I don’t usually put non-Rays news above the fold, but this one is big, and sad, for all fans of baseball.
There’s new damage in Shohei Ohtani’s elbow, and that the Angels have now recommended Tommy John. We all knew Ohtani was too beautiful for this world. Poignantly, he homered twice, after the diagnosis. Maria Guardado gave a good breakdown of the situation and timeline.
I’ve seen a number of hot takes, regarding the Angel’s handling of the situation, that don’t make a ton of sense (see Petriello’s tweet below). One thing I think we fans lose track of is that surgeries (even relatively common ones like Tommy John) carry significant risk. Even if the handling were to have pushed Ohtani’s return back, I would commend the Angels for considering the player’s interest and taking a cautious approach, rather than rushing into surgery.
I received about a billion "the Angels are stupid" replies, but no. If he had TJ two months ago, he'd miss 2018-19 (as a P). If he has it now, he'll miss.. 2018-19.
— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) September 3, 2018
If you wait until spring and it pops, now you're affecting 2020, too. Doing what they have done costs them little.
The always-excellent Jeff Sullivan wrote about Ohtani’s success, and his future.
Rays Links
- David Laurila talked to the hot-hitting Joey Wendle about his swing. Basically, Wendle stopped trying to fiddle with it, claiming that for him the best swing is a natural one, rather than an intentionally-constructed one sometimes put on players in the minor leagues.
- Marc Topkin wrote a profile of Tyler Glasnow, shortly before Glasnow had a bad outing.
- Rob Mains (BP, paywall) wrote about the Rays pitching usage again, walking back his former conclusion a bit and noticing that this time noting that they’ve not just been unusual, they’ve been good, with their relievers a bit worse than starters, but better than most starting staffs around the league. Honestly this is hard to analyze, because what the Rays have done is switch around who’s a reliever and who’s a starter. Give him a read.
Other Links
I received about a billion "the Angels are stupid" replies, but no. If he had TJ two months ago, he'd miss 2018-19 (as a P). If he has it now, he'll miss.. 2018-19.
— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) September 3, 2018
If you wait until spring and it pops, now you're affecting 2020, too. Doing what they have done costs them little.
- Eric Robinson, a baseball writer and stroke survivor, wrote about himself and about Danny Farquhar.
- Beyhind the pay wall, Russell Carleton continued his excellent series on the defensive positional adjustment.
- J.J. Cooper, of Baseball America, wrote that the service time and free agent system in baseball is broken.
- Jhoulis Chacin tried to pick off Javier Baez, without Baez having even taken a lead. Twice.
- Mike Rizzo said that former-Ray Dave Martinez will probably be back managing the Nationals next year.