APRIL 27: Baltimore general manager Mike Elias announced that Means’ surgery was successful. The team is hopeful he can return at some point before the All-Star Break in 2023 (via Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com).
APRIL 23: John Means announced via Twitter that he is indeed going to need Tommy John surgery. This has been the feared outcome since the Orioles placed Means on the 60-day injured list last week. He will miss the rest of this season, and most likely, a large chunk of next season as well.
Means is unquestionably Baltimore’s top starter, having pitched to a 3.72 ERA/4.59 FIP over 353 1/3 innings since the start of the 2019 season. He’s the only O’s pitcher to even exceed 200 frames over that stretch, and no other Baltimore starter with 100+ frames in that time has an ERA below 4.79.
As the Orioles remain amidst a complete rebuild, Means has been a frequently-mentioned trade candidate. He might’ve found himself on the move last summer had he not suffered a June shoulder injury that cost him more than six weeks. The 28-year-old returned in July but wasn’t as effective during the season’s second half as he’d been earlier in the year. Reports over this past offseason suggested Means was available, but there was no indication the team came particularly close to pulling the trigger on a deal. He entered the season as a possible deadline target for pitching-needy contenders, but that’s off the table now that he will go under the knife.
Ouch
This is sad for both John Means and the Orioles. It seemed trading him at peak value would’ve been smart as the Orioles seemed a ways from contention. Been a long time since this was Cal Ripken’s Orioles.
They have had Machado, Jones, and Davis since then. Now add Mullins
And that’s about it since Ripken
Mullins needs to have more than one season of success to prove he belongs in that company.
…and the rebuild gets even longer for the Orioles
Yeah but our pitching staff has been pretty good this year
Two biggest pluses for O’s this year: (1) the bullpen, which has been amazing and (2) replacing those 2 corpses in the broadcast booth with Kevin Brown. They’re actually “in” a lot of the games they’re playing and Brown keeps it exciting. The other 2 would make sex with Jay-Lo sound boring.
I hope u don’t mean Thorne. he was a voice for the Orioles missed as is Orsillo is for the Red Sox. Thorne and Palmer thought were an outstanding pair in baltimore, which unfortunately half now gone, much like Rich Walz and Tommy Hutton in Miami.. Both gone for an insufferable pair which if you watch marlins games? best to tune in with volume off. Pretty much same in Boston with O’brian..
Oh HELL NO! The LAST broadcaster I would criticize would be Thorne, who I remember back with his Pittsfield Mets days (I think he owned a piece of them). The man is GREAT! Brilliant(SCOTUS-qualified attorney), incredibly well prepared (from back in the days when they had to do their own prep) and a set of pipes to die for. He’s in my own personal Top 5. I’m not a hockey fan, but friends of mine that are, say he’s outstanding there also. I was referring to the two grave diggers that took Thorne’s place.
Agree totally on the Marlins guys. But I tend to like O’Bie; no. not Orsillo, who was/ is superb, (especially with the late, great one, RIP); but not bad….better than a lot of them. FWIW, the Giants guys really are extraordinary…all of them. Also, FWIW, if I watch the Spanks, it’s with the radio on over to the TV..I get a kick out of your namesake, and am probably one of 6 people that like Suzzy.
Yes, a year or so ago Gary Thorne did some Mets games when Gary Cohen was out. What a treat that was to listen to.
Always listen to the radio feeds when watching NYC teams.
Like Suzyn and John as well. Can’t stand the TV broadcasters of the Yankees or Mets. They’re always selling something……usually their brands. Especially enjoy Howie Rose; while Wayne Randazzo is younger and brings an interesting perspective.
Man I wish Gary Thorne was still in the booth for the Os, that dude is awesome
Thorne was an idiot who thought whatever story or joke he was telling was more important than what was happening on the field. He laughed at his own jokes all the time. He’d often go off on tangents, forget which team was batting, butcher names of players on the Orioles, forget the count, forget how many outs there were, forget what inning they were in.
Combined with Palmer who would talk about his own career all night long, it made what was already barely watchable baseball all that more miserable of an experience. Thorne didn’t care about the Orioles and it was clear.
I am glad he’s gone. Let him go call games of something he does care about, which is apparently hockey.
Bob, so many teams emply homers and whiners in the booth now it makes it difficult to listen to them, or people who just drone on and on about nothing.. O’brian (to me) falls into that rambling category.
David Simms with the Mariners, teamed with Mike Blowers form a good team. Simms is away an awful lot calling both football and basketball being the only negative have of him. Agree on SFG having good pair and they pretty much have for a very long time.
Samuel: Agree totally re the NY teams. Mets guys have the diction (tho I can do without Darling constantly flaunting his education; “I get it Ronnie, you’re a bright guy”) ; Yankee guys don’t even have the diction. Actually I can’t figure exactly what is they HAVE.
Gary Thorne rocked. I’d rather listen to his voice than hear Jim Palmer discuss his prior greatness or one of the milquetoast guys we throw in the booth to replace him.
Ben is fine. But I’d kill to have Gary back
Yup, Simms is dynamite. Circumstances had me listening to Sunday/Monday night NFL games on Westwood One back in the day; does a great football game.
Ben McDonald is growing on me…many salient points. Palmer? Let me hear again how Urias and Mateo aren’t Brooksie and Belanger.
I think Ben’s going to be a coming star. Could be that he’s just so much better than the post-Thorne guys, and that’s a pretty low bar.
Saw the Thorne reference and wondered if it was Gary Thorne, I forgot how great he was
April is generally a slow month for hitters and who knows how much the late start has affected players. I doubt you’ll see Zimmerman and Company posting the numbers they have now in July.
Zimmerman should merely be alright going forwards but at least he looks like a viable starting pitcher going forwards. Lyles could be trade bait
Poor dude. As if being on the Os wasn’t bad enough
And now untradable for couple years. He’s stuck with O’s⚾️
Hate to see this. I wish him a speedy recovery.
Brutal timing. Loses 2022, probably all of 2023, and might be innings limited in 2024, his age 29-31 seasons. Poor guy.
Eh, he should be back by the 2023 all star break unless he’s particularly unlucky. Granted it’d be easier if he were a reliever, in which case he could’ve been back by next May. And granted he may not be pitching great in 2023 because it’s hard to retain your control without pitching for a year.
Tough break, he also lost his dad, I hope he comes back soon.
Terrible news he was the only O’s pitcher that could dominate.
This has been coming since he hurt his elbow last year. Bummer for a guy pretty much coming out of no where for the O’s. Didn’t he throw a no-hitter? Wonder how many pitches he threw and if hes been the same since.
He threw 113 in that game. I don’t think we have any reason to blame that one start a year ago.
Not very many pitches. Although he made his next 5 starts it was after that the elbow started talkin. Who knows.
Spencer Turnbull of the Tigers threw a no-no last year and only pitched a few more games before going under the knife. Hmmm…
I also heard that they both had water during those outings, then had to get Tj
It wasn’t just last year, it has been coming for even longer than that
His pewvious injuries were shoulder, not elbow. Unless your point is the shoulder injury caused the elbow injury, I don’t see where you are going with this.
Guys, guys, come on. Let’s not fight over Tommy John. He doesn’t even play anymore.
O’s fans I feels your pain, elbow pain too. Seems like the O’s have been on rebuild way too long, and the Angels can talk bad elbows all day. Let’s hope this is our year to stay healthy
Mlb teams can’t figure out why pitchers are breaking down so easily now, and I can assure you nobody here knows the answer either so enough with the speculation
Whoooaaa iverbure! You a pitching coach for the O’s?
They know, Iver. If they don’t, I’ll tell them- it’s the obsession with the radar gun. Throwing a baseball is an unnatural motion to begin with, but now they want everyone to throw high 90s.
but now they want everyone to throw high 90s.
================================
It’s not “they”. It’s the pitchers. Pitchers can choose to throw slower, but then batters will hit them. This is the same in every sport. You have to sacrifice your body to compete at the highest levels.
Rebuild too long? Elias first Draft was 2019.
Not really, JoeBrady. Teams scout and draft and offer bonuses based on how hard you throw, because they think they can develop the rest. Soft tossers who get better results in college baseball will be less likely to get drafted than a guy who throws 100 MPH and gets lit up. Even if the latter guy is currently out getting Tommy John surgery.
Tough break for Means and the O’s. Meanwhile, a lot of MLB teams are breathing a sigh of relief that they did not go all out for the lefty in the offseason.
Hate to see this. Seems like when it rains it pours for some of these teams.
The Os should of traded him at his peak for prospects
Because they should have known this was going to happen?
No, but good pitchers on rebuilding teams still years away from their contention cycle are very risky assets.
At 28, he was worth holding onto. I don’t think they’re more than 3 seasons away from turning a corner, and he’d have only been 31. Hindsight is obviously 20/20 now, though.
It’s not a matter of “knowing”. It is a matter maximizing your resources. Basically, you stick with Means for 3-4 years, and lose every year. Or trade him, and build for 2024-2025.
The prospects also represent a risk, but what does Means do for you? In his four years with BA, they’ve played .333, .417, .321, and now .357. Means is a career 20-24. It would’ve made almost no difference to their record since 2019, but could’ve had a big effect in 2024-2029.
His value could have dropped in many ways. He should have been traded while he was worth multiple top 100 prospects.
But that’s gone. Hope the dude recovers.
Mets shoulda traded deGrom too right? People are so dumb.
That’s a shame. Hopefully he comes back healthy and gets a chance to produce for a winning team.
I hate seeing this kind of news. it’s sad to see players get injured. Best of luck to him and hopes for a quick recovery.
Disappointing news since it appeared Means was taking his game to another level. This injury probably ensures Matt Harvey gets another go in the O’s rotation barring any suspension from MLB.
TJS…a Means…..to an end.
I struggle to recall reading recent elbow strains with removal from service that didn’t result in TJS, regardless of how much they are downplayed as precautionary removals. It’s almost inevitable now.
Well, this is probably going to flatline his arbitration through ’24. At least he made it to year 1 at around $3 mil.
Good news is that by the time he nears his FA he will be fully recovered & ready to go. It’s nice to see the amount of pitchers successfully recovering from TJ & I’m sure it’s not nearly as daunting for them knowing how many fellow players have gone through similar recoveries.
Tough break for Means. It’s early enough that maybe he can make it back by the end of next season.
No way is he making it back this season unfortunately
Prime time to call John Means about an extension…. O’s love discounts.
Did you know there was a real player named Tommy John and he played for 26 years in the Major? 26 years!!
Told you all so.
The Baltimore Orioles, ruining young promising arms since….the early 90’s
That’s not entirely fair. Mike Mussina turned in a HoF career.
Interesting fact: Scott Erickson threw more Complete Games in 1998 (11) for the Orioles than the entire Orioles pitching staff over the past 10 seasons (10)
It is entirely fair because Mike Mussina is the ONLY name you can mention as a pitcher that held up.
There are several reasons why I don’t understand why you’d bring up Scott Erickson. 1) He wasn’t drafted by the Orioles. 2) He was 30 years old when he tossed all those complete games. 3) His huge contract extension he signed blowing up in the face of Peter Angelos is why the Orioles had never signed a top flight free agent pitcher and would sign no pitcher to more than a 3 year contract because insurance companies will not insure a contract for a pitcher for longer than three years. 4) Him tossing all those innings is most likely what led to him blowing his arm out and never being the same again.
So what point were you trying to make again?
Arrieta, Bedard, Strop, givens…
Erik Bedard had a history of injury problems and what happened when they traded him to Seattle?
Arrieta didn’t become a full time starter until he was traded to the Cubs. Why? Arm issues.
Pedro Strop wasn’t drafted by the Orioles and they picked him up when he was 26 and he spent a whole 2 1/2 seasons with the Orioles and pitched about 100 innings in that time. He spent 8 years of his career with the Cubs.
Givens hurt his arm in 2019 when they traded him and is what hurt his trade value.
Thanks for proving my point for me. Want to play again or quit while you are significantly behind?
Arrieta was a full time starter at the time of the trade. The Orioles wouldn’t let him throw a splitter. Cubs did, voila.
On the earlier comment we can’t forget the Orioles paid longer term/bigger money for the wondrous pile of goo that is SIdney Ponson and Ubaldo Jimenez!
You might want to check your data again. The year before he was traded he played in 24 games and started 18 and pitched a whopping 114 innings. The year he was traded he pitched 5 games for the O’s and 9 for the Cubs. Care to stand corrected on this one?
Sidney Ponson was on his original rookie deal before they traded him to SF for a one year rental, then they re-signed him that off season to a 3 year deal, of which he only spent 2 before they finally released him. Wrong again.
You’re right about Ubaldo. He was the first pitcher since Scott Erickson that the Orioles signed to more than a 3 year deal.
You just agreed the Orioles did not ruin and Arrieta and Strop. Mgivens is still pitching well And Bedard`s 900+ post Orioles IPs prove your claim is BS. LOL! Eat your own words.
Or just kept spouting stupid nonsense because you think brash and nasty is the same as smart and well-reasoned.
You`re a big mouth with a small brain.
I didn’t agree that the Orioles didn’t ruin Arrieta. They absolutely did. That’s why he was terrible here and flourished once he left. Strop doesn’t qualify because he WASN’T A YOUNG ARM when the Orioles got him and almost immediately got rid of him.
You might want to do the math on Bedard, He pitched 658 innings with the Orioles and 645 with several teams after he was traded. He pitched 15 games in each of the two seasons with Seattle after the trade and missed the entire third season with them.
Givens is still pitching well? In 2020 after the trade he pitched a whole 9 innings for Colorado and had a 6.75 ERA. In 2021 he pitched 51 innings, his career low in a season before becoming a full time reliever. He was also traded again to Cincinnati. In those 51 innings he pitched to a 3.35 ERA and he was lucky to do that because his WHIP was 1.375 (Highest in his career to that point), His FIP was 4.55 (the worst of his career in a full season) his h/9 was 7.6 (the worst of his career in a non injury shortened season) His BB/9 was 4.8 (The worst of his career in a full season) and his k/9 was 9.5 (The second worst of his career in a full season, the worst being 9.3) and his SO to BB ratio was 2, the worst of his career.
In 2022 so far he is pitching well, but he’s only tossed 7 innings, which is an extremely small sample size.
The only one spouting nonsense is you. You might want to be careful who you want to toss your hat into the ring with next time. You aren’t going to beat me on information. How does it feel to be completely obliterated by somebody you say has such a small brain? I guess your brain must be microscopic by comparison.
The Orioles `ruined` Arrieta into a Cy Young Award. That is the STUPIDEST thing ever said on this site. You are a moron. Run along little boy, the adults are talking
Ra – incorrect. Please try to keep up. Had Arrieta stayed on the Orioles, he never would have been a Cy Young contender. Whether that’s blowing out a shoulder or he’s perfectly healthy but poorly led, they are not seeing results from the pitcher. Arrieta goes to a competent organization and is suddenly good. That was the point.
You can physically ruin a pitcher’s development by poor utilization, such as Mark Prior or (going back further) the early 80s Oakland A’s who pitched until their arms fell off. You can also accomplish the same thing if you can’t bring out the talent in him because your organization and coaching is incompetent, which is what the Orioles excel at doing going back to mismanaging guys like Ben McDonald.
Check out his career with the Orioles, not with the Cubs when he won that award. He was one of the worst starting pitchers around. The only moron is you. Him being traded away saved his career. Do you not understand this? Had the Orioles kept him, he would have flamed out and been a perennial AAAA starter or converted to a reliever.
If you are an adult, the world is doomed.
Oh my gosh, finally somebody with reasoning skills and logic. I was beginning to lose faith that people like you existed on these boards.
When you think of a team that cultivates great pitching, the Orioles definitely do not come to the top of your mind unless you are a blind, orange kool aid chugging homer. I don’t like that this is the case. It pains me to post the reality of the situation, but don’t blame me for the truth.
Now you are just speculating, Thornton. No keeping up with make believe. You can`t foresee the future nor a past that never occurred.
If the Orioles had `RUINed` (your word) Arrieta`s arm he NEVER COULD have won a Cy Young. Are you that imbecilic or do you just misuse words and whine when you are proven wrong in your claim.?
All four pitchers I named continued to have success in MLB.
Pitchers from all teams get hurt. Want to complain about a pitching coach, fine. But it`s childish to make stupid claims about an entire organization `ruin`ing every arm they contact. Many of those pitching coaches had success and were never accused of ruining players by small minded pseudo-fans.
Feels good to prove you a idiot.
Project much?
Erik Bedard post injury was never the same. He never tossed more than 150 innings in a season post injury and he did that only once.
Is a Cy Young award a career long award, or just one season? Remind me. And did he win that with the Orioles? Secondly, after that one amazing year, he never pitched over 200 innings again, and he was never that good or even close to it again. After that season his H/9 skyrocketed upward, his HR/9 skyrocketed, his BB/9 skyrocketed, and his k/9 plummeted.
Let’s take another look:
Arrieta:
BAL: 20-25 5.46 ERA
CHC: 73-42 3.15 ERA
PHI: 22-23 4.36 ERA
It is almost like he was absolutely horrible with the Orioles. Of the names you mentioned, only Arrietta was good after he left the Orioles, and one of them doesn’t even count because he wasn’t drafted and developed by the Orioles.
Even giving you the benefit of the doubt, that’s 3 names you can mention since the 90’s that the Orioles didn’t ruin. Too bad you are just wrong. Have fun living with the thought in your head that you lost an argument completely to a person you think is an idiot. What exactly does that make you?
Kevin gausman
Zack Britton
Rodrigo Lopez
Jeremy guthrie
Brad Brach
I could go on and on. None `ruin`ed.
You base your opinions on laundry, like most little kids do. You think baseless bashing makes you look like a grown up. It does not.
give up. You know nothing about the Orioles.
I’ve forgotten more about the Orioles that you will ever know. The evidence is staring you right in the face and you keep on ignoring it. This isn’t “bashing” the Orioles. This is a history lesson and the truth. If you want to believe in unicorns and pots of gold at the end of rainbows, you go right ahead. It is clear by your other posts around here that you don’t understand baseball at all or the English language.
Unlike the Orioles front office, I don’t give up.
We’ve already been over Gausman (who was below average to average here, then got hurt, then had one great season elsewhere) and Britton (who got injured the season before being traded, had a pretty poor season, and had pitched to a decent ERA despite all of his peripherals going down by a big margin after his injury and trade).
Now you want to bring up Rodrigo Lopez…the hits just keep on coming with you. you DO know that he spent 6 years in the Padres minor league system after playing 2 years in the Mexican League…right? Of course you don’t. Then in 2002 (at age 26 already) the Orioles had him pitch until his arm fell off and he got hurt the following season. He had a decent season the next year, but he was never the same for the rest of his career after tossing 209 innings; a career high in 2005. They promptly traded him in 2007 where his arm troubles continued.
Brad Brach pitched 3 years for the Padres and didn’t join the Orioles until he was already 28. Because of the state of the Orioles rotation, they abused their bullpen and Brach racked up a lot of high leverage innings. The overuse would be evident after his trade in 2019 and he wasn’t close to being the same pitcher since then.
You do understand how DRAFTING and DEVELOPING young pitchers works, right? First, there is the DRAFT part, where the team in question; the Orioles, actually draft a player. Then said player spends time in the minor league system of said team, and then hopefully makes it to the major league team in the EARLY 20’s. That early 20’s part is where the YOUNG comes in.
See, to you and me, 30 might sound rather young. But, in baseball terms, you are already aging. You are starting to wane from your prime years which for baseball is about 27-32. If you are a slender built, speed based player, by age 30 you’ve slowed down and injuries start to be an issue.
You don’t know jack. You are such a loser, you try to pass yourself off as an “industry insider.” No actual insider would be on the comments section bragging like that. You are a POSER.
Arrieta, Bedard, Strop, givens…`Ruining` is a ridiculous – and false – claim.
Exactly. It’s not like Orioles have gone “Mark Prior” on anyone. Its also hard to claim they’ve ruined the arm of a Pitcher who is almost 30 and thrown 150 innings in a season ONCE…
I never claimed that, genius.. Try to keep up. Unless you think a 30 year old that the O’s didn’t draft somehow equates to a YOUNG ARM they ruined.
Zach Britton, Kevin Gausman, Josh Hader, Dylan Bundy, Eduardo Rodriguez. Orioles have a few guys they developed have success without arm issues related to time with the Orioles
Oh boy, the gifts keep on coming. Are you trying to make this easy for me?
Zach Britton is a poster boy for abuse/overuse. Yes, he was good, as were a number of relievers for the O’s in that period. Because they were good and the starters were poor, the BP got overused, and he was a prime one. After his stellar 2016, he had already logged a lot of high leverage innings and he broke down in 2017. He was able to come back in 2018 and get traded, and he had his work load reduced. in 2019 he pitched 60 innings again and while his ERA was very low, his peripherals looked nothing like they did in his O’s 3 year fame. His H/9, HR/9, BB/9, and k/9 are nowhere near his 2014/2015/2016 levels. He is currently sitting at a 5.89 ERA, although in only 18 innings.
Gausman is more of an Arrieta situation. The Orioles didn’t really know how to handle him and after they traded him, he had a difficult 2019 where he wasn’t a full time starter and logged only about 100 innings. He bounced back very well in SF in 2021 and logged 190 innings and things look good for him so far in 2022. But, they messed him up mentally. Hence, if you want and O’s pitcher to finally do well, trade them to another team.
Josh Hader never even pitched for the Orioles. He was drafted in 2012, logged 28 innings that year, pitched 80 innings for the O’s minor leagues before they traded him to Houston. He never really came through the O’s system.
Dylan Bundy….prime example of an arm the O’s ruined. They prematurely promoted him at only 19 years old and after tossing 1.2 innings he blew out his arm, missed all of 2013, barely pitched in 2014 or 15 in the minors before making the O’s by default almost in 2016 and never living up to success that was once projected for him. He’s a back end of the rotation arm and at best league average if not below average.
Eduardo Rodriguez again never pitched for the Orioles. The O’s drafted him at age 17, spent 2010-2013 with the O’s minors before trading him in 2014 and he’s had a history of arm trouble in the majors.
I really don’t know what you all are trying to accomplish. The lists of names you give me only further prove the point I’ve made.
Yeah….that’s what I thought. I appreciate you all playing along, but you’re not dealing with a typical fan/message board person. I know what I am talking about. It used to be my job to do this for a living. Don’t feel bad that your arguments didn’t stick. Just be glad you got educated and see just how awful this organization has been with the “grow the arms” concept. What they really mean by that is, “we’re cheap.”
No, we are dealing with an arrogant idiot who has no knowledge of Oriole history nor sense of integrity. Just another child trying to get adults attention by saying obnoxious lies.
You got ratioed. Deal with it.
Bundy was under his father`s tutelage, not so much the Orioles.,
You think I care what a bunch of idiots think? I am proving you each more wrong than the next.
Oh, Jeremy Guthrie by the way….came to the Orioles from the Indians system and was 28 when he got to Baltimore. Again, NOT a draft pick of the Orioles, and again not YOUNG.
So a guy that can’t understand anything at all is taking solace that there are other idiots like him around that all nod like bobble heads to each other and are so dense they can’t comprehend facts or logic. I am so mortified by this…also, you don’t seem to understand how “being ratioed” works. You giving yourself a like doesn’t mean that I got ratioed.
I am not arrogant. I am bluntly honest. I can understand how you can’t decipher that.
The Orioles have been ruining young arms for decades. I’ve proven it. You deal with that.
Was his dad the pitching coach for the Orioles? Did his dad pay his salary? The Orioles ruined him by overworking him and rushing him to the majors when he was 19. So yeah, VERY MUCH the Orioles.
You are delusional and arrogant, which is a toxic mix.
You just prove that the consensus is smarter than your boring, predictable and provably false shtttalking.
Cute how you upvote all your comments like a tween would.
Missed their opportunity to trade him to the Padres for what’s left of their good prospects.
This impacts their playoff chances
It hampers their “rebuild” too. He was a main cog of the rotation and the only reliable arm they had. Now they will use this as an excuse not to build up the team since he’ll miss about 2 years of playing time and his first year back probably won’t be very good.
Maybe. Will be tougher to get thru the ALCS but imagine they can scrape thru.
Massive failure by management not to have traded him last year with no-hitter fresh in everyone’s minds. Zero reason to have kept him for a losing seasoning
This sucks. Feel so bad for Means, he’s an awesome guy and such a hard worker. I saw him throw that beautiful near perfect game in Seattle last year and was so happy for him. I hope he makes a full recovery and comes back better than ever, and gets paid like the stud pitcher that he is!
Ironically, an Ends to the Means
This situation is just an example of what I lament about baseball today versus 40 years ago.
The guys aren’t on the mound aren’t pitchers, they are throwers. They throw at their physical limits of speed and intensity, and hope that what results is enough movement to miss bats. It causes them to barely make 5 innings and be at high risk for injuries. Back when there were pitchers – guys who threw a few MPH under their limits so they could enhance their control, and therefore go 7 or 8 innings and be at low risk for injury. (we’re talking Orioles – see Scott McGregor, Mike Boddicker)
Part of the issue is caused by batters not being hitters, they are swingers. They swing as hard as they can hoping for the home run, but instead strike out a lot and ground into shifts. Baseball had hitters once. If you put an orange Home Depot bucket into short LF just out of reach of the short stop, I’d bet Rod Carew could hit it 6 out of 10 tries in BP.
But the game evolved from an art form to a math problem with live actors, once it was decided it was worth it to swing as hard as you can at the plate and defend that by throwing as hard as you can from the mound.
Ty Cobb said that the home run would ruin baseball. Any idiot could hit home runs. That the real game was played inside the park and on the bases.
Ty Cobb said a lot of things.
But sadly, much or all of it was a lie to sell a yellow biography. See the wikipedia article on him, section “Views on Race”, or the NY Post article “How Ty Cobb Was Framed as a Racist.” (Not a call out to to, paleobros, just taking the opportunity).
Yes, because Wikipedia is a reliable source of information.
meh, wiki is a summary. My sources are NPR and the article among others.
oooooo, NPR, another “highly credible” source. Seriously….
“Baseball had hitters once”. Well said Thornton Mellon! You mentioned Carew. Yep. “6 out of ten”. Definitely. The last memories I have of beautiful swingers impacting the game were guys like Olerud and Molitor and a young Barry Bonds. Circa, late 80s, all of 90s in to early 2000s. Yes? Maybe? No?
I always read that the procedure was successful. Has i ever not been successful, and why not?
It is hit and miss. Some guys after they get the surgery done are finally almost 100% healthy again and can throw harder than before. That works for a power arm most often. Other guys have it and it maybe isn’t a great surgery, and have to have it done over and over again.
True, but what I mean is the declaration right after the surgery. Was there ever a surgeon who said, “we tried and failed?” Or is it a matter of operative complications?
Usually the actual replacement is a success. The failure is what happens after use. Sometimes there is a nerve issue that requires a follow up surgery. Sometimes the graft doesn’t take and it needs to be redone. Other times the replacement gets re-injured and the procedure needs to be done again.
Generally, if you have a successful first surgery with no complications, the number of guys returning to pitch is about 85-90%.
The issue is when you don’t knock it out of the park the first time. If you have to have a second TJ, the success rate is much lower.
Returning to the mound is only part of the battle, it is what you do once you get there.
Thanks.
Unfortunate. Really tough when you had surgery in April and your not back until mid season, NEXT season. That is the standard if your lucky. So many guys have had TJ surgery it’s almost like when you hit 18 years old and you want to have a ML career just cut them open to get it over with.
TJ surgery is far too common