Wieters’ advice to Rutschman

[RZNJ]

6 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Yes, I do.

I don't have data on hand to back it up but I think a number of position players have come back from TJ surgery and been lesser players on offense.

Interesting.  Nothing to back it up?  Ok.

[Can_of_corn]

9 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Interesting.  Nothing to back it up?  Ok.

I vaguely recall reading something about it back when he was hurt but honestly I have no desire to go digging for it right now.

 

I changed my mind and did 10 seconds of googling.

https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2019/10/25/20930522/tommy-john-surgery-explained-ucl-rehab-mlb-stats-history

Quote

“The interesting thing with positional players is they have to hit as well,” Petrigliano says. “And if the injury is on the back hand, you know the elbow that sees the valgus force when swinging, they can have pain when hitting as well. So that surgery is not only affecting throwing and accuracy and velocity, but it can affect their hitting ability too, and I think that’s a little bit under-appreciated.”

Quote

Ten of the MLB position players who have undergone Tommy John surpassed 1.0 WARP — Baseball Prospectus’ catch-all player value metric, standing for Wins Above Replacement Player — during the season they had Tommy John surgery (or the season before, for those who had surgery before July). They averaged 3.1 WARP. Upon returning, the same group put up less than half their collective WARP before their injuries. Part of that dropoff is due to fewer plate appearances — position players who underwent Tommy John averaged 520 plate appearances before surgery, and just 341 during their recovery seasons. But those players also produced WARP per plate appearance at just two-thirds of their previous rate.

Not a huge data pool to extrapolate from.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Can_of_corn

[RZNJ]

Anything is possible.  However, Matt Wieters  caught over 100 games 6 times in his career.  4 times before the surgery and 2 times after.   

His OPS + in those 4 before the surgery were, 90, 110, 107, 90.

The two seasons over 100 after the surgery were 89 and 62 at the ages of 30 and 31.   So we are just talking anecdotal evidence here but I'm not sure I buy into the TJ surgery cutting his career short.  He was never a great offensive player.    In 2018 and 2019 as a part-time player he put up OPS+ of 86 and 82 which were not far off of two of the years you might consider his prime.

I'd be interested to hear if any of the hitters who had the TJ surgery felt pain or thought it had anything to do with diminished capacity to hit after the surgery.

[Can_of_corn]

8 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Anything is possible.  However, Matt Wieters  caught over 100 games 6 times in his career.  4 times before the surgery and 2 times after.   

His OPS + in those 4 before the surgery were, 90, 110, 107, 90.

The two seasons over 100 after the surgery were 89 and 62 at the ages of 30 and 31.   So we are just talking anecdotal evidence here but I'm not sure I buy into the TJ surgery cutting his career short.  He was never a great offensive player.    In 2018 and 2019 as a part-time player he put up OPS+ of 86 and 82 which were not far off of two of the years you might consider his prime.

I'd be interested to hear if any of the hitters who had the TJ surgery felt pain or thought it had anything to do with diminished capacity to hit after the surgery.

I'm listing it as a factor.  It did also cause him to miss a season in what was his peak years.

[emmett16]

6 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Like maybe not pull double duty as the closer on his college team?

Tech pitching is notoriously terrible.  Hall does what he can to try to win and keep his job.  College baseball is a meat market run by men who don’t prioritize the best interest of their  players long term  health.  But, yea someone like Wieters who knows they are going round 1 might want to consider the future and push back a bit.  But then again read his comments about giving his teammates his all.  19/20 y/o kids want the ball.   

[LA2]

2 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

I'm listing it as a factor.  It did also cause him to miss a season in what was his peak years.

I'm sure a lot of us remember that the season in which we thought he was finally achieving his offensive potential (2014, age 28) was the one where he was first sidelined by the injury. It was SSS (112 plate appearances, 132 OPS+) and his first (and last) months of the seasons were usually his best, but one could sense that something had escalated.

[DrungoHazewood]

19 hours ago, emmett16 said:

Tech pitching is notoriously terrible.  Hall does what he can to try to win and keep his job.  College baseball is a meat market run by men who don’t prioritize the best interest of their  players long term  health.  But, yea someone like Wieters who knows they are going round 1 might want to consider the future and push back a bit.  But then again read his comments about giving his teammates his all.  19/20 y/o kids want the ball.   

A meat market? I thought they were baseball teams trying to win games and trophies. Would you prioritize Matt Wieters' theoretical age 30+ seasons for another team in the majors over winning the ACC or a College World Series game? Would you tell the rest of the team or the AD or the fans that it sucks to lose with your 2nd-best closer on the mound, but you were possibly reducing the risk that Weiters would get hurt in 10-12 years?

Of course there are limits.  I once saw Brad Clontz throw a complete game in a Virginia Tech 22-13 win.  He had to have thrown 200 pitches.  But Wieters throwing 87 innings across three college seasons is a complete non-issue.

[Just Regular]

20 hours ago, emmett16 said:

Tech pitching is notoriously terrible.  Hall does what he can to try to win and keep his job.  College baseball is a meat market run by men who don’t prioritize the best interest of their  players long term  health.  But, yea someone like Wieters who knows they are going round 1 might want to consider the future and push back a bit.  But then again read his comments about giving his teammates his all.  19/20 y/o kids want the ball.   

I haven't yet in a broadcast (wouldn't really be the right setting) hear Ben reflect at length on his NCAA and MLB usage, but I feel Ben gave the best of himself to LSU and figure we'll have years of his commentary on Bradish, Rodriguez and Hall and how the Orioles handling of them seems to him.

If in a few years we get a FanFest with say Sig and McDonald on a panel, a pre-set question is if Sig has a take on Ben's college use.

All offseason I had in the back of my mind before Chirinos that Wieters had not made any kind of retirement acknowledgment, so I did note his statement to Connolly on that bit of it.    Heck of a career, Matt!

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Just Regular said:

I haven't yet in a broadcast (wouldn't really be the right setting) hear Ben reflect at length on his NCAA and MLB usage, but I feel Ben gave the best of himself to LSU and figure we'll have years of his commentary on Bradish, Rodriguez and Hall and how the Orioles handling of them seems to him.

If in a few years we get a FanFest with say Sig and McDonald on a panel, a pre-set question is if Sig has a take on Ben's college use.

All offseason I had in the back of my mind before Chirinos that Wieters had not made any kind of retirement acknowledgment, so I did note his statement to Connolly on that bit of it.    Heck of a career, Matt!

I think that when you try and fail to make the Olympic team that indicates you are retired.

[Aristotelian]

13 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

A meat market? I thought they were baseball teams trying to win games and trophies. Would you prioritize Matt Wieters' theoretical age 30+ seasons for another team in the majors over winning the ACC or a College World Series game? Would you tell the rest of the team or the AD or the fans that it sucks to lose with your 2nd-best closer on the mound, but you were possibly reducing the risk that Weiters would get hurt in 10-12 years?

Of course there are limits.  I once saw Brad Clontz throw a complete game in a Virginia Tech 22-13 win.  He had to have thrown 200 pitches.  But Wieters throwing 87 innings across three college seasons is a complete non-issue.

These guys work for educational institutions whose purpose is to prepare young people for the future. They also want to recruit players who hope to have future pro careers. NCAA should have rules in place but in the absence of that, yes, I would have self imposed limits. That said you could make an argument that pitching may have enhanced Wieters value as a poor man's Ohtani.

 

[Just Regular]

Hitters and TJ, seems like a Bryce Harper test case could be coming.   The NL DH right on time or it might already have happened...I wouldn't be surprised if it does soon after the Phillies season ends.

I think you have to become as big a star as Harper for a UCL tear to be acknowledged, but with the qualifier that it is just a "small" one.

[DrungoHazewood]

10 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

These guys work for educational institutions whose purpose is to prepare young people for the future. They also want to recruit players who hope to have future pro careers. NCAA should have rules in place but in the absence of that, yes, I would have self imposed limits. That said you could make an argument that pitching may have enhanced Wieters value as a poor man's Ohtani.

Clearly they don't want to get a reputation for burning out players to the point where their MLB careers are impacted, because that has a negative effect on recruiting.  But just as clearly NCAA teams prioritize winning now more highly then preparing young people for the future. It would probably be hard to find a college football player who didn't spend hours in the training room trying to get past an injury, then took all kinds of painkillers to be able to be on the field because they needed to win that Saturday's game.

For almost all college coaches the self-imposed limits are "am I pushing the kid so hard that my chances of winning today/this year have gone down?"

[emmett16]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

A meat market? I thought they were baseball teams trying to win games and trophies. Would you prioritize Matt Wieters' theoretical age 30+ seasons for another team in the majors over winning the ACC or a College World Series game? Would you tell the rest of the team or the AD or the fans that it sucks to lose with your 2nd-best closer on the mound, but you were possibly reducing the risk that Weiters would get hurt in 10-12 years?

Of course there are limits.  I once saw Brad Clontz throw a complete game in a Virginia Tech 22-13 win.  He had to have thrown 200 pitches.  But Wieters throwing 87 innings across three college seasons is a complete non-issue.

It’s a very fine line.  Of course at the end of the day everyone wants to win.  College coaches are absolutely not thinking about the future of their players.  They are thinking about how to make their program win at all cost.  Their jobs depend on winning, not grooming players for the next level.   
 

look at how many innings he caught over those three years.  Coming in for 30Ip of max effort pitching (per year) after catching a complete game is not gonna bode well on the bow.