Not sure if anyone heard this, but 1050 ESPN radio’s Andrew Marchand had some interesting stuff on Chien Ming Wang today. Here’s the podcast:
He said that the Yanks told Wang NOT to exercise his legs as usual this off season, due to the Lisfranc fracture. Makes sense, they don’t have much experience with the injury (no one in Baseball does) and he did injure his foot by simply running the bases. Also, both Wang and Bruney elected not to have surgery, as the recuperation time was longer if they did. So as a result, when Wang came into camp this spring, he had pretty much done nothing with his legs in the off season. I’m sure they figured he would have enough time to get into shape when Pitchers and Catchers reported on Febuary 13th.
Now Cashman views that as a mistake, he clearly wasn’t strong enough to start the season and the lack of work goes a long way to explaining his lack of velocity and stuff this year. Live and learn, I suppose. Cashman also speculated that the Brian Bruney elbow injury might have been a result of him changing his delivery somewhat, and therefore injuring his arm.
I don’t blame the Yanks much here. Its not like there was a roadmap for these situations that they didn’t follow. They took what they thought was the most conservative course of action to protect the player and it simply didn’t work in either case. But this also makes me think he should be able to return to form at some point this year, which was something I had serious doubts about before.
Related posts:
Wait… I thought Bruney hurt his arm because of the HR review. There are a thousand excuses to be tossed around but shit happens and you deal with it from there. Hope both of these guys start working their lower half (non-stop) for the next couple of weeks. There should be no reason both couldn’t be at full strength and healthy by the all star break.
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In Cashman’s defense, we DO live all the way out here in the boonies and there just aren’t any experts he can consult with about medical stuff.
This is getting ridiculous. Maybe THEY don’t have experience with the injury, but there are plenty of experts who do. They bungled the A-Rod injury, they bungled the Wang injury, I’m seriously beginning to wonder if they have a clue what they’re doing with Joba. Remember when Cash hired that idiot trainer a couple years ago for Spring Training? The guy never worked with baseball players before and like half the team wound up with hamstring injuries before they finally fired him.
There’s a lot of smoke here that seems to be spelling out problems. Cash doesn’t seem to surround himself with good medical people or he doesn’t communicate well with them.
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Live and learn…
I’ll buy that, as Jeff G. said…”Shit happens and you deal with it”.
It sounds as though both of the guys will be ready sometime in June (late)…just in time for a late season push for the WS Ring.
I guess Phil will get a few more starts, the more now…the better later.
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Matthew Cohen Reply:
May 30th, 2009 at 2:48 am
Yeah sure, what the heck. You’re only paying the guy $5 million. And he was only one of the top pitchers in the AL the last few years.
I really wonder who makes these decisions? It reminds me of the South Park episode where the manatees randomly pick balls to create jokes for Family Guy. Is that how these decisions are made for the Yanks?
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Matthew Cohen Reply:
May 30th, 2009 at 2:58 am
Hey Old Ranger. Aren’t you the guy who said that Igawa would be in the pen last year? You knew because you had seen him IN PERSON from the stands.
How’d that prediction work out for ya?
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The Yanks recent history seems to have a lot of similar cases-guys hurt a lot more than Cashman realized, not getting the care they need right away or being shut down before things got a lot worse.
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Have the Yankees ever heard of low-impact training? Couldn’t have Wang at least worked out his legs on a stationary bike? This is getting retarded.
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Matthew Cohen Reply:
May 30th, 2009 at 2:57 am
Hmm. Interesting question. You think that the Yankees would have someone who could have told them that the thigh muscle is not in the foot?
My wife the Dr. didn’t get this either.
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So the Yanks knew that Wang had not exercised his legs all winter.
They had access to data showing that 1) his velocity was down and 2) his release point was different.
and they chose to start him not 1, not 2 but 3 times. They watched him get tattooed, losing 3 games for the team and risking further injury as he could have compensated for his leg muscle weakness by overthrowing.
On top of that, this website reported on the changes in release point.
Now this is not some little league team. This is the team with the most resources in baseball. Supposedly, they have people who can measure velocity and release points.
Also, they made the same mistake with Bruney and this likely caused him to hurt his arm.
And yet, you “don’t blame the Yanks much here.”
What would they have to do for you to blame them?
I don’t want to criticize you in isolation. I am stunned that there has not been an outcry over the Yanks incompetence.
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Steve S. Reply:
May 30th, 2009 at 7:08 am
Its easy to be a genius after the fact. This was an injury with no track record among Baseball players, what happened to a NFL pass rusher has little parallel to how this could impact a pitcher. Pitching involves a lot of moving parts where subtle changes can make big differences.
Having no experience with the injury in the sport, they figured the best thing to do was nothing. Knowing what they knew THEN, I would have done the same thing.
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Matthew Cohen Reply:
May 30th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
“Pitching involves a lot of moving parts where subtle changes can make big differences.”
That’s the point. All muscles have to be as they should in terms of strength. This is not rocket science. How can you have no leg exercise and expect a pitcher to pitch well? You can measure leg strength through various means (the most obvious is reps at various weights). The Yanks should have know by simple measurement that Wang needed more leg strength. They should have started extensive leg exercises in spring training and if he was still weak, he should have started the season on the DL (before the 3 horrible outings) to build his leg strength up.
Even if we ignore this issue, there was a measurable change in Wag at the beginning of the season. Velocity was down and release point was off. A bunch of kids in their bedrooms blogged about this and it took Wang 3 starts of getting beat up like a pinata for the Yankees and their team of expert advisors to figure out that something was wrong?
I’m sorry. As a CEO, if someone who worked for me screwed up that bad, I’d fire them.
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