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(this has been the DOOM of the week)
Is that the kind of thing that can just happen? Because it seems like the Twins should have caught it either before he started pitching this Spring Training, or at the end of last season. (Do teams do end of year physicals? They should.)
Neshek? Rauch? Crain?
He had surgery to clear out some bone chips early in the off-season. One presumes that had their been a torn ligament at that point, they would have realized it, though I'm not a doctor. But as far as I know, this is the sort of thing that "just happens." If you tear a ligament, at some point it isn't torn, and then it is torn. He had no pain in his early bullpens.
That's the sound of the Twins' playoff hopes popping like a soap bubble.
That's totally speculation on my part, but it would explain why Dr. Andrews didn't catch it during surgery, and why the Twins wouldn't have caught it before the start of camp.
Neshek? Rauch? Crain?
Presumably Neshek, if he's healthy enough.
Is there a single team in the AL Central which could be considered "good"? I'm kind of liking the White Sox all of a sudden.
Yeah, it destroyed his elbow's will to live.
Smoltz was 33. He's the oldest pitcher I can think of who successfully returned from TJ surgery. I wonder if there's selection bias at work here, whether guys in their mid-to-late 30s who blow out their elbows just say "screw it" and walk away, or if they really are too old to successfully recover from that extreme a procedure.
No. Minnesota isn't that good even with Nathan. The Twins, White Sox, and Tigers are all expected to finish around .500.
Oh, and I'd say the Twins still are probably the favorites to win the AL Central (because, well, it is the AL Central). Now if Mauer or Morneau went down early in the year, THEN the playoff hopes would go 'blip'. Or maybe not, as the Twins seem to live to do the impossible.
"And now, we will win the division being 6 games back with 12 games to play.... BLINDFOLDED! With one hand! And TC Bear as our first base coach!"
I'd make Rauch the first option at closer. He's got some experience, and he'll be a free agent at the end of the year, which means he might work himself into a nice compensation pick. Plus he looks the part...6'11 and neck tats.
I guess now it's Rauch, Guerrier, Neshek, Mijares, Crain, Condrey, and Duensing/Perkins/Liriano.
Billy Wagner had TJ surgery towards the end of 2008, when he was 37. The comeback seems to be going OK so far, although it's still fairly early.
To me, he looks less like a closer and more like "solitary confinement at Pelican Bay." I suppose that's Ricky Vaughn-esque, though.
They did the procedure to clean things up right after the season when he was bothered, so I'm shocked they didn't look for more trouble while they were checking him out then. I wonder if they did see this and figured it might hold together and let it ride. I mean, if it didn't then the season would be lost regardless (fixed in Nov or Feb, '10 is history) and he's old, so it was worth a shot. If you look at the team's history with arm injuries they almost always try a round of "ice it and see how it looks in a few weeks" before sending a guy to the sawbones, so it would make a certain amount of sense.
Not really. I don't think this hurts the Twins that much, does it? They can find those 65 innings somewhere. Let's not make this out to be Joe Mauer here.
I guess now it's Rauch, Guerrier, Neshek, Mijares, Crain, Condrey, and Duensing/Perkins/Liriano.
This seems to be the speculation. Neshek is viewed as a specialist, right or wrong, so it'll probably be whichever of Rauch or Guerrier that pitches better against AAAA hitters this month.
Alex Rios looked good yesterday. Rios is the guy I'm watching this spring - I think he'll be the difference-maker either way.
Neshek had trouble against lefties before he got hurt, so he's not as great a choice as poeple think. I like Guerrier better than Rauch. Crain would be terrible, Liriano should only be considered after he doesn't work as a starter (and at that point, why would he still be a good choice to take a critical role?)
Count the ringgzzz!
Pierzynski - 1
Nathan+Bonser+Liriano - 0
Why not try it again? How about Brian Wilson and Jeremy Affeldt for Joe Mauer?
People say he has problems against lefties, but it's not really that true. He had problems in 22 PAs in 2008. Otherwise he's been very good against lefties too. And even in 2008, he was better than Guerrier was against lefties that year. And overall he is better than Guerrier. I still say go with Rauch, but that's because I'm not sure how Neshek will recover and if he recovers well, I think he's more valuable as a setup guy. Plus he'll get more expensive in arbitration if he becomes a closer, regardless of if he performs that well or not.
Neshek's career splits:
R: .176/.229/.298
L: .208/.290/.409
Guerrier's career splits:
R: .237/.288/.381
L: .272/.344/.417
Rauch's career splits:
R: .237/.278/.380
L: .249/.328/.419
He seems like a guy who might really benefit from being able to just throw the #### out of the ball for an inning at a time. God knows he isn't making it as a starter, even though he's still got plenty of stuff.
Which may be an even better reason to not have him be the closer. If he's truly better, it's probably better to have him not be locked into a 9th inning with a lead role.
God knows he isn't making it as a starter, even though he's still got plenty of stuff.
He has just as many good seasons as a starter as bad seasons
I'm not ready to give up on him as a starter yet. I agree that he'd probably make a good reliever, but we've seen what he's capable of as a starter. I think this is the make-or-break year for him. If he has another year like 2009, try the bullpen.
An excellent point. You may have just convinced me to jump on the Rauch bandwagon.
Joe Nathan's 35! That makes me feel ... like he got a really late start to his ML career.
Nathan's a great case study in how career stats can sometimes be misleading. His career ERA+ is 159. Damned impressive. But he's been better than that for the last 4 seasons. In fact, from 2003-2009, he has a 215 ERA+ (Rivera 236 for comparison). That's 70% of his career innings pitched. How does a guy have a 215 ERA+ for most of his career end up with a career ERA+ over 50 points lower? 180 IP of 91 ERA+ at the start of his career (granted, he was 24-25, not like he was a kid).
I guess now it's Rauch, Guerrier, Neshek, Mijares, Crain, Condrey, and Duensing/Perkins/Liriano.
Whatever they do, they can't possibly have a closer by committee! That's like quadruple doom! Or even to, y'know, decide who pitches the 8th and 9th innings based on the matchups. That would be insane!
No point. Bochy would sit him behind Molina.
Especially since that Red Sox closer could probably be tricked into giving all that money away in return for some "magic" beans.
Perfect point for me to segue into: Nathan goes down and it's DOOOOOOOOOM! If Papelbon went down, a good 1/2 of RSN would claim it was a 'good thing' and that Bard will do better than Papelbon would have. Surely the truth is in between what with Nathan being a 1.9 WAR player last year?
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