Pineda’s Torn Labrum, or Does the lemon law apply to baseball?

By On April 25, 2012 · 21 Comments · In Injuries

In an effort to prevent a stream of obscenities from flying from my fingertips to your screen, I will let Twitter tell the story.

http://twitter.com/#!/MarcCarig/status/195253549087735808
http://twitter.com/#!/MarcCarig/status/195257685896208384
http://twitter.com/#!/BloggingBombers/status/195259851725750273
http://twitter.com/#!/BloggingBombers/status/195260622160674817

It is worth noting that Erik Bedard, Chris Carpenter, Trevor Hoffman, Jon Rauch, Jason Schmidt, and Casey Janssen had similar surgical procedures … and came back with varying degrees of success, albeit mostly positive.

There really isn’t much else I can say without being angry and reactionary, so I will leave it to the calmer minds of TYA to provide some more in-depth discussion and analysis of the repercussions of the injury.

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21 Responses to Pineda’s Torn Labrum, or Does the lemon law apply to baseball?

  1. Cliff lee says:
    April 25, 2012 at 5:56 pm

    Ouch maybe cliff lee for montero. Nunez and ten others would have been better

    Reply
  2. Reggie C. says:
    April 25, 2012 at 6:11 pm

    Shoulda spent 120 million to get Darvish bc apparently it only would’ve taken 54 million to sign Darvish & only that money is subject to the luxury tax.

    With Pineda down for the remainder of the season, it appears as if the Yankees will have to readjust their expectations of adhering to the austerity / 189 million cap.

    Reply
    • Bryan Van Dusen says:
      April 25, 2012 at 6:51 pm

      Care to explain what you mean? I don’t see how the team’s ability to get at or under $189 million is affected much at all. Either way Pineda was going to be under team control for 2014 and 2015, and with him being out all of 2012 his clock won’t start up again until 2013. Meaning the team has Michael for 2013-2017 for cheap.

      Not to mention that his cost for 2014 and 2015 will be cheaper now that he’s out for 2012, making it a bit easier for the team to lower their payroll to the threshold.

      Pineda will end up costing the Yankees less than $25 million over the next 5 years, less than half of what Darvish would have cost… and not counting the posting fee.

      And remember that Yu’s money is guaranteed, whether he pitches well or not. If Pineda craps the bed the Yankees don’t have to pay him a thing.

      So while there are reasons for fans to have wanted the Yankees to go after Darvish, rather than trade for Pineda, the money argument still doesn’t go in Yu’s favor what-so-ever.

      Reply
      • Ralph says:
        April 26, 2012 at 9:49 am

        Pineda’s clock doesn’t stop now that he is injured. His clock continues, so it doesn’t postpone his arbitration or free agency.

        As well it may impact their ability to stay under the 189M target. The Yankees only have two starters (CC & Nova) who we can count on beyond this season. Which leaves 3 slots open. As well we have no idea if Pineda will ever be what he could’ve been now. So the Yankees will need to fill 3 spots next season, that will likely cost money. Now whether or not they can fill those spots on 1 year deals and youth, will remain to be seen.

        Reply
  3. Phil C says:
    April 25, 2012 at 6:20 pm

    If it’s true, as Craig tweets, Pineda injured himself on the last pitch of extended ST, that doesn’t explain his problems with velocity prior to that. I’m not saying I know the real reason(s), but I think either the Yanks missed something with the physical or Pineda reported to ST without much off season throwing and they rushed him.

    Reply
    • Alex says:
      April 25, 2012 at 6:54 pm

      Right. I’m hoping it’s the latter, honestly, because if the Yankees are trading Jesus Montero without checking, re-checking, and re-re-checking Pineda’s medicals this franchise is in big trouble. The prognosis is not good but I supposed it could be worse and mistakes happen. I’ll still defend the trade as it was at the time. Hindsight is 20-20. We’re all upset but let’s remember that.

      Reply
    • T.O. Chris says:
      April 25, 2012 at 7:31 pm

      From everything I’ve seen and read the story from the Yankees seems to be pretty clear. Pineda showed up to camp without having thrown so much as a single pitch in the offseason, was grossly overweight, and as the velocity didn’t show up pushed himself into bad mechanics and an injury.

      I obviously can’t say if it’s true or not but that’s what we have to believe.

      Reply
    • Steve Sciacco says:
      April 25, 2012 at 9:08 pm

      He was out of shape. That explains the lack of velocity, and also why he got hurt.

      When a pitcher is out of shape he tries to generate velocity using the weak muscles, and winds up putting stress on the connective tissues that the muscles should bear.

      http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/128/the-most-valuable-player-in-sports-is-this-doctor.html

      Read this, its long but explains how this works from someone who knows a thing or two.

      Reply
  4. oldpep says:
    April 25, 2012 at 6:52 pm

    Feliciano and Pineda in consecutive years.

    Cashman’s choices were either go after Darvish and keep their only MLB-ready bat/#1 prospect or trade for a pitcher who’s performance went down in the second half after 3 months of looking good in the AL west.

    I think the decision made by the front office to start doing everything on the cheap (less spending on IFAs & in the draft) along with how to use what resources we have may be setting back the team for the next several years.

    Reply
    • Phil C says:
      April 25, 2012 at 7:02 pm

      It’s more the long term contracts to players who will be past their prime that will set the club back over the next several years. The only way to over come that is excellent player development and very fortunate trades. While we all bitch about some poor trades and signings, remember what a steal Swisher has been and how much better than expected Gardner has been.

      Reply
    • Bryan Van Dusen says:
      April 25, 2012 at 7:07 pm

      I’m hearing a lot about the team not spending, and the concerns that raises for the future, but what did they not spend on? Or more to the point… who did they not spend on?

      Yu Darvish? Let’s not act like the money Texas spent was totally smart, as we’ve only seen a handful of starts out of the guy, and his effectiveness even last night was put into question on this very website.

      CJ Wilson? Please don’t tell you’re thinking about this guy, as he was clearly not what the team needed. CJ is a middle of the rotation arm, and #2 pitcher at best. The team had Ivan Nova already, and bringing Hiroki Kuroda on for only a 1 year deal, makes passing on Wilson not just a good choice… but a great one.

      Prince Fielder? A full-time DH for almost $24 million? No thank you.

      Yoenis Cespedes? I would have liked to bring him aboard, but I think his case may have been about more than money. He had no place in the outfield this year, and apparently didn’t want to spend a year in the minors. Perhaps that would have changed for the right price, but he didn’t take a huge discount to go to Oakland either.

      This news is not good… don’t get me wrong. But let’s not get carried away by some of our knee-jerk reactions.

      Reply
      • oldpep says:
        April 25, 2012 at 7:31 pm

        It’s hardly a knee-jerk reaction. It’s what I and a lot of others have said about the trade from the start: Young pitchers get hurt a lot more than young hitters. As somebody on another site said: we took all the risk, and we didn’t have to.
        Darvish would only have cost money. Who the hell said anything about Wilson or Fielder? I haven’t heard a single person in favor of either one, here or anywhere else.

        The long-term salaries are sunk money. Cutting spending on IFAs this year made zero sense. Only a part of what Texas paid for/to Darvish will count towards the luxury tax, anyway. It made zero sense to not even get into the bidding-especially when the alternative was to trade for Pineda.

        A lot of people were pretty unhappy with the trade without him getting hurt. But we also could see it coming-Cashman had been trying to trade Montero for quite a while before this deal.

        Reply
        • T.O. Chris says:
          April 25, 2012 at 7:39 pm

          Because signing Yu Darvish comes with no injury risk? This guy has thrown more innings and pitches in his seasons in Japan than any minor league pitcher ever was. You could say he was more than borderline abused by Nippon, he had longer rest in between starts but if you look at his pitches per game it raises serious long term concerns.

          Regardless of injury trading for Pineda was the right move, you have to move a DH to get a possible elite young starter when you can. There are always risks in trades, simply sayingh “a bunch of people didn’t like the trade at the start” doesn’t make you right or mean anything really. People booed Donovan Mcnabb when he was drafted because they wanted Ricky Williams, a lot of time the loud majority is wrong.

          We did take on a lot of risk in this trade but we also added a promisingh arm for the future as well in Campos. Say Pineda flames out, Noesi ends up a 5th starter or bullpen arm, and Montero is the best DH in baseball for 8 years, Campos could still become an ace and we’d have still won the trade. Trying to act like you knew all along the trade was the worst ever, and is now guaranteed to be nothingh but that is silly. It looks bad now but even if it turns out bad it was the right move to make at the time, sometimes the right move just blows up.

          Reply
  5. smurfy says:
    April 25, 2012 at 8:03 pm

    Those twitters are good: tomorrow’s news today?

    Reply
  6. Scout says:
    April 26, 2012 at 8:22 am

    From experience with a close associate, I have learned a good deal about labrum injuries. A noted surgeon with whom I discussed in detail a labrum tear explained that such injuries are usually the result of cumulative shoulder stress. So while it might be technically true that the tear happened on the last pitch Pineda threw, the process has been going on for quite some time.

    Reply
  7. Lincoln's Beard says:
    April 26, 2012 at 10:32 am

    After the revamping the Yankees did to compete with the Red Sox, it’s very frustrating that we cannot develop starting pitching. Other than Pettite, the Yankees I have only had Wang and Nova come up and that was out of desperation.

    Cashman needs to take a look at the Rays or Rangers and figure out how to develop young arms. You don’t need to look farther than Joba or Hughes being jerked around.

    Secondary issue of how Yankees evaluate players’ health. Looking at the Feliciano and Marte signings, you have to wonder if the team is looking at things the right way. First time they performed dye MRI contrast on Pineda, who is to say he was not hurt before?

    For some reason I am reminded of the 1998 trade of Mike Lowell. He was blocked by Brosius so we ended up trading him for some negligible pitching. I hope the Pineda/Montero trade does not follow that path.

    Ultimately if we can’t see better returns on starting pitching prospects in the next few years, Cashman needs to go.

    Reply

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