Bad Idea - IL Adley and Burnes for 15 days

[kidrock]

This could be a very dumb idea, just wanted to throw it out there.  Thoughts appreciated.

Does Burnes' arm need a little rest?  

Does Adley's body, back etc need a little rest?

Would it be best to sit them out during late august and have them come back fresh in early September.  I don't know what it is, but it does not feel good to have two of your best players fading hard here.  Again, could be a bad idea, just seems like they could use some rest to get a little fresher.

[dystopia]

Burnes has pitched full seasons he should not need “getting tired”. 

[Sports Guy]

Burnes?  No

Adley?  Maybe. Giving him a full 10 days off might not be the worst thing but it won’t happen.

[gtman55]

4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Burnes?  No

Adley?  Maybe. Giving him a full 10 days off might not be the worst thing but it won’t happen.

Totally agree. I have confidence Burnes will work his way out of this. On the other hand, Adley just looks "off". Give him a 10 day vacay and let's see if he comes back strong and refreshed. 

And then there's this. We had a surprisingly solid '22. And last year everything seemed to be going our way. We weren't expected to win the division or all those one run games. We only had a couple notable injuries.

This year the expectations have been high. And obviously the injury bug has hit us HARD. Is it possible the team (players, front office and manager) is wilting a bit under all this newfound pressure?

[Moose Milligan]

IIRC, I think you need legit medical reasons to put players on the IL.  You can't just "give a guy a rest" and shelve him for a spell.  

That said, I agree with SG.  If there's a way they can find a medical excuse for Adley to get on the IL and figure out his back problems, I'd be in favor of that.  

Burnes was fine last night until the last inning got away from him.  He's been down this road before and he shouldn't be tired.  He's been in pennant races before, this is nothing new to him.  I hope he can work it out and I'm confident that he can...by all accounts he's a big student of his craft and very well prepared.  He takes this seriously.

If he can't, well, he's just hurt his free agency campaign that he'll be on this offseason.  

[Sports Guy]

8 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

IIRC, I think you need legit medical reasons to put players on the IL.  You can't just "give a guy a rest" and shelve him for a spell.  

That said, I agree with SG.  If there's a way they can find a medical excuse for Adley to get on the IL and figure out his back problems, I'd be in favor of that.  

Burnes was fine last night until the last inning got away from him.  He's been down this road before and he shouldn't be tired.  He's been in pennant races before, this is nothing new to him.  I hope he can work it out and I'm confident that he can...by all accounts he's a big student of his craft and very well prepared.  He takes this seriously.

If he can't, well, he's just hurt his free agency campaign that he'll be on this offseason.  

I think it would be fairly easy to come up with a medical excuse for Adley..or really any other C at this point in the season.

[kidrock]

Yeah, on the Adley front, I think the lower back tweak should be enough to allow a short DL stint.  I'm just not sure the benefit of fighting through a minor injury, only to plany really poorly.  I would rather him heal up/rest up and come out fresher for the last 20 games of the year.  He's just not providing much benefit to the team right now.  Exit velocities seem awful.

 

Understood on the Burnes front.  I'm not knowledgeable enough to understand why he's had his brief fade, whether it be tired, working things out, bad luck, adjustments needed etc.  Thanks for the thoughts.

[dtk9119]

Burnes biggest problem is he knows the offense is trash and he can't afford any mistakes which makes him have to pitch too scared. I don't care how much of an ace he is he's human. That said, I am having second thoughts about DR paying him $350 million dollars this off season to keep him.

As for Adley, he definitely needs a 10 IL stint. I think his fall off a cliff and Westburg being out are the 2 biggest things impacting this offense.

[kidrock]

2 minutes ago, dtk9119 said:

Burnes biggest problem is he knows the offense is trash and he can't afford any mistakes which makes him have to pitch too scared. I don't care how much of an ace he is he's human. That said, I am having second thoughts about DR paying him $350 million dollars this off season to keep him.

As for Adley, he definitely needs a 10 IL stint. I think his fall off a cliff and Westburg being out are the 2 biggest things impacting this offense.

Yeah very fair.  Adley and Westburg's situations have definitely had bad consequences.  It interesting to see the debate on who or what is to blame for the teams performance over the past few months.  To me, its starting pitching injuries, poor bullpen play, Adley, Westburg, homer happy/poor situation hitting offense style, defense (especially a few weeks ago).   Just finding a way to turn Adley around and getting Wesburg healthy could go a long way.  Add Grayson and Eflin and maybe this board would get some optimism back.

[sevastras]

13 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I think it would be fairly easy to come up with a medical excuse for Adley..or really any other C at this point in the season.

I would hate to be the guy that had to tell McCann they were sending him to the IL. 
 

It was easy with Chris Davis because he was so demoralized. I don’t think you could get away with sending Adley or Burnes to the IL for minor discomfort. Burnes looks like the kind of guy that would fight you if you tried for something minor. Not only is he vying for a big payday after this season but he seems ultra competitive. 
The best you could do, in my opinion, is give Adley a day off before an off day and ask Burnes if he would like to get an extra days rest in between starts to stay fresh down the stretch. I wouldn’t ask him until he redeems himself because I would imagine he is chomping at the bit to get back out there and do better. 
I don’t know, that was one big long ramble but all we can do is pontificate because we don’t have all of the information and aren’t in the thick of the discussions being had between players and staff. 

[kidrock]

3 minutes ago, sevastras said:

I would hate to be the guy that had to tell McCann they were sending him to the IL. 
 

It was easy with Chris Davis because he was so demoralized. I don’t think you could get away with sending Adley or Burnes to the IL for minor discomfort. Burnes looks like the kind of guy that would fight you if you tried for something minor. Not only is he vying for a big payday after this season but he seems ultra competitive. 
The best you could do, in my opinion, is give Adley a day off before an off day and ask Burnes if he would like to get an extra days rest in between starts to stay fresh down the stretch. I wouldn’t ask him until he redeems himself because I would imagine he is chomping at the bit to get back out there and do better. 
I don’t know, that was one big long ramble but all we can do is pontificate because we don’t have all of the information and aren’t in the thick of the discussions being had between players and staff. 

Fair points.

Does anyone know if Brunes has had any sort of Velo dip recently?  If no velo dip, than an IL stint makes little sense.

[sevastras]

10 minutes ago, kidrock said:

Yeah very fair.  Adley and Westburg's situations have definitely had bad consequences.  It interesting to see the debate on who or what is to blame for the teams performance over the past few months.  To me, its starting pitching injuries, poor bullpen play, Adley, Westburg, homer happy/poor situation hitting offense style, defense (especially a few weeks ago).   Just finding a way to turn Adley around and getting Wesburg healthy could go a long way.  Add Grayson and Eflin and maybe this board would get some optimism back.

Though none of the players will openly say anything, the bullpen not holding leads or keeping them in the game has to have an impact on the moral of the offense. The thought of,”We need to be up by 6 or more because we can’t trust Kimbrel or whoever” may be a reason the offense is pushing so much. 

[e16bball]

I actually don’t think Burnes is pitching that poorly that we have to sit him down. I know, the results are terrible, but he’s getting BABIP’d to death the last two games. His xBA is .317 over those two games (certainly not great), but his actual BA against has been .391.

Only 3 XBHs over the 9.2 innings he’s pitched in those two games, and the average exit velocity has been 87.8 MPH — barely higher than his season mark of 87.6 MPH, which is pretty good (80th percentile). I don’t think we have to pull the plug on him right now.

————————————

Adley, however, is a different story. I just can’t believe that he isn’t hurt. I think people know he’s been struggling, but I’m not sure it’s clear just how much.

Since the day of the fateful Sunday Night Baseball game against TEX (6/30), Adley’s OPS is .545. His wRC+ is 53, which is the 4th worst in all of baseball among players with 150 PAs during that span. The only semi-regular players he’s been better than are Ke’Bryan Hayes, Jarred Kelenic, and Brice Turang. All of whom are notably bad hitters. 

He’s not striking out much (10.6 K%) and he’s still taking walks (9.9%), so that’s not where the collapse is coming from. It’s all in the quality of the batted balls. 

Before 6/30: 43% HH rate, 89.5 MPH EV, 23 barrels

After 6/30: 30% HH rate, 86.7 MPH EV, 4 barrels

That’s a pretty remarkable drop-off, especially for a guy who isn’t having trouble making contact.

If it was just the hitting, maybe it’s just a God awful slump. But he’s looked terribly uncomfortable running the bases for months, and the defense is now falling apart as well. Two passed balls this month, the first he’s had since his rookie season. Four wild pitches, as he’s noticeably been worse at blocking balls. And it’s just an absolute track meet against him at this point, with 21/24 successful in just 13 starts this month.

It’s always speculation in these situations, but him getting scratched with the back tightness sealed it for me. I think he’s been playing with an ongoing issue that continues to hamper him. Every aspect of his game going on the fritz at the same time, which happens to coincide with him just looking uncomfortable and immobile in all facets…it just feels like some kind of physical limitation is the Occam’s Razor explanation at this point. 

I would IL him, related to the back issue. It just can’t really get any worse with McCann and Blake Hunt than Adley has been. Maybe 10 days of consistent rest and treatment wouldn’t solve the problem — but you’d have to imagine it might at least help.

[Aristotelian]

Burnes' velo is up. No. 

Not sure about Adley. Only he and the organization know what is going on with him physically. He is not setting the world on fire but he is hitting better in August than his miserable July.

[zweem]

Burnes stats for the last 3 and 3/4 seasons show---declining-k/9,

increasing h/9, era/ ,whip.

Consistent, persistent overall decline as he ages-- and you guys want to pay him huge $$$$$$ in his 30's  ???