Once at the zoo, I watched a monkey **** a rock. He was just going to town on that thing, seemed to be having a great time. I don't know why you remind me of that, perhaps it's just a coincidence?
I thought I'd try and make your brain work! BTW, Bo Jackson is a good example of what I was stating, having a freak injury to turn his career around. I didn't imply that carlos was on his way to a HOF career but he had a freak injury that hurt a promising career. Bo isn't even the point, I just didn't spend the time to think up someone else closer to what c-los was. Plus, I wouldn't call sliding backward into second a routine play. Your not even suppose to slide back the way he did. My point is that you stated 1) it would have happened eventually due to supernatural powers or 2) "perhaps" he had a bum shoulder to begin with and yes, that is an implication. Both of which aren't very relevant, 1) no one can prove that the universe was out to get him 2) he never had any prior and/or chronic problems with his shoulder before a freak injury. So why the hatin' Nick? I'm just taking up for a man down on his luck. Wouldn't you buy him a beer if you saw him at a bar? I would. I just want to remember him for the potential he was that was taken away by a freak occurrence. I'm not trying to tell my kids he was gonna suck eventually anyway so it doesn't suck that much he got injured. Like I said before, thats not fair to Carlos."
When you run past a base and have to turn and dive back in, how are you supposed to do it? I can not remember any player turning to dive back into a base and going feet first. They invariably stretch out with an arm.
Do you remember the play? If someone can find it put it up, I just looked on youtube and it wasn't there. He basically tried to fall back into second with his left arm extended so that he fell on it when he landed. He should have stopped completely, then lunged himself forward with his right arm extended straight out toward second. Even if it might have hurt his chances of being safe, he should have protected his pitching(left) arm. There are actually different ways to slide back into a base other than feet first or head first. He was a rookie and had a split second to figure out what to do after over running a base. I'm not trying to make excuses for him just like I wouldn't discredit his shoulder before the injury<= basically why I got in this little discussion in the first place.
I was downtown handing out hot soup and sandwiches to the homeless. While they we're eating i was making calls getting them into various job training programs that included housing, helping them turn their life around. Before the game had ended i had set up an AA group at the food kitchen and got the rest of the people to stop drinking. By the time the injury was reported on TV i had already been handed the key to the city by the mayor for all my charitable work. Does anyone else remember where they were? I could hardly remember since it was just another regular day in my life.
Wow. Well, they knew there was potentially a problem. They still get a starting LF, a good bullpen prospect, a 5th starter, and a good 3B prospect who will probably start in AAA. The jury is still out on the Astros side if this trade was good or not.
Isn't the jury still out on both sides? And trades aren't necessarily a zero-sum situation, they can work out, or not, for all involved.
I was not a great fan of the Tejada trade, but this looks like it really could be a severe injury, at least after reading the following article (from Slate in 2004). Everything I read about Patton, though, makes me believe that if it is possible to recover from the injury, he will be the one to do it. [rquoter] Labrum, It Nearly Killed Him Why the torn labrum is baseball's most fearsome injury. By Will Carroll The San Francisco Giants' Robb Nen, one of the best relief pitchers in baseball, had off-season surgery in 2002 to "clean up loose particles" in his shoulder. What Nen didn't know is that he had a torn labrum, the fearsome modern baseball injury that strikes down pitchers quickly, stealthily, and painfully. Eighteen months and three surgeries later, Nen is still waiting to throw his next major-league pitch. The leading minds in baseball medicine are flummoxed by the labrum. Doctors can't agree on how to detect a tear, don't know the best way to fix one, and aren't sure why, almost without fail, a torn labrum will destroy a pitcher's career. Leading baseball surgeon Dr. James Andrews estimates that 85 percent of pitchers make a full recovery after an ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, aka the once risky Tommy John surgery. (USA Today has even called the surgery the "pitcher's best friend.") But if pitchers with torn labrums were horses, they'd be destroyed. Of the 36 major-league hurlers diagnosed with labrum tears in the last five years, only midlevel reliever Rocky Biddle has returned to his previous level. Think about that when your favorite pitcher comes down with labrum trouble: He has a 3 percent chance of becoming Rocky Biddle. More likely, he'll turn into Mike Harkey, Robert Person, or Jim Parque, pitchers who lost stamina and velocity—and a major-league career—when their labrums began to fray. The labrum is a thin matrix of collagen seated between the head of the humerus (bone of the upper arm) and the glenoid fossa (the shallow depression where the humerus fits). It functions both as a shock absorber, cushioning the blow when the bones in the shoulder collide, and as part of the joint's connective structure. The kinetic forces required to throw a baseball—a major-league pitcher's arm moves at 23 rotations per second—routinely rip apart the structures designed to keep the shoulder together. The most common variety of labrum tear is a SLAP—superior lesion, anterior to posterior. The SLAP tear feels like a "catch", a slight click or pop in the normal overhand motion. Shoulder injuries tend to present themselves as pain and tenderness with a concurrent loss of speed on the fastball. A torn labrum is no different. But because it's positioned between two bones, a damaged labrum is far more difficult to detect than other shoulder problems, like a torn rotator cuff. Doctors are only now getting the diagnostic tools to detect labrum tears, so it's impossible to say how many great hurlers of the past suffered the injury. Even today it's tough to tell which pitchers have labrum trouble. Baseball teams often consult with multiple orthopedists and radiologists in an attempt to reach a consensus. One team's policy is to show an MRI to five doctors—majority diagnosis rules. The only way to know for sure that your pitcher has a torn labrum is to conduct exploratory surgery. If an operation is necessary, the surgeon either enters the shoulder with a scalpel or pops in one to three arthroscopes outfitted with cameras and cutting instruments. The doctor then cleans up the tear and reattaches the labrum using sutures, much as they would with a deep cut to the skin. While newer techniques involve specialized devices that standardize the anchors and sutures, shoulder surgery is still far more complex and risky than, say, an elbow reconstruction. Coming off a 15-10 season in 2000, Mike Sirotka was a key player in an off-season trade between the Blue Jays and White Sox. Before he ever put on a Blue Jays uniform, Sirotka's left shoulder started barking. The culprit: a torn labrum. While he had been a coveted commodity just a few months before, the Sox and Jays now treated Sirotka like the plague—Commissioner Bud Selig ultimately had to force the Blue Jays to accept the trade. Sirotka, now 33, did have surgery to repair the labrum. After missing three full seasons, he tried a comeback this year. The Cubs released him in spring training. The Seattle Mariners, perhaps more than any other team, have suffered on account of the labrum. When Seattle drafted 6-foot-10 Ryan Anderson in 1997, it seemed preordained that the titanic lefty would be the next Randy Johnson. Then Anderson had labrum surgery. He missed the entire 2002 season—and every season since. The Mariners' 25-year-old right-hander Gil Meche has already missed two full years on account of labrum-related ailments. Meche returned to the majors in 2003, but faded badly in the second half. Position players have labrums too. Angels third baseman Troy Glaus may miss the rest of the year with his "frayed" labrum (there's no difference between a fray and a tear). Last year, Dodgers slugger Shawn Green lost a significant amount of power because of a severe labrum tear. Labrum tears also show up irregularly on the football field—the Raiders' Rich Gannon (throwing shoulder) and the Seahawks' Matt Hasselbeck (non-throwing shoulder) are part of the labrum brigade—usually when a quarterback's arm gets planted into the ground at an unnatural angle. Still, nothing taxes a shoulder like throwing a baseball. Even if a pitcher has an ideal throwing motion, the labrum suffers. Unlike the rotator cuff, a series of four small muscles that holds the shoulder in place and decelerates the arm, the collagen-based labrum can't be strengthened. As of yet, there aren't any reliable techniques to prevent labrum injuries. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the best way to avoid injury is to keep your pitcher from throwing while fatigued. But fatigue is exceptionally difficult for a pitching coach or manager to measure—and one wrong guess can lead to the operating table. Roger Clemens returned from a torn rotator cuff to win six Cy Young Awards and an MVP. Kerry Wood struck out 20 in a single game during his rookie year, had his elbow rebuilt, and came back throwing just as hard. But pitchers with torn labrums will have to wait a while longer for their Tommy John surgery. So far, the message from the nation's orthopedic surgeons is: We can't rebuild them. Dr. Anthony Tropiano, a top baseball arm doc, says the best available treatment option today is to do nothing. "We call it conservative treatment," he says, "but that's just a euphemism for a little rehab and a lot of prayer." [/rquoter]
Patton was the guy in this trade I was sorry to lose. You have to really strain to call the rest of the guys in the deal valuable commodities. Costanzo is a 3B prospect who's very old, at 24, to be just making it out of AA. Sarfate is a guy who the Stros took a flyer on, and he's got a good fastball, but he's already 26 and still raw. Luke Scott is almost 30, and is really an average corner OF offensively who plays poor defense. There's a reason he's yet to have even a 400 AB season in the majors. And Albers, who I believe is the player the O's most coveted, doesn't seem at all ready for the major leagues. I wasn't impressed by his stuff or his control during his time in Houston. Maybe he'll develop into a good starter, but I doubt it.
I agree. That's why I said the Orioles got 3 players that should contribute heavily to the major league team this year, 1 that is in the minors but is tearing the cover off the ball this spring, and Patton...who may or may not make a full recovery. The jury is still out on whether it's going to be a good trade from the Astros perspective, too. I think Tejada has to be the Tejada of old (or at least something close to that) for the Astros to feel good about making this trade. They sent away a lot of youth and Tejada had better make a difference. I do believe that he will, by the way. I have a feeling Miggy's going to have a bit of a resurgence in the NL and especially at MMP.
I remember that article. It should be noted, though, that since that article was published in 2004 a number of pitchers have comeback from labrum surgery including cy young winner Chris Carpenter. Best of luck to Patton.
In addition to Patton, if you'll remember, I said last summer that the biggest reason the Astros "didn't like" Luke Scott was his inability to stay healthy. He's never had the major injuries, but the constant wear and tear groin pulls and similar injuries often kept him out for 2-3 days. Well, it's already started again... http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/baseball/bal-osnotes0309,0,2773295.story In addition, the same article says the Orioles are interested in dealing for Loretta and the Astros sent a scout Sunday to Baltimore's game.
At this point, I'll agree. I always argued in support of more regular playing time for him based on statistics, but having seen him in the clubhouse, the sad reality is that he physically can't handle it. He's a walking ice pack.
Unless the Astros can get a MLB-level reliever that can help this year, I'd rather keep Loretta. Matsui's chronic back problems make having a dependable backup at second a priority...
