Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle addresses free agents Brett Tomko, Adam Kennedy, and Nomar Garciaparra in a new blog post.
- Tomko suffered a nerve injury on September 14th that caused his biceps to atrophy to the point of resembling lumpy gravy. The biceps is better now, but Tomko trying to pitch through forearm numbness. He hopes to be game-ready by the start of the season and spoke of a preference for the A's or Giants.
- Kennedy is talking to the Nationals and Indians, but continues to wait on Orlando Hudson's decision.
- Nomar is "widely expected" to retire. If he does, he'd bow out at age 36 with a career line of .313/.361/.521.
Nomar future hall of famer?
mmmmmm doubt it.. good player though. Dropped off too much after leaving boston.
Not a snowball’s chance in hell. While he was easily an above average player, he’s been a career-long injury risk and is vastly overshadowed by the other two of the late nineties trinity of shortstops.
Nomar has only played more than 140 games in a season four times in his career, he had very inconsistent numbers outside of average and he was never better than average in the field.
Even if he was on the bubble for election, which he won’t, the fact that he came up around the same time as A-Rod and Jeter means he will forever be compared to them. Even as a Red Sox fan who loved Nomar in his hey day, I can say with full confidence that he’s not even a quarter of the player either of them was. Nomar is up there among the poster children for wasted potential.
I don’t think it’s wasted potential. Instead, Normar is a poster child for the fact that ballplayers get injured.
From 1997 to 2003 the guy was an animal. His 325/372/557. Decent speed, decent glove. The guy had it all. At age 29 he was on the brink of being discussed as one of the all time greats … then injuries hit. Between 97 and 03 he had 600 PA’s in 6 out of 7 years. From 03 to present he never had another 600 PA year.
So while we all dream of having Joe Mauer on our clubs for 10 years remember that guys like Garciapara are relatively common. Plenty of amazing players have passed through baseball. Players that were the best, only be struck down by injury and talent regression. When that superstar players signs a 6+ year contract just know that the odds of that deal working out are pretty darn slim.
To be entirely fair, injury or not, it’s still wasted potential. I acknowledge that the train wreck that his latter career turned into was entirely injury based, but it’s still wasted potential.
Nomar was a great player to watch, especially now that most of the superstars of his era have been discredited. I don’t really get too excited about Sox players but Nomar was a great guy for baseball. Always fun to watch, even when he played in LA, as a DBacks and Rockies fan, I still couldn’t help but root for him. I hope he plays in 2010, but if he retires, I will miss him.
but no, despite .313/.361/.521 being a solid line, no HOFer.
“Nomar was a great player to watch, especially now that most of the superstars of his era have been discredited.”
To be fair, he’s on the bubble for being discredited. Even in the Sox fan community, there’s a lot of suspicion that he might’ve been a juicer. There’s absolutely no real evidence to it, to my knowledge, but his short career and rampant injury history has led a lot of people to believe he might’ve been using early on. The fact that Canseco was with the Sox when he came up doesn’t help that suspicion.
It seems now, unfortunately that every player from that era that declines after 32 is rejarded as a steroids type injury. Some of these guys we will never know if the decline was simply natural with the players body or if it broke down post steroids. Nonetheless, Nomar was a great guy for baseball and as joemomma says, there has yet to be any link between him and PEDs and until then, I won’t discredit him.
It seems now, unfortunately that every player from that era that declines after 32 is rejarded as a steroids type injury. Some of these guys we will never know if the decline was simply natural with the players body or if it broke down post steroids. Nonetheless, Nomar was a great guy for baseball and as joemomma says, there has yet to be any link between him and PEDs and until then, I won’t discredit him.
Nomar was a really good player but I dont think he is a Hall of Famer.
Tomko with the Giants again…how about a hell no…
“The biceps is better now, but Tomko trying to pitch through forearm numbness. ”
dude, you gotta fix this sentence .
Maybe Tomko is trying to one up Pat Venditte and throw both handed at the same time?
Why? That’s a correct sentence. The muscle is called the biceps brachii, or biceps for short. It is a two headed muscle but the name still refers to the singular muscle of the upper arm. Thus, “biceps is” is indeed correct. “biceps are” and “bicep is” would not be correct.
i wana see nomar nude!!
Slusser….
Nomar is 36? Thought he was older…
Nomar is 36? Thought he was older…
Am I impatient or is Hudson like making a big deal out of this contract thing. Have your agent get on the phone and get the best deal and sign already!!
Geez you might think he was like Mickey Mantle or something.
If somebody is offering 3-4 million, be happy and get ready to strap up…wow
Theres only a few teams that want this guy…
Man..what a big deal…I don’t see the advantage to waiting…seems the guys that sign early always get more money than then the guys that wait. Teams either want you or they don’t…Hudson your not Pedroia or Cano, they get 6-7 mil…your worth 3… and 4 mill would be real good money…being benched by Joe Torre is not a good sign, probably cost ya a mil or so….sign and strap up…sign with the Nats they seem to want ya…all this waiting may cost ya more money…don’t be stupid
The only thing that he could be considering is length of contract 2-3 year deal?
I don’t know maybe its me…