Looks like I was right about Jeremy Bleich. Via Tyler Kepner -
It was no surprise Thursday that with the 44th overall pick in the draft (their second selection, as compensation for the loss of Luis Vizcaino as a free agent) the Yankees took a pitcher who had an elbow injury this season – the Stanford lefty Jeremy Bleich. The Yankees have been undeterred in taking such risks, selecting Mark Melancon, Alan Horne and Andrew Brackman in recent years despite elbow issues with all three.
Elbows are much easier to repair than shoulders, and generally, teams expect 75 percent of pitchers who have Tommy John surgery to come back strong. I interviewed the Yankees’ head trainer in Tampa, Mark Littlefield, for Friday’s Melancon feature story, and asked him about the medical staff’s approach.
“We’ve had pretty good success; over all, we’ve had good luck with it,” Littlefield said. “I don’t have the answers, but we’re riding that wave. A lot of it has to do with the players, and if they’re willing to work.”
We’ve had pretty good success; over all…
Yeah, Alan Horne, Andrew Brackman, Christian Garcia, Humberto Sanchez, J. Brent Cox, Jason Stephens, Lance Pendleton and Mark Melancon are all thriving at the big league level…oh, wait a minute….
12 Responses to “Bleich’s Elbow”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
June 6th, 2008 at 7:38 am
My god, Steve, I just….I have no words.
Andrew Brackman was drafted LAST YEAR. You’d have expected him to be with the ML club had he not had the surgery?! And in case you haven’t noticed, JB Cox and Melancon are doing pretty damn well for themselves and either one or both of them will be called up sometime this season. Horne might’ve been called up already had he not injured his biceps. Chris Garcia is only just coming back, and I believe he had some other injury (knee?) that he’d had to recuperate from first. Neither Garcia’s nor Horne’s secondary injury have anything to do with TJ. If you want to make such ridiculous statements, at least back them up with some semi-appropriate facts.
In fact, Tyler Kepner has a very nice writeup of Melancon today:
http://tinyurl.com/4s2bwn
June 6th, 2008 at 7:47 am
The success Littlefield was talking about was that a number of these pitchers have come back from their injury with no lingering effects and have been able to resume their careers. As yankeemonkey said above, Melancon, especially, has seemed to bounce back from his surgery.
Moreover, if the article is to be believed and teams expect about a 75% success rate then citing someone like Sanchez wouldn’t prove that the Yankees have failed at anything since Sanchez could simply be one of the guys that falls outside the 75% success rate.
Finally, as yankeemonkey said, the tone and implicit message of your post is ridiculous. How can you mention Brackman? If he were healthy, he would be in A+ ball right now with an outside shot of getting up to AAA at the end of the season.
June 6th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Yankees didn’t draft Sanchez.
Why don’t you let Oppenheimer do that draft. There’s a reason he’s there.
June 6th, 2008 at 8:47 am
your criterion for “pretty good success” with elbow problems is all of those pitchers “thriving at the major league level”? come on, steve. fine, we all know you hate cashman, but this is going a little too far. oppenheimer has presided over what look to be some pretty good drafts the past few years, how about waiting to see the results a little bit? he hasn’t earned any credibility from you??
June 6th, 2008 at 8:57 am
Don’t get too bent out of shape on this, Steve. This stuff is all a crapshoot.
June 6th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Steve being negative — there’s a shocker.
June 6th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
I think your expectations are a bit high Steve, so I did a little research.
Below are the rehabbing pitchers that are not “thriving at the big league level,” what year they were drafted in, what round and what players drafted in that round, or the next round, that have even reached the majors, if only for a cup of coffee:
Humberto Sanchez 2001 (31) [Joey Gathright, Steve Andrade]
Jason Stephens 2003 (6) [Ryan Braun - P, Sean Marshall, Kevin Kouzmanoff, Eric O'Flaherty, Matt Kemp, Billy Sadler, Virgil Vasquez, Mike Aviles, Brian Bannister, Kyle Kendrick, Reggie Willits, Patrick Misch, Brendan Ryan]
Christian Garcia 2004 (3) [Jeff Fiorentino, Adam Lind, JA Happ, Jason Windsor, Chris Iannetta, Ohlendorf, Casey Janssen and Rob Johnson]
J. Brent Cox 2005 (2) [Chase Headley, Kevin Slowey, Yunel Escobar, Micah Owings, Jensen Lewis]
Lance Pendleton 2005 (4) [Justin Maxwell, Jonathan Meloan]
Alan Horne 2005 (11) [John Lannan, Mike Zagurski]
Andrew Brackman 2007 (1) [Ross Detwiler]
Mark Melancon 2006 (9) [n/a]
So it’s not that Steve’s being Mr. Grumpy again… its that his expectations are too high.
Side note – who knew there were two Ryan Brauns running around the bigs?
June 6th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Side note – who knew there were two Ryan Brauns running around the bigs?
=======================================
Last year when the “good” Ryan Braun came up, someone in my fantasy league offered me a trade of Chris Young (pitcher) and Ryan Braun (hitter) for Chris Young (hitter) and Ryan Braun (pitcher).
It cracked me up. Yes, I’m a fantasy geek…
June 6th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
even I must say you went a bit overboard with this one bro..
June 6th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Littlefield may only have a 75% record, but when it comes to commenters slapping Steve upside the head, Steve is at 100%! Good job Steve!
June 7th, 2008 at 7:37 am
FYI, I’ve been offline for the last 24 hours (family emergency). I offer that so that ya’ll know I was not ignoring you here on purpose.
My point here was this: The Yankees like to claim that they have “pretty good success” with this sign TJS players scheme of theirs…as if they’re smarter than everyone else to come up with this trick. However, we’ve yet to see any of these guys come up to the major league level and have a positive impact on the team.
Yes, some, like Brackman, were just signed. And, yes, the book is still out on them – no question. But, THEN, be smart and wait before saying things like you’ve had “pretty good success.”
Am I missing something here? Maybe. If anyone wants to show me the “success” evidence – above the guy rehabbing and then pitching in the minors – I’m open to seeing it.
Just rehabbing and pitching in the minors is not success for me. Lots of guys do that – it’s not like the Yankees have found some secret there.
June 7th, 2008 at 10:20 am
first of all, i hope everything/one is ok. but i think you are missing the point. they take guys like horne and brackman who have some issues because the potential reward is so high. if they didnt take these type of guys with either health or signability issues, we wouldnt have anyone with that kind of upside in the system.
in the past two days there have been some positive reports about bleich, and he did pitch very well last night vs. cal st. fullerton. so my point was why not give these kids a little time to come back from the surgeries before we say they havent succeeded? ok, fine you think its premature for the yankees to say they have had success. maybe it is. but the jury is still out. i just dont understand why you bash the picks when you know nothing about them except what baseball america says or doesnt say. a little cautious optimism wouldnt kill you here and there, would it? you dont have to be a complete homer and say that bleich is a diamond in the rough and a steal, but jeez, lets wait and see a little bit. you can say you are pragmatic and not overly negative all the time, and i would agree with that to a degree, but not here. here it seems like you are being negative for the sake of it.