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1. Perhaps the most important job the Mets could undertake now is to completely review – and fix where necessary – their training and medical protocol. They must look at everything with as much impartiality, honesty and integrity as can be mustered. Because from the outside looking in the Mets’ training/medical situation looks awful from how the players are prepared physically to how they are diagnosed and how the Mets handle/treat injured players.
The data shows that the Mets are constantly among the teams that losses the most games to the DL. That should say something about the Mets either bringing in too many older/fragile players and/or the lack of adequate training to keep the players as strong and injury-free as possible.
And we have now seen too many cases that goes something like this with a Met player: The initial report is he will miss a few days followed by a DL stint followed by revelations that the player will be out a lot longer than initially announced. Then there is flying Ryan Church with a concussion and Carlos Delgado with a torn hip. There is using J.J. Putz all this time when he just might have a tear in his elbow. There is Jerry Manuel constantly saying that Jose Reyes is close to playing all the way up to the news that he has a tear in his hamstring.
Mets officials get touchy and self-defensive when you asked them about all of this. But they should take a deep breath, look at the evidence and ask this: What if this were happening to another organization? What would they think of that organization? Well, it is not happening to another organization. This organization is undergoing a physical breakdown that is seriously imperiling its season, and that physical breakdown has been tied to sketchy diagnoses and handlings of these injuries.
The Wilpons have authorized the highest payroll in the NL. The least they should do is make sure there is a physical/training/medical protocol in place to make sure as much of that payroll plays – and plays at a high level – as possible.
2. My column in today’s Post focuses on whether the Yankees have made the right choice investing in Chien-Ming Wang’s past over Phil Hughes’ future. Every starter has about 20 starts left and posed this question: If you could only give Wang or Hughes those 20 starts, who would you pick? The reality is that inevitable injury will probably elevate Hughes to the rotation sometime soon.
Because I am endlessly suspicious and cynical, I asked all around yesterday if the move of Wang back into the rotation and Hughes to the bullpen was a ploy to – at some point soon – to skip Joba Chamberlain as a way to limit his innings (remember, the Yanks want him to finish in the 150-160 innings area). I thought, perhaps, Hughes could be spotted into Chamberlain’s spot one time and then maybe pitch one more time as a sixth starter to give every starter, including Chamberlain, an extra day of rest.
But several team officials said the plans are what have been announced: Wang is back in the rotation. Hughes will pitch out of the pen for the short term. If, as it is likely, there is not enough work for him, then he will be returned to Triple-A to stay stretched out as a starter.
Before Wang gave up five runs in 4 2-3 innings, Girardi adamantly said that the righty would stay in the rotation, including his next start at Fenway where he has been traditionally horrible. Girardi said that Andy Pettitte had endured a rough start the previous day, Wednesday, and he was not considering removing Pettitte from the rotation.
Yeah, Joe, we get that. But Pettitte didn’t have a 34.50 ERA earlier this year, like Wang did, and he does not typically struggle at Fenway. It is not exactly an apples-apples comparison.
3. Remember earlier in the year when there was so much talk of the new, more patient Robinson Cano? Well, that didn’t last long. Cano walked on Thursday, which ended a streak of 62 plate appearances without a walk. He is now seeing 3.27 pitches per plate appearances, which is 169th out of 175 qualified batters in the majors. It also is exactly his career average, which says the more things change, the more Cano swings early and often. He is having a strong year offensively in general and we all just might have to come to peace that most impatient hitters never really learn patience.
Let’s look at it another way: Cano has 11 walks in 236 plate appearances. Brett Gardner has 14 walks in 138 plate appearances. Gardner is the ninth-place hitter in the majors’ best lineup, so he is absolutely the guy you want to walk the least. That multiplies by hundred-fold when you realize that once he gets to first base, Gardner can use his one truly above-average skill: His speed. And yet because he is a patient hitter, Gardner draws walks anyway. Meanwhile, Cano has power and, thus, is the kind of hitter pitchers don’t really want to throw strikes to. Yet, he sees few pitches and hardly ever walks.
