December Hot Stove

Here is a look around baseball with some exceedingly witty commentary from yours truly.

Quick Hitters

Lance Berkman – The Athletics seem to have him in their sites. He met with the club earlier this week, and a 1-year deal, similar to the kind that Ben Sheets signed with the club last year, seems to be coming down the pipe (Lance wants something like $8 million a year). Don’t count out the Rockies though – there is mutual interest there, though there may not be enough dough.

Ian Desmond – Apparently the Nationals are considering moving Desmond to help add depth to their starting rotation. He led baseball with 34 errors at short, but his future is very bright as he was one run from being one of only 22 players to hit 10 homers, with 60 RBI, 60 runs and 15 steals in 2010 and that was in his first big league season. Why trade that?

Adam Dunn – He wanted 4-years and $60 million – he got 4-years, $56 million from the White Sox. I have no issue with those numbers, not in the least. Neither should anyone else. I know he can’t play defense, but since 2004 Dunn is second in baseball with 282 homers, ninth in RBI (709), 15th in runs (657), fourth in extra base hits (496) and he’s sporting a .914 OPS which is higher than Hanley Ramirez (.905), Chase Utley (.901) and David Wright (.899) in the same time frame.

Zack Greinke – If he ends up with the Yankees that will be the worst match since the Yankees brought in Javier Vazquez – twice. Greinke would crumble in New York and if I was a praying man I would speak to the man upstairs that this proposed deal doesn’t come to fruition.

Kevin Gregg – He declined the Blue Jays offer of arbitration which will lead to the Jays getting a supplemental draft pick. Gregg should earn a multi-year deal from someone. You may not be aware of it, but Gregg is one of only seven pitchers in baseball with at least 23 saves in each of the past four years, and his total of 121 saves in that time is 11th overall.

J.P. Howell – He’ll be unavailable to start the 2011 season after shoulder surgery in May (he says he could be back by mid-April), and he hasn’t thrown a big league pitch since 2009. While its premature to think his career might be in jeopardy, you have to be concerned for the lefties future. I wish him luck with is long road back to the bigs.

Jose Lopez – He’ll be non-tendered by the Mariners, hardly a shock given that he is coming off his worst season in five years (.239-10-58-49-3 in 593 at-bats). Given that he owns a career slash line of .266/.297/.400 one can’t think that, in this economic environment, that he will find anyone willing to back up the money truck.

Jamie Moyer – The 48 year old lefty had Tommy John surgery on Wednesday that will knock him out of the 2011 season. Still, he isn’t ready to give up on his dream of 300 career victories (he has 267 wins). Moyer says he will target a return to action in 2012. If you aren’t rooting for him you must be related to Ebenezer Scrooge.

Oliver Perez – Reports out of the Mexican Winter League are that Perez is consistently sitting at 88 mph, with his fastball, but that he has been able to get his heater up to 91-92. He’s also thrown 10-straight scoreless innings. Add that up and I’m 100 percent positive that he will more than justify the $12 million he is to be paid in 2011 (dripping sarcasm). Goodness gracious.

Mark Prior – The Rangers are said to have interest in the one time phenom. Reports are that Prior has gotten his fastball back into the 91-92 mph territory, and with that speed he could have success as an arm out of the pen. He will never reach the heights that were once predicted, but I’m certainly rooting for him. Amazingly, he is still just 30 years old.

Robinson Tejeda – This is just the type of guy that teams should take a shot on. Why are the Royals willing to deal the cannon armed Tejeda who had a 3.54 ERA and 1.33 WHIP in 61 innings last season? Because they are the Royals of course. Dating back to July 25th of 2009 Tejeda has posted a 2.97 ERA with a 1.15 WHIP and 8.84 K/9 mark over 112 innings. Who couldn’t use that?

Brandon Webb – Every team in baseball seems to be in on the sinker balling righty. Someone will give him a heavily incentivized deal to pitch for them in 2011, but if you talk to scouts they will tell you that his performance late in 2010, as he continues his attempted comeback from a shoulder surgery, was poor at best. Don’t forget that he has tossed all of four innings the past two years.

By Ray Flowers

Pitching on Trial

The mighty has fallen. It may not be as depressing as the fact that the house you bought for $300,000 dollars two years ago might sell for $225,000 today, but in fantasy circles the loss was just as severe. Stephen Strasburg suffered a substantially torn ulnar collateral ligament, and what that means is that there is an exceedingly high probability that he will undergo Tommy John surgery. I already wrote about the ramifications of this situation in Five Questions: Is Strasburg Finished?, but I wanted to expand on something I only briefly mentioned in that piece – and that is the way that organizations baby their pitchers. Is there any benefit to this recent practice?

It has become a comical situation really. Teams are so worried about protecting their investments that they treat them as if they were made out of paper mache. In fact, the level of injury in today’s pitcher seems to be much higher than it was in years past despite the advent of advanced physical training and medical proficiency. How is it that guys who are bigger, stronger, more reliably trained, and more closely watched than ever before break down more quickly than at any point in the past? I just don’t get it.

In the case of the Nationals, the team counted everything Strasburg did with the attention of an auditor from the government who is trying to extract every penny from your wallet. They never let him toss more than 99 pitches in a big league game, and only twice was he allowed to log even seven innings in an outing. A lot of good that all that monitoring did for Mr. Strasburg.

At the other end of the spectrum we have his teammate, Livan Hernandez, who has never missed a buffet in his life – yet he continues to roll on basically injury free. Listed as 35 years old, he might actually be 40 for all we know, Livan continues to rack up innings year after year, and he’s now 11 innings from 13th straight season of at least 180-innings. Is Livan simply gifted with a “rubber” arm? Was he genetically predisposed to never have a serious arm problem? Has he avoided injury because his career average for a fastball is a mere 85 mph? I mean after all, Strasburg’s average change-up this season was 89.7 mph.

I have no idea what the answers are to these questions. All I know is that time after time we are smacked in the face by the fact that even though we think we have it figured out, we actually have no clue.

Strasburg had his innings pitched totals limited – almost obnoxiously so. Strasburg had hid pitch total managed fastidiously as well. Yet here we are with a torn tendon and the inevitable surgery.

Perhaps the truth is that human beings simply aren’t meant to throw a baseball over an over again at such speeds. There were hurlers in the past who could rush it up there in the high 90′s, guys like Walter Johnson, Bob Feller, Nolan Ryan and J.R. Richard obviously come to mind, but there is no disputing the fact that today there are more pitchers than ever capable of tossing the old ball at speeds in excess of 95 mph. As training methods have improved, pitchers are able to get more out of their body than ever before, but perhaps we’ve gotten to the point that we have taxed the human body so excessively that sooner or later, like a taught rubber band, there will be an inevitable snap back.

If you ask me here is the simply truth – each man has a certain amount of bullets in his gun. It doesn’t matter if he stands 5’11″ or 6’6″, it doesn’t matter if he weighs 165 or 250 lbs, and it doesn’t matter if he throws 87 or 97 mph. Sooner or later everyone’s arm goes, and for every Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine we have a Francisco Liriano, Stephen Strasburg, Chris Carpenter, Brian Wilson, Joakim Soria etcetera, etcetera. The real issue here isn’t training methods or velocity as much as it should be a realization that sooner or later all pitchers have to pay the price for the fame and fortune they attain.

By Ray Flowers