outfielder Carl Everett”? (TNT story)
Maybe they meant bubbly, as in ebullient…
Maybe they’re implying that he’s, as they used to say, “a little light in his loafers” ….
Maybe they’re not.
Maybe implying that since he is “Crazy Carl”, he should be bouncing off the walls in a padded room? Or is that a stretch?
Actually, it’s the “outfielder” part that amuses me more than the “bouncy” part.
From the Blackley/Nageotte story:
No one has to remind Blackley of that. He nearly cost himself his career, staying mum about two tears later found in his shoulder.
“I had pitched with it the entire season before and it never got bad enough to stop. And they had been telling me it was a biceps tendinitis,” he said. “Even now, I don’t want to say it caused my problems.
“And there was also my feeling that I didn’t want to be known as a guy who comes up to the big-league roster and is assured of getting the money for it, and saying, ‘Now my arm hurts, do something about it.’ “
This sounds familiar, doesn’t it? The blown diagnosis, the player gritting it up…
Wilson played low-A last season at 22, so he wasn’t exactly young for the league. 41% of his hits went for extra bases and he did show a good walk rate, but he also only hit .266 and struck out nearly once a game. Dave has called him a failed draft pick in the past, part of the 2001 draft class that’s full of ’em. He’s really going to need to take a step forward here pretty quickly, as he’s been around forever and just reached full-season ball last year.
Thanks Jason.
I don’t know that you can blame the trainers or doctors if Blackley was “staying mum” about the extent of his problem. It’s not clear from the article when the tendonitis diagnosis happened, but it sounds as though he didn’t tell them about the full extent of the pain he was feeling. So the misdiagnosis might be partly Blackley’s fault.
By the way, why do people spell it “tendinitis” when it is an inflammation of a tendon, not a tendin? Just to be pedantic for a moment.
Welcome to the English language, where spelling, pronunciation, and etymology are often entirely unrelated.
From an etymological standpoint, I always want to spell it tendonitis, but tendinitis seems to be the more standard spelling. Webster.com prefers tendinitis (I’ve previously stated my general disdain for Webster’s dictionary).
I might have to check my unabridged OED to see which it prefers.
Neither word appears in the my OED.
Though, I might just be missing it. I’m using the 1971 edition, so it’s the original 1933 edition plus corrigenda, so the words aren’t all sorted alphabetically.
Kind of a drawback for a dictionary, hmm?
For $30/month I could access the OED online, but I just can’t justify the expense when I’ve got a 35 year old printed version right here.
Since when does the English language make any cents?
The Oxford English Dictionary online lists tendonitis as a seemingly acceptable alternative spelling for tendinitis. And not that it means anything to me, but it says it comes from ‘med.L.’ (perhaps medical Latin?), so that likely has something to do with how one gets from tendon to tendinitis.
Get all this and more online for selling your soul to the local university of your choice.
Question: How would you define the term “hit with authority”?
I would have expected med.L. to identify it as a medical term, but the etymonline tells me it means medieval Latin.
Maybe. But there’s been a lot of discussion here in the past (which is what EC is alluding to) about the “suck it up” culture in the pitching staff under Bryan Price, where any complaint was apparently treated as an indication of softness, lack of mental discipline, and generally used as a basis for criticsm rather than cause for concern — and in several cases that continued right up until the player’s “softness’ put them on the DL or into the operating room. In such a culture (if such it was), would you expect anyone (especially a young guy trying to break in) to do anything but hide a problem?
what you get from comments that Price has made is that the ‘suck it up’ culture was not him, but instead stemmed from the previous regime, with implications that perhaps it came down from the former manager…. Price had talked about the need for a pitcher to learn his own body and how to tell what were ‘normal’ aches, and what was pain, and he has also talked often about the need for a pitcher to tell them when something was wrong, and not try to hide it. I might also mention that this is not just a problem in this organization– but something that has happened to most young poitchers wanting to make a team… ask Paul Abbott and Arthur Rhodes, among others.
I will be intersted in seeing if the departure of Dr. Pedegana will change anything about the team health.
Has Hargrove hinted at the rotation order yet, or has there been anything postulated? I am looking at tickets for April games, and I want to see Felix.
OHH to have an unabridged OED . . . I’ve got lexicographer’s envy! Although the English-Sumerian dictionary I’ve been waiting on would be more immediately useful, even if the earlier version is online.
What I found particularly interesting in the article on Nageotte and Blackley are the remarks from the Ms developmental staff to the effect that they were ‘shocked and demoralized’ at how poorly the two pitched when called up. Now, that shocks _me_. Nageotte was pitching damn poorly down in Tacoma before he was thrown into the fire; he should never have been promoted at the time. Blackely threw well, then spent several games throwing for all the world like he was hurt big time. They didn’t mention that Thornton was also throwing miserably, but was _twice_ promoted. The performances shouldn’t have been that shocking, and it wasn’t the minor league development guys who were doing such a poor job; the _senior_ management thinking was what still grates, to me. I might add that several of those senior figures subsequently talked about how ‘talent poor’ the organization they had inherited was. That latter position might be defensible to a degree, but poor decisions about the talent they had didn’t reflect well on their own thinking regardless.
The pitching coach who really preached “suck it up” was Stan (“The Steamer”) williams. And williams and Pinella were close.
Speaking of Borchard, he and the other two men competing for that last roster spot, Petagine and Morse, batted one right after the other in the 7th. Corky Miller was on 3rd for each of their ABs.
Each AB ended in a strike out. Bad, bad form.
I wonder how a guy who’s averaged 260/330/490 in the International League, can’t stand a chance against a breaking ball or can’t draw a walk unless it’s intentional, and hasn’t shown jack in three major league call ups with the White Sox, warrants having a bench slot practically handed to him.
Erm, the scenario above happened during tonight’s 4-1 loss to the Royals in SURPRISE~!, AZ.
Sadly, Borchard’s career AAA line is a bit worse, at 263/331/466 (well, worse in the slugging at least). He may have pitch recognition issues, but his 156 walks against 1668 at-bats (AAA) is just below the 10% threshhold of acceptability.
There’s a theory — can’t remember whose, might be Sickels — that players often decline when repeating AAA out of frustration. Borchard has now spent an amazing four years at AAA and has to be more than a little bit frustrated. I’m normally not a big believer in this sort of thing, but this might be a case where “change of scenery” really does make a difference.
Not that I’m expecting much. But if he can repeat that AAA line in the majors while playing a good corner and occasional CF, that’s a useful player.
The Onion says…
Ichiro: ‘The Best Part About Playing For My Country Was Not Playing For The Seattle Mariners’
March 23, 2006 | Onion Sports
SAN DIEGOâ€â€In an interview following Japan’s 10-6 victory against Cuba in the World Baseball Classic championship game Monday, Ichiro Suzuki called the tournament a “great opportunity to represent anything besides the Seattle Mariners.” “Playing alongside my countrymen on the world stage was nice, but the highlight of the event for me was not having to watch helplessly from the on-deck circle as [Seattle outfielder] Willie Bloomquist pops out for the fourth time in one game,” said Ichiro, who has been contemplating a return to his non-Mariner roots since late 2003.
More….
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/46647
#28– of all people, Carl Everett expressed much the same thoughts 🙂