The Pirates received an incredibly encouraging start yesterday from young righty Jameson Taillon, who returned from the DL after being treated for testicular cancer. As Stephen Nesbitt of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes, that outing coincidentally came against the Rockies, meaning that Chad Bettis — who has also battled the same affliction — was on hand. Of course, the road back has not been quite as straightforward thus far for Bettis, who needed chemotherapy, though he has now progressed to participating in long toss. The two right-handed hurlers have communicated often this year, Nesbitt writes in an interesting piece.
Here’s more on some health situations from around the game:
- Orioles slugger Chris Davis left last night’s contest with what the team is calling a right oblique strain. He is undergoing an MRI this morning, as Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun tweets. Skipper Buck Showalter expressed a generally pessimistic view of Davis’s outlook after the game. Indeed, it’s likely that Davis will head to the DL, according to Jon Morosi of MLB.com (via Twitter), though there’s still nothing official. It’s tough news for a fading O’s team.
- Also failing to make it through yesterday’s game was Mets star Yoenis Cespedes, who only just returned from a DL stint for leg muscle issues. It turns out, though, that he was dealing with pain in his left heel, as Laura Albanese of Newsday tweets. The heel is actually a long-term issue, rather than a new injury, and it seems there’s hope that it won’t limit Cespedes too significantly. That’ll surely be the team’s hope, as it attempts to climb back from a dreadful start to the season.
- Astros outfielder Josh Reddick was diagnosed with a “mild concussion” after running into the outfield wall, as Mark Berman of FOX 26 was among those to tweet. His outlook isn’t yet known, and surely depends upon further medical evaluation today. Reddick has provided Houston with a quality .281/.338/.443 batting line though 238 plate appearances, helping the organization to the best record in baseball and a dozen-game lead in the AL West.
yankees500
It seems like with all the bull crap that Cespedes wears when he bats, he’d never get hurt.
thegreatcerealfamine
Could be the clear or the patch!
majorflaw
Do you have any, you know, actual evidence that the player uses/has used PEDs? If so, present it. If not, STFU. Speculating about a player’s drug use in the absence of any evidence is disgraceful.
thegreatcerealfamine
Are you a Berkeley student?
mikeyank55
In the meantime you have to accept that this guy is constantly getting injured, over many seasons. So he may be clean now, however that’s usually a sign of something, right? Could be incredibly poor practices on his and the team’s part to stretch him out and get him in more flexible shape.
JFactor
Hahahaha! For the win!
majorflaw
“In the meantime you have to accept that this guy is constantly getting injured, over many seasons.”
Well, he appears to have been regularly injured during his tenure with the Mets.
“So he may be clean now, however that’s usually a sign of something, right?”
He may always have been clean. Since when has PED use been correlated with multiple trips to the DL? Cespedes frequent injuries as a Met may be due to multiple factors. He’s getting older. More frequent injuries and longer recovery times are to be expected. Last year he played out of position in CF for parts of the season. Perhaps, recognizing his value to the team, he has rushed back to playing rather than allowing an unjury sufficient time to fully heal.
“Could be incredibly poor practices on his and the team’s part to stretch him out and get him in more flexible shape.”
That’s another possibility. Mets have certainly been handicapped by multiple players making multiple trips to the DL. Perhaps their medical staff is somehow messing up. My point is that there are several factors which, alone or in combination, could be responsible for Cespedes regular injuries. Why speculate about the player engaging in criminal conduct when there’s exactly zero evidence that he did so? Like all other players he has taken regular drug tests every year. He must have passed every single one of those tests else we would know about it. If you’ve got any actual evidence of criminality I’m willing to listen. But speculating about criminal conduct in the absence of evidence should be beneath us.
majorflaw
No. Why?
Say Hey Now Kid
I don’t think PEDs because of how the whole thing reminds me of Griffey. They both put on a lot of weight at around the same age but not necessarily good weight and dealt with constant hamstring issues as a result.
But I agree with you and have said for a while that more needs to be done for injury prevention
thegreatcerealfamine
Raise your standards.
thegreatcerealfamine
Seems as though.
outinleftfield
Do you mean is he among the top 1/4 of 1% of students in the USA?
thegreatcerealfamine
You’re certainly not ❄️
dust44
The only mild evidence to ur “peds means injuries after stopping” is ARod. Look at Big Papi and Manny who were reported to be users. They didn’t break down. Hell Manny is still playing. Big Mac never broke down and got injured. My best guess to Cespedes continuing to get injuried and this is also not based with facts but maybe he’s older then he claims. We know there’s been a few Cubans who have admitted after retiring they were a couple years older then they reported
thegreatcerealfamine
You’re probably right on the age issue. If you look it up McGuire was indeed injured a bunch throughout his career. In fact one time he got hurt on a swing Bob Costas and others eluded to steroids!
davidcoonce74
Mark McGwire was hurt all the time, mostly issues with his feet.
dark vengeance
Help please. As part of a college course I am taking I need to write a paper on the 25 best baseball players of all time. Was hoping to hear opinions as to who you guys think they are as opposed to looking up and going solely based on statistics.
MrMet19
I’ll try to throw you a few obvious names… Mays, Ruth, Honus Wagner, Hank Aaron, Rogers Hornsby, Cobb, Gehrig, Mantle, DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Walter Johnson, Mathewson, Warren Spahn, Nolan Ryan, Tom Seaver, Cy Young, and of course there are plenty of others and this is just my opinion.
Baltsportsfan
Frank Robinson
lookouts
An interesting take might comparing those stats with more advanced metrics. You could compare how Mays, Mantle, Ruth, Gehrig measure up using WAR OPS+ and so forth. WAR takes the player’s value vs a league average player and that would have to take into consideration what exactly is a league average player in different ERAs. Would Ruth or Gehrig put up such numbers against today’s fireballers? What would happen if Mantle faced Kershaw? How would Trout or Harper fare in the 1930s.
Like MrMet says, there are obvious choices, and to me, doesn’t make a difference if you say Ruth, Gehrig, Hornsby or Trout is the best player ever, I trust we would take any of them. So, you might want to explore who is the best and use those advances metrics to defend your choice.. Who knows, there might even b a surprise or two.
ABCD
Look at players who were inducted into the Hall of Fame on their first ballot. Pick the 25 you feel deserved that honor the most.
outinleftfield
Ruth, Mays, Cobb, Aaron, Speaker in WAR for position players. I don’t include steroid-tainted players like Bonds.
If you are talking single season then you have to go a long way down the list to find someone in modern baseball.
outinleftfield
Few former Orioles to throw in there. Brooks Robinson, Cal Ripken, Jim Palmer, Frank Robinson. From the Cardinals Stan Musial, Bob Gibson. From the Dodgers Sandy Koufax and Duke Snider. From the Tigers you could add Al Kaline and Hank Greenberg. Tris Speaker has to be in consideration. Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and Greg Maddux were three of the best pitchers ever. Tony Gwynn was one of the best pure hitters ever. Mike Trout will be high up on that list if he continues to play like he has so far. Albert Pujols has been one of the best hitters of our generation, maybe the very best. Rickey Henderson has to be on that list. He stole the most bases and scored the most runs and hit around 300 HR. Mel Ott maybe? I throw out any of the steroids-tainted guys as a matter of course.
That is such a fun conversation to have.
outinleftfield
And that completely leaves out all the incredible players in the Negro Leagues. Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Satchel Paige, Buck Leonard, Roy Campanella, Rube Foster, John Henry Lloyd, Smokey Joe Williams, Oscar Charleston, Norman Turley Stearnes. Got to be many others.
Then there are guys like Monte Irvin, Larry Doby, and Jackie Robinson.
What an incredibly fun thing to talk about.
ukJaysfan
Start with Hank Greenberg.
davidcoonce74
Well, the first thing I’d do is delineate between pre-1947 and post-1947 baseball. Ruth and Gehrig, etc, have unbelievable stats but never had to play against the very best players in the world.
Then, of course, you’d have to figure out a way to parse out pre-live ball era baseball (which began in 1920). It was a very different game before home runs became part of the equation.
Then I would try to figure out a way to quantify pre 1893 baseball, because again that was a very different game too. (1893 is when the mound was moved back to its current 60 feet, 6 inches; before then it was 50 feet, the pitchers all threw underhand and threw 400 innings a year; strikeouts weren’t part of the game nobody threw hard.)
Jay Jaffe’s JAWS scores on BR are a good place to start, as they use peak WAR and career WAR, and his book sheds more light on that process. WAR helps normalize between eras and also ballpark effects.
I would also separate out pitchers and hitters.
A rough, off the top of my head list: Rickey Henderson, George Brett, Mickey Mantle, Ruth, Gehrig, Barry Bonds, Roberto Clemente, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Wagner, Musial, Hornsby, Jackie Robinson, Yastrzemski, Frank Robinson. Pete Rose, Ted Williams, Bench, Dimaggio, Pujols. That’s not 25 but add in the pitchers and that’ll get you there.
GareBear
If you are just going for the best baseball players and not simply major leaguers than you should include Josh Gibson. Babe Ruth referred to him as one of the best players in the world. It would make for an interesting topic rather than the usual candidates.
davidcoonce74
Gibson should have been on my list too. Big oversight. Also oscar charleston.
IloveMACfootball
I can tell you the three best players ever… Josh donaldson, manny ramirez, eric byrnes.
thegreatcerealfamine
Byrnes is on the Mount Rushmore of MLB!
66TheNumberOfTheBest
Eric Byrnes is the third Corey.
Watching him on TV is like getting into a time machine to mid-80’s California.
davidcoonce74
I know you’re making a joke but didn’t Byrnes quit on his team in the middle of a season? I know Ryne Sandberg did, and he actually is a Hall of Famer.
thegreatcerealfamine
Byrnes,Millar,and Plesak make MLB enjoyable to watch!
IloveMACfootball
I don’t remember Byrnes quitting on a team? You’d have to explain that. The effort he seemed to put in makes it hard for me to believe that would have happened.
davidcoonce74
Yeah, I was wrong. He was released after a month in 2010. He was still being paid 10 million bucks that year but never tried to make it back.
Skippy123
Babe Ruth
jbuiles
you keep saying that… who is she?
dudeness88
what??…WHAT!?!
GareBear
THE SULTAN OF SWAT, THE GREAT BAMBINO
marco 5
Taillion rocked …. lmao