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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Sunday, April 01, 2012
Sciacco feels that…“we may not see Pineda back with the club indefinitely, possibly as late as September…” (grabs riot gear).
Yankee fans collectively breathed a sigh of relief yesterday, with the news that Michael Pineda’s injury wasn’t all that serious. It would now be easy to assume he’ll rest up for a few weeks, come back firing 95 MPH fastballs and assume his rightful place in the Yankee rotation. But I’m here to tell you I don’t think that’s the case, not even close. If you walk through the timeline of his rehab, I would argue you won’t see him back with the team indefinitely, barring injury or complete ineffectiveness by one of the other five members of the Yankee rotation. Further, I think there’s a good chance he won’t be back with the club until September. Yes, September.
...All of this adds up Michael Pineda pitching for the AAA club for the foreseeable future, with no date set for his return. I know that fans of Jesus Montero will be repulsed by this scenario, saying we gave up a big bat for a guy who’s not even on the team. But those folks need to understand that Jesus Montero is no longer a member of the Yankee organization, and therefore no longer a consideration in the decisions being made going forward. Maybe Brian Cashman looks bad from a PR standpoint in 2012, but if we know anything about Brain we know he is unfailingly patient. This trade wont be given its final grade in 2012 or even 2014. We will have to wait at least 5 years to see if it worked out or not, and Jose Campos will be part of that equation. But as things stand today, it looks like Michael Pineda won’t get an opportunity to do his part of the evaluation anytime soon.
Repoz
Posted: April 01, 2012 at 12:00 PM | 58 comment(s)
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1. Dan Posted: April 01, 2012 at 12:14 PM (#4094169)I'd encourage folks to read the timeline I laid out (based on Hughes and Joba's shoulder injuries). But long story short by the time Pineda is ready, Andy should be back and there will be no spot open for Pineda. At that point, he's waiting for an injury or ineffectiveness for him to get the call. Barring that, we don't see him until the end of the year. I posted this because I got the impression some folks think he'll be back in 2 weeks, and that's not what happened with Joba or Hughes.
As always, the two rules of baseball apply:
Rule No. 1: Pitchers get hurt.
Rule No. 2: Pitch counts, innings limits, pitching coaches and general managers can't stop Rule No. 1.
I think the chances of the Yankees not needing their seventh starter before September are exceedingly unlikely. Not because of anything specific to the Yanks (though counting on one pitcher who didn't throw at all last year to be in the Top 6 may make calling on No. 7 slightly more likely), but because pitchers often get hurt and pitchers often suck and pitchers frequently do both.
I haven't read the article, but all injuries are not the same. These are three Yankee pitchers with shoulder injuries and therefore the first two tell us what exactly about the third? Unless the article convinces me that all three injuries are very similar, I'm going to have to go with "not much" for an answer.
...but, on what planet is a healthy Pineda not better than Ivan Nova? Or Freddy Garcia, or Hughes, or Pettitte for that matter? It would be criminal for the Yankees to let him rot in AAA. It borders on criminal to even call him the Yankee's #7 starter.
What basis do you have for assuming it's likely that 5 of the other 6 starters will be both healthy and effective all season? That seems the exact opposite of likely to me.
It's 'Wake me up when September ends'.
Yeah. For that matter, if the Yankees traded one of the best hitting prospects in the game for a pitcher they think should get sent back to AAA, that seems like a huge mistake.
Right now baseball is probably too risk adverse and way too much on the one size fits all, but 5 pitches too few is way better than one pitch too many (and I don't think they've backed off that far. I think there's maybe 20 innings of needless risk avoidance per year per top starter. Arguably there's more reason to think that getting more out of elite relief pitchers is a bigger deal, but the current patterns of use has produced some pretty good results)
Yeah, I'd be optimistic but his track record isn't precisely Carlos Delgado (hell, it's not Tom Brunansky -- though that's no sin. Bruno seems to have peaked at 20 or 21 but he was awfully good at that age), it's a cut below that. Extremely promising to be sure but he'll have to improve a lot to be an impact player as a DH.
Rule No. 1: Pitchers get hurt.
Rule No. 2: Pitch counts, innings limits, pitching coaches and general managers can't stop Rule No. 1.
Horse hockey! Sufferin' saddle sores!
And what #9 says -- a "ready" Pineda is the Yanks 2nd or 3rd best starter, no way they leave him in AAA if they think he's "ready." Alternatively, if this injury is serious enough to have reduced him to 6th/7th starter status longer-term, then this is a pretty serious injury.
I guess my reaction is more to the New York mainstream writers who have already declared the Montero/Pineda deal a failure based on one spring training injury.
Wrong colonel.
1) The Yankees' rotation has stayed extremely healthy and nobody has been particularly ineffective. In this scenario, the Yankees probably have close to the best record in baseball, so who cares that Pineda isn't up?
2) Pineda gets hurt again or is ineffective in AAA, which doesn't have much to do with this injury.
1) The Yankees' rotation has stayed extremely healthy and nobody has been particularly ineffective. In this scenario, the Yankees probably have close to the best record in baseball, so who cares that Pineda isn't up?
2) Pineda gets hurt again or is ineffective in AAA, which doesn't have much to do with this injury.
Exactly. If the Yankees have no room for a healthy and effective Pineda, they're heading for a 100-win season.
I suppose that it could also mean:
3) Pineda's shoulder doesn't respond to conservative management and he has surgery in early June.
or perhaps one of several other things.
3) Pineda's shoulder doesn't respond to conservative management and he has surgery in early June.
or perhaps one of several other things.
Doesn't that fall under "gets hurt again"?
Some rotator cuff tears are asymptomatic as well, and the only real red flag is a drop in velocity. When pain does come, that means the tear has gotten larger and what may have been resolved w/o surgery may need surgery.
It was scary watching Pinedas FB velo drop to 88 in the 3rd and his repeated grimaces. Pretty sure something tore on him there. Does not mean he needs surgery, as rest and rehab could be enough to let him pitch again, albeit at reduced velocity. Expect him to be out for 3 months.
I believe Phil Hughes had a similar problem last year. They called it tendinitis, like with Pineda, but it was probably a small labrum tear. ESPN had reported during a game he had a shoulder cyst removed, and these usually occur as a result of labrum injuries. Rest and rehab got him to where he could pitch w/o surgery with improved velo, but not at the same velo as his peak.
Pedro has the same problem in 2001. Came back and pitched effectively w/o surgery, but his FB never got back to where it used to be.
For some reason, a lot of people have the impression that Hughes used to throw exceptionally hard, but I'm not sure that he ever did.
People are remembering 2009 in the pen, where he average 93.7, and was over 95 with regularity.
They're not making the appropriate adjustment that everyone throws harder in the pen.
Didn't the 2001 Mariner rotation not miss a start?
[checks]
Looks like they used six starters that year--the top four guys got around 30 starts apiece, and Halama and Pineiro had 17 and 11 respectively. Don't recall either injury or complete ineffectiveness for either, but who knows.
Also known as the year John Olerud got old.
Good points. Velocity generally increases up until 27-28, so an increase in velocity from his age 22 season would be expected, and is what we saw until a 1 MPH drop in velocity from 2010 to 2011. Not sure he was all that healthy in 2010 either since he was pretty bad after the first few starts of the season (4.98 ERA the rest of the way), which was masked by his great run support
Looking at his velocity out of the pen might be useful. In 2009, he was averaging 94-95 in September, In September 2011, he was 92-93 out of the pen (only a couple of appearances, but he was nowhere as dominant as in 2009).
I know that NOCAYFT, but I actually had Jamie Moyer on my fantasy team that year and remember thinking that I should trade him cause he couldn't possibly have any more gas left in the tank. Heh. That was almost a decade ago.
Hughes has spent the majority of his ML career hurt. However, when he's been right his velocity has been where it was in the minors, which is 90-94, touching 95/96 as a starter, or sitting mid 90s as a reliever. So, that's pretty much just '09 and '10.
Re: Of course Pineda starts over Nova who sucks
I know non-Yankee fan Primates are pre-disposed to hating Nova because he's a guy that is overrated due to a high W total and not enough Ks, but the guy isn't a total stiff. He had a largely unexciting minor league career, but he's someone whose talent the organization has always been high on and he's generally performed at a high level since '10. As I, and a few others here, have pointed out numerous times, if you look at his numbers from when he started throwing his slider in about mid May to the end of the year, he has perfectly reasonable peripherals. No one thinks he's going to be a star, but he doesn't have to have star potential to be a useful young pitcher that any organization would love to keep as part of their rotation.
I'm not a Yankee fan, Yankee fans tend to be annoying and overrate their prospects even worse than us Mets fans overrate Mets prospects.
That said, having seen Nova pitch a few times- he looks genuinely good.
Having said that, his peripherals look really bad.
But what do I know?
J.A. Happ had results way out of line with his peripherals, and he didn't LOOK good at all to me, I had no problems predicting that he'd collapse- and he has- but injury may have had something to do with that.
John Garland has pretty much outpitched his peripherals his entire career- plus he's never looked good to me, basically for nearly 10 years I've been expecting him to go LimaTime... 2000 career innings worth an ERA+ over 100 I can confidently state that I was wrong.
Joe Saunders initial success had me baffled on every level- he looked bad and his peripherals were bad- his struggle since 2009 have not baffled me.
Wang- bad peripherals - he LOOKED better than his peripherals, his results were better, I couldn't figure out why he didn't get more Ks... and before his arm fell off he was starting to get more.
Pelfrey- bad peripherals- good primary stuff, bad secondary stuff... IMHO I always thought he should have been groomed as a setup/closer. Right now he looks awful on every level, his secondary stuff remains awful, he's lost movement (sink) on his primary stuff. He really needs a change of scenery as much as any one I've seen
They're not though. (Nova section)
SSS alert!
His career peripherals are bad (minors and majors): career K/9 5.5, BB/9 3.2, and minor league numbers to match. He had a really good three month run last year.
You can't just automatically assume that's all real improvement. There's probably some improvement (K-rate stabilizes quickly) but he's likely due some regression.
2. I (and the linked projection systems) am not assuming all his improvement is real. The fact that their will be some regression is obviously a part of any projection system and there's about 57 in the linked post. Despite that they all say Nova looks to be about a league average SP. And on the infintestimal chance that a young pitcher who added a new pitch and saw his results take a significant turn for the better within a sample size that can be relied upon as real (as far as BIP results) maybe he will be better than league average. But, no, let's all keep referring to Nova as though he a.) sucks and b.) there's no possible way it could make sense for a team to want to keep him in their rotation.
League was 6.9/3.1 last year.
HR/9 was 1.0 (Nova was 0.7)
He was good at avoiding HRs in the minors, HR avoidance is somewhat skill-based so he has that on his side. His BABIP was low, but not absurdly so.
1: If he can keep his HR rate below league average, and keep his BABIP 15-20 below league average (not likely, but possible), he can still be a reasonably effective pitcher despite his K/BB
2: Strand rate, batters hit .215/.287/.285 against him with RISP, .267/.331/.435, that is almost certainly luck/random variation. Flip those around and he'll look like Jose Lima in a bad year.
I will say this for Cashman, 2005/06, he was under no illusion that what Small did in 2005, was anything other than a fluke. I of course was a Met fan, if someone had gone 10-0 with a 133 ERA+ for the Mets (with no past record of success and no change in peripherals), Omar would have given him a raise and a 3 year extension.
I don't think it's true that it's "almost certainly luck..." Pitching out of the stretch is fundamentally different from going from a windup. Not that the sample size is huge but in 200 MLB innings Nova has been appreciably better with men on base than with the bases empty. He may be the type of pitcher who loses less going from the stretch than another pitcher. I wouldn't want to bet my life savings on it but I wouldn't be in a rush to bet against it either.
But, everyone loses something, otherwise they would pitch from the stretch all the time.
The 570 OPS with men on is certainly a fluke.
Yes, but we're talking about projection, and huys with 5 K/9 and 3 BB/9 don't project well.
I can think of a pitcher who does.
Then why do his projections look fine?
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1994&position=P
I would. No one is better long term out of the stretch vs. the windup.
Edit: coke to snapper.
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1994&position=P
I didn't say he was terrible, but I don't think a 4.40 ERA is what the Yankees fans that are breathless about him losing his rotation spot to Garcia or Pettitte are expecting.
I mean at RLYW, guys were penciling Nova into the 2013 and 2014 Yankee rotation already.
And why not? He hits arbitration in 2014. He doesn't have to be above average to be huge value for money those years.
Because the Yankees won't stand pat on a guy with a 95 ERA+. If he's as good as his projections, he'll be fighting for a spot every year as one of 4 or 5 guys (including rising prospects and retreads) fighting for 1 or 2 spots.
I think he's got a good chance to be a solid #3 or 4 SP (maybe 30%), a 30% chance to be nothing, and a 40% chance to be meh. If he's meh, he will not be a rotation fixture, he'll be a 5th-7th SP bubble guy. The Yankees don't care that a 1 WAR pitcher is cheap.
CAIRO has a 4.52 FIP for Nova, with Garcia at 4.28. Plus, Nova's gotten shelled this spring.
There's decent reason for the Yankee to think that Garcia is better right now, and by starting Garcia, they get to have both. With Pineda hurting, they both get spots, and whoever pitches worst loses out when Pineda comes back.
I think that's the right way to do it for a contending team.
Just spotted the Nova/Garcia preview over at RLYW. Certainly more variability in Nova's projections in the ones listed there than on fangraphs but Nova does still project better on average. Ironic that he has great peripherals this spring but poor performance due to a high home run rate and now that is a reason to doubt him, as was the opposite.
Haven't seen him pitch, but from what I've heard, he seems to be having trouble keeping the ball down. Working up in the zone would be consistent with his results; good K rate, but lousy HR rate.
At this point, it's all kind of moot, since he and Garcia will each get at least 5-6 starts before Pineda or Pettitte is likely to be ready.
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