Brewers GM Doug Melvin told Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Zack Greinke did not violate his contract by cracking a rib while playing basketball. Greinke’s contract prevents him from playing competitive basketball, but doesn’t prohibit pickup games, so the Brewers won’t discipline him and he’ll earn his entire $13.5MM salary.
The front office hopes Greinke will miss just two or three starts and is considering rookies such as Wily Peralta, Amaury Rivas and Mark Rogers as possible placeholders for the 2009 AL Cy Young Award winner. As I explained earlier tonight, the Brewers can likely get by with pitchers already in the organization.
The Brewers are eyeing rival pitchers in case a possible fit becomes available. But Melvin says a trade or claim probably doesn’t make sense. "The problem with getting somebody else is what do you do with him when Zack comes back?" Melvin asked.
Oooooh so the contract prevents him from joining the NBA….gotcha. Your kidding me, if I were paying millions upon millions of dollars for these players, they wouldn’t be allowed to do any physical activities without being monitored by the teams training staff.
Big Brother?
No, they should just not be playing basketball, football, rollerblading. If they want to work out, fine, just do it in the teams gym. Why even take a chance at hurting yourself? Its selfish….
Can they ride motorcycles without a helmet?
OK, I get it, you make snappy remarks to make your point, understood. Get beyond the sarcasm and understand what I’m trying to say here…..You get everyone excited for the season, everyone wants to watch you pitch, your looked at as hope for a championship, and you hurt yourself F-ing around and potentially let everyone down. If I were him, I would consider all that when going about my day to day business, that is all.
I assume you have a job and work for a company. I’m also going to go out on a limb and assume that maybe you do things in your life that can get you hurt, in the end, is there a difference? Your argument will be that Athletes make millions, have fans, etc. But the company paying these employees brings in millions itself. I trust an athlete to play a sport. At the same time, I won’t say that people should be forced out of doing what they find fun. That is not fair. No matter how much someone is being paid, you shouldn’t take away their outlet from their JOB. Maybe it’s things like that that put Greinke into a state of depression in the first place. Have a heart.
I understand your point, you make it well, and yes the argument you state I have, is in fact my argument. With your example, regardless of what I do at my job/for my company, if I hurt myself and cannot perform, someone else can do my job or get hired to take my place. Who is doing Greinke’s job now that he is hurt? Manny Para?…it’s simply not the same.
Also, Greinke was depressed because he has social anxiety disorder…not because someone told him not to play basketball. Save the mushy heart B.S….
So if you’re in the top .001% of talent in your specific profession, you shouldn’t be allowed to do fun activities? What are the chances that you break a rib playing a game of pickup basketball…. maybe one in a billion? He’s more likely to slip in a puddle of water walking down the sidewalk. Maybe he shouldn’t be able to walk either and we’ll just roll him around in a cushioned wheelchair.
Would you be okay with them taking their dog for a walk if they promised to wear a helmet and elbow pads?
That depends, is it a chihuahua or a rottweiler??? (sarcasm)
YOU’RE HILARIOUS!!!(…..also sarcasm)
*you’re
and demanding that someone doesn’t have a life outside of baseball because you want to watch them isn’t selfish? Come on man! I’m bumbed about him not starting the season too but what are you going to do? These guys are still people? They still have friends and people they see and hang out with. What if your boss just came out and said “JOHNSON! you’re too good at making Big Macs. I dont want you to risk injury. You go home, and come to work that’s it!”
Give me a break. It’s not like he was riding a motorcycle backwards while blind folded and trying to jump a tank of sharks while Dogs with bees in their mouths so when they bark the bees fly out and sting you chasing him.
They said he can still ptich, but they dont want to take any chances on this guy. He’ll probably miss two starts. He’s still going to win 16-20 games this year.
Brandon Inge, stop fluffing your son’s pillow this instant!
There are a lot worse things Greinke could have done. At least basketball keeps him in shape for the season.
Actually, basketball breaks his rib and has him miss time during the season. Real working out and throwing puts him in shape for the season….
People get injured working out and playing baseball all the time. It’s not like basketball is a reckless activity… if he was base jumping and broke his legs, then yeah, you get pissed.
Can I just tell you….if I was Greinke and two seasons away from his first $100 mil opportunity I would litteraly walk around in my off days ensconced in bubble wrap with the Nation of Islam as my security team.
Who the heck was he playing basketball with? Charles Barkley, Antonio Mason, Charles Oakley and the Davis Brothers? Is he a bad foul shooter and they were playing the ‘ole “Hack a Zack”?
It was a Bill Lambeer form tackle while he was going for a lay up that did it..
Charlie Sheen was covering him man to man
Jeff Kent “washing his truck” comes to mind.
Well, based on that contractual language, I’d argue that Greinke could play for the Cavs, Kings, T-Wolves, Wizards, …
Bucks too.
Zinger.
damn commy, this is America where people are encouraged to break rules and have loopholes in the system!
Totally bro….Charlie Sheen #Winning
Greinke is headed for another disappointing season. His CY season was a blip on the screen of an otherwise average pitcher. Moving to a hitters park in MIL is only going to make it worse for him and now he has a built in excuse.
You don’t think moving to the NL will help him?
Not in MIL!
I think the better argument would be the team’s overall defense. I still like him in Milwaukee but there are definitely a lot of variables that can be used to support both sides.
But it’s stilll better than the Royals defense, so therefore he should see an increase in production
is it better? i mean, he still has yuniesky betancourt playing behind him….
3b, Gordon is probably a bit of a better 3b than McGhee
1b, Butler and Fielder both suck
2b, the Royals used a lot of guys but Weeks is average at best
OF, the royals OF defense actually wasn’t terrible, Neither is the Brewers except LF
C, unknown atm with the brewers
SS, exact same player
seems comparably bad…
how can we take your analysis seriously….gordon hasnt been the 3rd basemen in almost a year
This might be true if his 2010 season was even considered average. It was still above-average. You should know this by now.
(This might be true if his 2010 season was even considered average. It was still above-average. You should know this by now.)
If you think a 4.17 ERA is above average you might be happy with his performance this year.
Small rib fracture might not be built up as something to be concerned about right away, but I don’t like Melvin’s reasoning for not pursuing pitching outside the organization. It’s one thing to say “we are confident in the depth we have within the organization” and another to take for granted that Greinke will be back right on schedule. Jacoby Ellsbury had what everyone thought was a minor rib situation last season and look how that turned out. Granted Greinke probably won’t be diving all over the outfield landing on his ribs constantly but this has potential to cause problems all season long.
You and I share some of the same thoughts. If they pick some one up for a temporary spot, you keep him if he performs well for you, or you turn around and trade him to someone that could use him.
You can never be too thin, too rich, or have too much pitching.
I guess you can’t wash your truck like Jeff Kent
a cracked rib? who was he playing, Dwight Howard?
maybe he was playing with Chris Bosh and slipped in his tears
Good one.
Speaking of which wouldn’t it be wildly ironic if the Heat ends up not winning 60 games and get bounced out in the 1st round of the playoffs. Maybe LeBron willsay “I left Cleveland for this bull$&^%”?
And I’m usually not a hater, but d@mn this is playing out like a soap opera.
It’s been a soap opera for a while now.
You realize the regular season basketball is a joke right? The lakers went 7-15 against the top teams last year, the celtics went 9-17 or something like that.
Regular season means next to nothing when more then half the teams in the league make the playoffs, stop watching espn and their daily heat panic report.
difference is they are NOT the celtics or the lakers.
Why has he been pitching if he cracked a rib in the offseason? Why are they just now figuring this out? The players take physicals at the start of ST.
It happened two weeks ago so it was during spring training. They did an x-ray and it didn’t show anything, he still felt discomfort so they did an MRI and it showed the injury.
This sucks, but can you really be mad at the guy for playing basketball? Really? If he was riding around on a motorcycle with no helmet, yeah, DUMB. But playing basketball?
In reality, this won’t be that big of a deal. He’ll finish healing up and be pitching fore the end of April. A perfectionist like Greinke isn’t going to need a month to get into a groove, he’ll be lights-out in his first outing.