Wednesday, April 30, 2008

No Shoulder To Cry On

So Chad Cordero's out. It's an acute tear of the latissimus dorsi muscle.

What's that mean? His shoulder hurts. The lat is a big muscle that covers a good chunk of your back and side. Here's a handy picture, and you can pretty easily see why a tear there would make a pitcher cry. If you remember last night, when the trainer came out, that's right about where Chad pointed: the area under the armpit. If you look at the bottom picture there, you can see what that particular muscle is important: it helps move the ol' arm, connecting to not-so humerus.

Now, there's no surgery required. And it's described as acute, which means basically small/short in a medical context. So, in one way of looking at it, it's just a realllllly bad strain.

So what about other guys who've had the same injury? What's the prognosis? Well, pretty good, actually.

I broke out the ol' google-fu and tried to see what I could find. First, I couldn't really find any other MLB pitchers who've been diagnosed with a full tear. Doesn't mean it hasn't happened I just didn't find it.

But I've found quite a few other pitchers who've dealt with strains, and quite a few other pitchers who came back relatively normal.

The most prominent example is Ben Sheets. (Alarm bells ringing now? Don't worry!) Sheets went down with a strain late in '05, and missed the final month or two of the year. Sheets was ready the next spring, although he didn't pitch particularly well before succumbing to croup, gout, dropsy, scabies or whatever old-tyme maladies befall him on a weekly basis.

Pedro Martinez missed a month in May '03 with a strain. He ended up with 180+ innings of 2.22 ERA ball. Sign me up!

Rich Harden has battled it (among other things) off and on for basically ever. Put him under the Sheets Alarm Bell category.

Brian Fuentes lost his job as the Rockies closer last year as a mid-season bout with a lat problem cost him velocity and movement (hey, that sound familiar!). He pitched beautifully down the stretch last year and is pleasing those people who were smart enough to pick him up off the waiver wire in their roto league this year -- especially those stupid people who paid waaaaaaay tooooo much for Chad Cordero on their stupid feckin' team!!! Sorry... got carried away there.

Curt Schilling missed a few starts late in '03. I think he's done pretty well since!

Jake Peavy had a bunch of problems attributable (but not actually diagnosed, that I could find) to a lat strain in '05; he finished with 30 starts and a 2.88 ERA.

Closer to home, Micah Bowie went down last year with it, only to never be seen again. (Anyone checked behind the barn?)

So a death sentence? Not apparently.

The only cause for concern is whether the lat strain was caused by him compensating for a different part of his shoulder barking. I noticed that his arm angle was dropping quite a bit in that final game. Is that because the lat was bugging him, or was he compensating for a different injury. If it's the different injury will the time off help that recover too? And will he be able to do those strengthening exercises Dr. Andrews gave him for the shoulder tendinitis if his lat won't let him move? Damned if I know.

But I don't feel quite as bad as I did when I first saw the story this afternoon.

18 Comments:

  • After the experiences with WMP and the Chief, maybe they'll learn now not to rush guys back after injuries.

    In the case of LoDuca, for example, I'd give him at least until Sept. 20 or so.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4/30/2008 11:49 PM  

  • Baseball Prospectus' Will Carrol considers it "a classic cascade injury," suggesting that he feels that the tear is a response to Cordero other injury woes and that it either is being caused by the general stress of Cordero trying to build back up initially, or that it's a response to a change in delivery necessitated by his other ailment. Time will tell, I suppose, but I can't understand for the life of me why this team, of all teams, felt the need to rush guys back seeing as how overall competitiveness is probably out of reach anyway.

    The one should rest clearly on the shoulders of Bowden. If the whole point of THE PLAN is to put the pieces in place for a later victory, why on earth would we want to potentially break them now?? If anything, everyone who's rehabbing should be given extra time since there's no real imperative to win now.

    By Blogger Michael Taylor, at 5/01/2008 12:23 AM  

  • Crhis,

    Did you catch Barry's line about FLOP's effort........"López said of his botched opportunity in the 10th, when with one out and the bases loaded he tapped a ball back to the pitcher and then didn't sprint to first base."....once again it is not about the lack of smiles......

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5/01/2008 9:28 AM  

  • Close on the name!

    The bum's only hitting .306 .382 .408 since winning the job back. Better release him now. He didn't sprint on a sure-DP grounder.

    By Blogger Chris Needham, at 5/01/2008 9:32 AM  

  • Felipe is back and I think the benching did him a lot of good.

    By the way, is Dr. James Andrews the richest guy in the world? Has SI or someone ever done a feature on this guy? I'd love to see his weekly schedule.

    -JT

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5/01/2008 9:44 AM  

  • micah's 0-1 w/ a 9.00 ERA in 10 games for the Colorado Rockies

    http://www.baseball-reference.com/b/bowiemi01.shtml

    ps - how does one post links on this blog so they are actual links instead of just text? thanks a lot, i'll hang up and listen.

    By Blogger DCPowerGator, at 5/01/2008 10:43 AM  

  • Know html?

    Use the greater than and less than signs. I'll reverse them here, otherwise they won't work.

    >a href ="http://link"< witty text >/a<

    Just flip the signs around and a link should pop up.

    By Blogger Chris Needham, at 5/01/2008 10:46 AM  

  • There is no such thing as a "sure double play ball". I do not think they can afford to bench him for lack of anything this year because their only plan is to hope they can trade him or get a draft pick when he becomes a free agent. If he does not play everyday he will not qualify as a type B FA and if he is benched again for lack of effort then nobody will trade for him.

    They created this situation by offering him a contract. So much for Acta’s acid test of work ethic and the playing the game the right way.....Jim Bowden is clearly running the day to day lineups. Lopez in LF, WMP are both Bowden moves.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5/01/2008 10:48 AM  

  • htm what? ugh, i have people to do that for me!

    seriously, i have only used html shortcuts like /link, /b for bold, etc.

    thanks for the primer, now i need to figure out where to save it so i can find it when i need it!

    By Blogger DCPowerGator, at 5/01/2008 11:53 AM  

  • The Cordero thing is addition by subtraction. He couldn't possibly have continued his charmed life with that 78 mph heater of his. I'm always leery when they say a pitcher has to "rebuild his arm strength"--see Patterson, John, spring training 2008--especially one with a work ethic as poor as Cordero's. I just can't see the Chief spending a lot of time in the weight room -- unless that's where they moved the post-game buffet. Chris, you're always saying closers are overrated and largely interchangable. So Rauch closes, Ayala moves to the 8th, Rivera to the 7th. What's not to like? The Chief was going downhill anyway. My wife won't go to games anymore after he blew a three-run lead last August in the ninth to the Braves, who eventually won in 13. "Cost me an hour and a-half of my life that I'm not going to get back," she says. She's right.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5/01/2008 2:25 PM  

  • unrelated to Cordero but check out this article on Fangraphs about Nick Johnson and how he's gonna be just fine and should see his stats improve a lot in the coming months. Good stuff.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5/01/2008 4:05 PM  

  • Seems strange that Cordero's shoulder blows up just a few days after the quack from Birmingham, Dr. Andrews, gave him the green light after concluding his shoulder was okay.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5/01/2008 4:08 PM  

  • The mistake with Cordero was not trading him after the 06 season, when he had a lot of trade value. Now, he has none. Cordero clearly had lost it by 07 and reminded me of Jorge Julio by the second half of last season.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5/01/2008 4:16 PM  

  • Eric,

    Cool link. I particularly enjoy this one: http://www.hardballtimes.com/thtstats/main/index.php?view=props&linesToDisplay=50&qual_filter=ignore&season_filter%5B0%5D=2008&league_filter%5B0%5D=All&team_filter%5B0%5D=WAS&pos_filter%5B0%5D=All&Submit=Submit&orderBy=ops_minus_props&direction=DESC&page=1 (Note that a negative number means the batter is performing below expected numbers based on the % of line-drives, grounders, pop-ups, etc. they actually hit...)

    ...man I feel like a nerd right now...

    By Blogger OleShu, at 5/01/2008 5:17 PM  

  • Okay, this HAS to be a practical joke right? If this "song" ever makes it within 20 miles of Nats Stadium I am renouncing my fandom.

    http://www.eitmonline.com/eitmonline2/media/eitmlive/nats.mp3

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5/01/2008 5:40 PM  

  • I was at the game on 4/29 when the Chief injured himself. The small group I was with and I gave him a standing O as he left the field, as we figured that we were witnessing the end of his career.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5/01/2008 6:13 PM  

  • Chris,

    As I said before, there is no such thing as "Sure DP". Did you catch Lopez yet AGAIN, not even reaching second base and clearly not trying to break up a DP? I have pointed this out many times. But hey at least you got your smile. Lopez found it very funny that he almost cost them an out. No such thing as a sure dp. I am looking forward to a team next year that does not have to play trade bait.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5/01/2008 8:06 PM  

  • friend of Stan - the problem with sliding everyone back an inning (Rauch / Ayala / Rivera) is that it basically pushes back the point at which your quality guys pick up the game. If the 6th is usually the inning where your starter is pushing it, then you'd like that chain of quality arms to pick him up. Hopefully, while they do their jobs, then you can pile up enough of a lead so the 9th is a comfortable save. At least that is how this was structured the last few years when Chief piled up his heart attack saves.

    Fortunately, the starters are going longer this year (on a pace for 908 innings v <860 last year). But, given that the chain is missing the end piece, maybe those extra innings are due to Manny pushing the starters longer due to lack of confidence in the Colome / Hanrahan links (low leverage guys) and a desire to save Rivera from overuse.

    The solution is fairly simple. Call up Schroder. I don't care if he's your closer or your 6th inning guy, he can give you quality innings and keep the other guys in their roles. As Stevie Nicks said, "Never Break the Chain."

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5/01/2008 8:16 PM  

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