189 replies to this topic

[JeremyStrain]

Not sure this timeline is accurate.  Gausman couldn't find a spot early in the year, before Gonzo got hurt and before Norris was banished to the pen.  When Gonzo got hurt, Gausman came up, and he stayed up and Norris went to the pen when Gonzo returned (Gonzo on DL June 10, Gausman first start June 20, Gonzo return June 25, Norris last start June 29).  Gausman was skipped twice after that first start and worked around the AS Game, so he was bounced around a bit but was mostly roster management stuff because he had options and they didn't need all 5 SP over that stretch (the worse thing was not getting him a start until 6/20). 

 

I don't think there was ever a point in time where Gausman wasn't in the rotation while they were asking Gonzalez to pitch through discomfort (if they ever did that).

 

I'm saying that this "discomfort" has been all season. Hence the DL back in early June. Like I said in my little one off earlier, whenever you see a DL thing like this, it's been going on for a WHILE that we don't know about, and either it gets to the point that they beg off, or the results become SO bad that you can't just ignore it and let them pitch through it. I think the latter happened here, but I'm willing to bet this stiffness/soreness/discomfort has been there since May at least.

 

They should have sent him to rest on the DL for an extended period and just moved KG into the rotation back in May. This is just one example of the shuffle all season, my main point is that they kept trying to make room for this depth and marginal starters when they should have been developing Gausman from the beginning of the season at the ML level.

 

It's just now at this point you can say, well they tried and we missed the playoffs because of it, so if you disagreed from the start, you weren't wrong.

[Mackus]

 I think the latter happened here, but I'm willing to bet this stiffness/soreness/discomfort has been there since May at least.

 

They should have sent him to rest on the DL for an extended period and just moved KG into the rotation back in May.

 

Up to the point he got hurt pitching against the Red Sox, he had a 3.54 ERA, 666 OPS-a,   Remember he was pitching in a game and had to come out, it wasn't performance related at all.  Maybe he had some slight discomfort from the injury before that he was dealing with and it finally became too much to bear, but that seems like complete speculation.

 

Saying he should have been DL'd in May makes no sense ot me.  He had 6 starts in May, went 7.2, 4.0, 7.2, 7.0, 4.0, and 8.0 innings in those starts.  He was fine physically.

 

They should have bounced Norris earlier to get Gausman into the rotation.  I'll agree with that.  But DL-ing a healthy and effective SP wouldn't have been the right way to open up a spot for him.

[Matt_P]

They should have sent him to rest on the DL for an extended period and just moved KG into the rotation back in May. This is just one example of the shuffle all season, my main point is that they kept trying to make room for this depth and marginal starters when they should have been developing Gausman from the beginning of the season at the ML level.

 

Gausman was injured in May.

[Matt_P]

Up to the point he got hurt pitching against the Red Sox, he had a 3.54 ERA, 666 OPS-a,   Remember he was pitching in a game and had to come out, it wasn't performance related at all.  Maybe he had some slight discomfort from the injury before that he was dealing with and it finally became too much to bear, but that seems like complete speculation.

 

He was getting the hell beaten out of him even back then. He was just getting lucky. When men were on bases, pretty much every ball was hit to a fielder.

[JeremyStrain]

Up to the point he got hurt pitching against the Red Sox, he had a 3.54 ERA, 666 OPS-a,   Remember he was pitching in a game and had to come out, it wasn't performance related at all.  Maybe he had some slight discomfort from the injury before that he was dealing with and it finally became too much to bear, but that seems like complete speculation.

 

Saying he should have been DL'd in May makes no sense ot me.  He had 6 starts in May, went 7.2, 4.0, 7.2, 7.0, 4.0, and 8.0 innings in those starts.  He was fine physically.

 

They should have bounced Norris earlier to get Gausman into the rotation.  I'll agree with that.  But DL-ing a healthy and effective SP wouldn't have been the right way to open up a spot for him.

 

Not every bit of info is made public knowledge, sometimes you have to speculate and make educated guesses. Sometimes you're right sometimes you're wrong, but watching him this season I'll go with the speculation. Results are results, but they don't disprove something was going on. Sometimes guys have good results with bad efforts or with other things going on. You can see a guy throw a 9 inning shutout but it doesn't mean they weren't dealing with some level of injury.

 

He was getting the hell beaten out of him even back then. He was just getting lucky. When men were on bases, pretty much every ball was hit to a fielder.

 

Forgot Gaus was injured early on, but yeah, he looked awful from the start, even when he had good numbers, you were amazed every inning he got through.

[Mackus]

Not every bit of info is made public knowledge, sometimes you have to speculate and make educated guesses. Sometimes you're right sometimes you're wrong, but watching him this season I'll go with the speculation. Results are results, but they don't disprove something was going on. Sometimes guys have good results with bad efforts or with other things going on. You can see a guy throw a 9 inning shutout but it doesn't mean they weren't dealing with some level of injury.

 

Why would you speculate and make an educated guess that a pitcher showing no ill effects on the mound and having good results is injured?

 

Were you saying in the game threads in May that Gonzo looked injured?

[JeremyStrain]

Why would you speculate and make an educated guess that a pitcher showing no ill effects on the mound and having good results is injured?

 

Were you saying in the game threads in May that Gonzo looked injured?

 

I don't go into game threads, they are irritating.

 

When I watched him I said he looked pretty terrible, who knows if he's actually injured or something, especially when he's not THAT great to begin with, but in hindsight you can say oh yeah, that all kinda makes sense now.

[Mackus]

Sorry, I just can't imagine people found him looking terrible early on this year when he had good results.  That sounds like attaching opinions in hindsight to me.

 

I'll bet if you go back into Gonzo gamethreads, there are plenty of "he's a joy to watch" type of comments.  I don't think anything looked off about him before his injury.  I don't think anything looks off about him recently except for where the pitches are going.  Others know a lot more about scouting and mechanics than I do, but I think it's pretty convenient to say "I thought he looked bad all along, just never said anything about it until the results got bad". 

[Matt_P]

Sorry, I just can't imagine people found him looking terrible early on this year when he had good results.  That sounds like attaching opinions in hindsight to me.

 

I'll bet if you go back into Gonzo gamethreads, there are plenty of "he's a joy to watch" type of comments.  I don't think anything looked off about him before his injury.  I don't think anything looks off about him recently except for where the pitches are going.  Others know a lot more about scouting and mechanics than I do, but I think it's pretty convenient to say "I thought he looked bad all along, just never said anything about it until the results got bad". 

 

I wrote this on June 15th when he had an ERA of 3.33. Camden Chat was not amused that one of my tags was "Miracles".

 

Either Miguel Gonzalez has found a way to have batters hit the ball towards fielders or has been the beneficiary of nearly flawless performance by his fielders with batters in scoring position.

It seems that it is unlikely that this will continue. Even if the slider and splitter have legitimately improved, it seems unlikely that batters will continue to struggle as much as they have against his fastball. If the defense has merely over performed, then it is unlikely that they’ll continue to do so to this extent.

 

http://camdendepot.b...eating-his.html

[Mackus]

And nowhere in there is there any discussion of him possibly being injured or looking any different than usual.  That article mostly seems to me to be about sequencing, showing that he had gotten especially lucky with RISP which wouldn't seem to be sustainable.

 

Jeremy is trying to say that Gonzo has visibly looked bad which must mean he's been hurt all year and that they should have put him on the DL in May.  I don't think there is any evidence to support that.

[Matt_P]

Sorry, I just can't imagine people found him looking terrible early on this year when he had good results.

"I thought he looked bad all along, just never said anything about it until the results got bad"

 

I didn't say he was injured. I'm not a scout so I wouldn't make that prediction.

 

I was referring to the comments you made above about people finding him look terrible.

[JeremyStrain]

Sorry, I just can't imagine people found him looking terrible early on this year when he had good results.  That sounds like attaching opinions in hindsight to me.

 

I'll bet if you go back into Gonzo gamethreads, there are plenty of "he's a joy to watch" type of comments.  I don't think anything looked off about him before his injury.  I don't think anything looks off about him recently except for where the pitches are going.  Others know a lot more about scouting and mechanics than I do, but I think it's pretty convenient to say "I thought he looked bad all along, just never said anything about it until the results got bad". 

 

It's all personal opinion, but if you really think that injuries are all acute on only exist when the teams publicly say so, you're being naive. There are thousands of nagging injuries that are never reported because they aren't required to, and while sometimes they may impact performance, sometimes they are just a warning sign of trouble later, other times they may go away and you never notice them.

 

I'd hope there are no "he's a joy to watch" type comments, I've always thought he was smoke and mirrors and it was only a matter of time before he regressed, but that's just me, and I've been around long enough to know that sometimes guys with smoke and mirrors will have a long career of it (Jamie Moyer, Jamie Garcia) just not surprised when they don't.

 

I never said he looked injured, I said he looked bad, slightly worse than he always looks. Hit hard and often, lots of lucky breaks.

 

What I'm saying and you either aren't acknowledging or just don't agree with is that guys will pitch through stuff they could be DL'd for all the time, and he was most likely going through some discomfort from the start this year, and instead of just keeping an eye on him and letting him go until he couldn't, that they should have played it safe and given him time off to rest. Would be aggressive way of dealing with nagging, possibly minor stuff, but it's a way to stop injuries from becoming major problems after more wear and tear, and I think that's a common theme around baseball and why you see so many more injuries now.

 

I could understand it more if you are talking about a star pitcher, but when your whole rotation is made up for #3 or #4 starters you can afford to play it safe.

[Matt_P]

Would be aggressive way of dealing with nagging, possibly minor stuff, but it's a way to stop injuries from becoming major problems after more wear and tear, and I think that's a common theme around baseball and why you see so many more injuries now.

 

I could understand it more if you are talking about a star pitcher, but when your whole rotation is made up for #3 or #4 starters you can afford to play it safe.

 

At the beginning of the season, he was probably afraid of losing his spot in the rotation. After all, six starters and five spots make things complicated.

 

Then in the middle of the season, he probably felt the team needed him with Norris and Tillman struggling and Gausman being injured.

[Mackus]

I certainly do not agree that if a guy has a tiny nagging injury that is not a big problem and able to be worked through, and that if that player is still producing as they usually do, that they should spend 2-4 weeks on the DL until they are hopefully 100%.  You'd only have 10 guys on the roster at any given time.

 

I also disagree that Gonzalez looked or performed as if he must have been dealing with an injury, even a minor one, based on his performance early on.

 

I can buy if you're arguing he isn't over the injury he suffered in June.  I can buy if you're arguing he's been pitching the same all year but was getting lucky early on and it ran out midseason (meaining the injury was a non-factor).  I can't buy that he was hurt through April and May and pitching through it, then took a DL trip, came back still injured, and hasn't gotten over it, and the injury is what's driven the bad performance all year which only showed up in the raw stats after the DL trip.

[JeremyStrain]

I certainly do not agree that if a guy has a tiny nagging injury that is not a big problem and able to be worked through, and that if that player is still producing as they usually do, that they should spend 2-4 weeks on the DL until they are hopefully 100%.  You'd only have 10 guys on the roster at any given time.

 

I also disagree that Gonzalez looked or performed as if he must have been dealing with an injury, even a minor one, based on his performance early on.

 

If that was the solution to all the TJ and Shoulder surgeries would you agree with it?

 

There's never going to be any concrete data that shows caution prevents surgeries, but it could help.

 

I never said he MUST have been doing anything, I said looking at how things have played out, it very well could have been how it happened, and IF that was the case, then yes, I think they should have been more cautious early and had Gausman up getting reps he needed. There's a whole separate argument that Norris was ineffective and could have been removed to give him reps too, but that's a different thing.

 

I think that with so many mid tier pitchers, you can afford to replace and be cautious because none of them were real difference makers and they had depth.

[Mackus]

I don't think a tiny little nagging injury to something other than your arm is very likely to have any influence on whether a guy suffers a devastating elbow or shoulder injury. 

 

There weren't many "very well could have beens" or "if thens" in your initial comment, if you meant the whole thing as a hypothetical possibility, sure that hypothetical could occur, but this sure sounds like you are stating that you think he was hurt and that the O's screwed up by not DL-ing him in early May.

 

I'm saying that this "discomfort" has been all season. Hence the DL back in early June. Like I said in my little one off earlier, whenever you see a DL thing like this, it's been going on for a WHILE that we don't know about, and either it gets to the point that they beg off, or the results become SO bad that you can't just ignore it and let them pitch through it. I think the latter happened here, but I'm willing to bet this stiffness/soreness/discomfort has been there since May at least.

 

They should have sent him to rest on the DL for an extended period and just moved KG into the rotation back in May.

 

And, not super relevant and I still don't think there was any minor injury, but we didn't have depth that would allow for an overabundence of cautioun.  Gausman was DL'd in early May and Norris and Tillman were both pitching terribly.  So would you want to DL Gonzo with a half-step above phantom injury in May if the replacement was Wright or Wilson?

[JeremyStrain]

I don't think a tiny little nagging injury to something other than your arm is very likely to have any influence on whether a guy suffers a devastating elbow or shoulder injury. 

 

There weren't many "very well could have beens" or "if thens" in your initial comment, if you meant the whole thing as a hypothetical possibility, sure that hypothetical could occur, but this sure sounds like you are stating that you think he was hurt and that the O's screwed up by not DL-ing him in early May.

 

 

And, not super relevant and I still don't think there was any minor injury, but we didn't have depth that would allow for an overabundence of cautioun.  Gausman was DL'd in early May and Norris and Tillman were both pitching terribly.  So would you want to DL Gonzo with a half-step above phantom injury in May if the replacement was Wright or Wilson?

 

I should have put a probably in there, I'll accept that, but yes mostly meant as it's very possible.

 

I told Matt I forgot about the Gausman injury early this year, so yeah they didn't have AS much depth then, but yeah I'm down on our SP enough that any of those guys would have been fine for a few starts. I see them all as very replaceable.

 

I think most TJ injuries especially come on slowly like that, some discomfort or tightness and then it gets worse and worse, I don't think a lot of them are acute. Strasburg a few years ago is probably the one that stands out as being acute to me. I think getting ahead of the real injury timeline and resting guys sooner could prevent a lot of these major issues, but for whatever reasons I think guys pitch without admitting discomfort or light pain, and I think teams will let guys push through smaller stuff and hope it doesn't get worse. The blame is on both sides with a lot of these things I think.

[RShack]

In the '66 Series, the O's pitching set a record... it was McNally, Palmer and who?  It came down to either Barber or Bunker.  You know how they decided which one?  The picked the hurt guy who could lift his arm higher than the other guy...

[SportsGuy]

Got 5.1M in arb.

[BSLChrisStoner]

MASN: Miguel Gonzalez shows improvement in second start (O's lose 5-1)
http://www.masnsport...cond-start.html