2015 MLB Season Thread with Postseason Discussion

[FGM13]

I feel the Mets have more of these than any other team it has to be the training and medical staff. It never ends. Dr. Nick strikes again

The Blue Jays aren't much better with injuries. I'm beginning to doubt that their team doctor actually knows what they're doing.

[NJTank]

No medical staff is worse than the Mets they ignored the Wheeler issue. Everything the Mets do is on the cheap, since their silent owner was arrested.

http://www.northjersey.com/sports/klapisch-mets-paying-for-not-taking-care-of-wheeler-s-arm-1.1290256

Anyone with a heart has to feel sorry for Zack Wheeler, who, like so many other young pitchers these days, has blown out his ulnar collateral ligament and is headed for Tommy John surgery. Arm injuries have reached an epidemic, if not a crisis, although there’s a deeper, more troubling aspect to this story that involves Wheeler’s caretakers, the Mets.

Only now is it becoming clear how much the Mets knew about Wheeler’s injury in its initial stages and how passively they reacted. The right-hander was no stranger to discomfort in 2014: Twice last year, he was forced to skip between-starts bullpen sessions to allow the elbow to calm down. In September, the Mets were concerned enough to put Wheeler in an MRI tube.

In November, he was administered a platelet-rich plasma shot, one more red flag. Nothing helped. In January, with only a month to go before camp, Wheeler was so concerned about the pain, which hadn’t dissipated, that he flew to New York for yet another MRI, his second in five months. The test revealed no ligament tear – yet. But by now the Mets knew Wheeler’s arm was a ticking time bomb.....

“We were forewarned by doctors that his elbow was a concern,” GM Sandy Alderson said Monday. So why didn’t the Mets treat their pitcher more cautiously in camp? Why didn’t they devise a program that allowed Wheeler to proceed more slowly and possibly save the ligament?

Alderson’s answer – “If the doctors felt we needed to treat him in a different way we would have” – isn’t good enough. Either the Mets need a more proactive medical staff, or the club should ask itself how it got caught flat-footed.

Only two days prior, Alderson was telling reporters there’d be no need for Wheeler to undergo an MRI because he was suffering from ordinary tendinitis. Clearly Wheeler wasn’t 100 percent, yet the Mets allowed him to plow forward. He was smoked for six runs in less than two innings in his first Grapefruit League start, and by then it was too late.

The right-hander complained of increasing pain in a widening area. A third MRI revealed a complete tear of the UCL, which makes surgery an inevitability. Wheeler will be gone for all of 2015, and a chunk of 2016, too.

Those who say the Mets have plenty of young pitching in reserve are missing the point. This isn’t about who’s next. And Wheeler’s critics, who insist the loss is no big deal, fail to grasp the bigger point. Sure, Wheeler has yet to establish dominance in any single season, and that includes the minors. But don’t underestimate the psychological setback to the organization.

The Mets considered Wheeler an integral part of their equation for a breakthrough season in 2015. He might not be Harvey, or even Bartolo Colon, but Wheeler was a power pitcher with the ability to induce ground balls – a rare combination for a 24-year-old. There was reason to think he could, over time, and maybe even this summer, turn the Mets into an 88- to 90-win team.

But once again, the Mets make it hard to trust them. No one said a word this winter about Wheeler’s chronic pain. Was it because it was time to hustle season tickets? Was it because a potential setback to one of their prized young arms would sabotage the sales pitch? Is that the reason Alderson never pulled the trigger on a trade for Dillon Gee, because he privately feared this day was coming?

Shame on Alderson and his bosses, the Wilpons, for their lack of transparency. If Wheeler’s arm was enough of a concern for a PRP shot in November and an unscheduled MRI in January, it should’ve never been kept a secret. And for Alderson to say Monday, “This kind of result was not totally unexpected,” then every Mets fan has a right to ask: Why didn’t you do anything about it?

The club’s fatalistic “oh well” response falls in line with everything else that’s been mishandled in the past. From Carlos Delgado’s hip to Carlos Beltran’s knee to Jose Reyes’ hamstrings and now Wheeler’s arm, the Mets never seem to get it right.

Despite the chronic nature of his discomfort, the Mets continued to push Wheeler in meaningless games last year, long after they’d fallen out of contention: Terry Collins kept Wheeler on the mound for 114 pitches in 4¤ innings against the Marlins on Sept. 1, just to get the right-hander a win. Indeed, no pitcher as young as Wheeler had as many as his 14 starts with more than 110 pitches in 2014.

So let’s take the Mets’ spin for what it is, a blurring of an uncomfortable fact. Sure, Gee might be adequate for a month or two, until Noah Syndergaard or Steven Matz are summoned from Class AAA. Either or both might do a terrific job.

But Wheeler is the one who’ll be sitting at home for the next few months, arm in a cast, wondering what went wrong. It’s a question that needs an answer.

[JasonFromMiami]

Who really wants to become a baseball pitcher these days, you are more then likely to get invasive surgery at some point, of course there is the millions of dollars, but that is only for a select few.

[HedleyLamarr]

How's the Wrigley Field renovation going, you ask?

[TheRicSlick]

How's the Wrigley Field renovation going, you ask?

Go Cubs!

[JayMac]

How's the Wrigley Field renovation going, you ask?

Go Cubs!

Can anything associated with that franchise do anything right?

[2001mark]

That stop sign made me laugh.

[sportstar1212]

Only the Cubs.

[pmoehrin]

How's the Wrigley Field renovation going, you ask?

Go Cubs!

Can anything associated with that franchise do anything right?

I'll actually be going to my first game at Wrigley later this year. Really looking forward to it. Hopefully that truck will be gone by then.

On a more serious note though, how far behind schedule are the Cubs. We're only about two weeks away from opening day and they're just now starting to work on the scoreboard.

Last update I heard was mid-May, but I'm thinking mid-June is probably a little more likely at this point.

To be fair though, when were construction crews supposed to work on this? I would imagine crews were lucky if they could get two solid days of work in per week in some cases given how bad this winter has been.

[Alex Houston]

How does it even happen? You don't speed around in construction zones and it's not like giant crevices like that are obscured from view. Looks like someone had too good of a time at John Barleycorn during his/her lunch break.

[RockyTopper]

I haven't been following the Wrigley Field renovations besides it occasionally popping up online, so forgive me for my ignorance on it. What will the Cubs do if renovations aren't finished by opening day? Are the renovations taking place right now minor/limited enough that the park is still usable?

[2001mark]

Are they trying to bury a live goat in that truck?

[TheOldRoman]

I haven't been following the Wrigley Field renovations besides it occasionally popping up online, so forgive me for my ignorance on it. What will the Cubs do if renovations aren't finished by opening day? Are the renovations taking place right now minor/limited enough that the park is still usable?

At this point they won't be done by opening day. The RF bleachers won't be useable until June or July. The rest of the park is still usable, though. They didn't do the full renovation this year, and when they do, it will likely require an entire season.

[dbadefense1990]

Are they trying to bury a live goat in that truck?

[RockyTopper]

I haven't been following the Wrigley Field renovations besides it occasionally popping up online, so forgive me for my ignorance on it. What will the Cubs do if renovations aren't finished by opening day? Are the renovations taking place right now minor/limited enough that the park is still usable?

At this point they won't be done by opening day. The RF bleachers won't be useable until June or July. The rest of the park is still usable, though. They didn't do the full renovation this year, and when they do, it will likely require an entire season.

Gotcha. Just out of curiosity, when they do the full renovation, do you have any idea where the Cubs will play?

[TheOldRoman]

I haven't been following the Wrigley Field renovations besides it occasionally popping up online, so forgive me for my ignorance on it. What will the Cubs do if renovations aren't finished by opening day? Are the renovations taking place right now minor/limited enough that the park is still usable?

At this point they won't be done by opening day. The RF bleachers won't be useable until June or July. The rest of the park is still usable, though. They didn't do the full renovation this year, and when they do, it will likely require an entire season.

Gotcha. Just out of curiosity, when they do the full renovation, do you have any idea where the Cubs will play?

No. They haven't even talked about that yet, and I'm not sure if they've even officially come to an agreement with the city about fixing the rest of the structure. I'm not a Cubs fan, so I don't know the full story here. If it comes to them missing an entire season, there's no way the politicians would allow them to leave Chicago for an entire year. They'll end up at US Cellular Field.

[HedleyLamarr]

I haven't been following the Wrigley Field renovations besides it occasionally popping up online, so forgive me for my ignorance on it. What will the Cubs do if renovations aren't finished by opening day? Are the renovations taking place right now minor/limited enough that the park is still usable?

At this point they won't be done by opening day. The RF bleachers won't be useable until June or July. The rest of the park is still usable, though. They didn't do the full renovation this year, and when they do, it will likely require an entire season.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the bleacher seats separated from the rest of Wrigley Field? As in, you can't access other parts of Wrigley Field from the bleachers without technically leaving the ballpark?

[TheOldRoman]

I haven't been following the Wrigley Field renovations besides it occasionally popping up online, so forgive me for my ignorance on it. What will the Cubs do if renovations aren't finished by opening day? Are the renovations taking place right now minor/limited enough that the park is still usable?

At this point they won't be done by opening day. The RF bleachers won't be useable until June or July. The rest of the park is still usable, though. They didn't do the full renovation this year, and when they do, it will likely require an entire season.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the bleacher seats separated from the rest of Wrigley Field? As in, you can't access other parts of Wrigley Field from the bleachers without technically leaving the ballpark?

I'm not sure, I haven't been to Wrigley in 11 years. It used to be like that, at least. I think there's now a set of stairs on either side of the bleachers allowing people to access them from the rest of the park, but they probably restrict access to bleacher ticket holders.

[NYCdog]

Last year's No. 1 pick Brady Aiken had Tommy John surgery. Became news when Astros lowered his offer in negotiations after his physical revealed UCL issues. They took a beating in the media after passing on signing him ...now they get 2 Top 5 picks in 2015 while Aiken recovers from TJS.

https://twitter.com/bradyaiken10/status/581224950947831808

I wonder what impact this could have in future drafts or free agency in terms of pitching. This is the first time I can recall a team making a big deal about the UCL during contract negotiations. Turned out to be a shrewd, yet smart move. Do more teams start to focus on UCL conditions in physicals.

As for Aiken, how far does he fall in the draft?

[cmm]

Something like that happened to RA Dickey after he was drafted by Texas. A team doctor saw his picture and noticed his arm was hanging funny. It turns out he was missing his UCL. They initially offered him a signing bonus of $800k but he ended up signing for $70k.