Roch confirms no MRI for Gonzalez prior to signing.

[Sports Guy]

So what pitcher would you sign without an MRI?And what do you do when no pitchers agree to take MRIs?

I'm not making the argument that we shouldn't have given him an MRI if he had been willing. I'm saying he probably wasn't willing, not because he's hiding an injury, but just because there is no benefit to him and pitchers never agree to something like that unless its the only way they can find work.

Everyone is different...i can tell you who I WOULDN'T sign...an aging pitcher with a history of arm issues....unless of course, you are giving him a cheap 1 year deal or something like that.

[nadecir]

Seems like the Nationals team policy was to do an MRI on any pitcher that we were interested in obtaining via free agency or trade - at least that was their policy in 2006.

Clearly bothered by Lawrence's injury, manager Frank Robinson said Monday that all pitchers acquired by the team henceforth should be given more than a routine physical.

"I think you have to ... take an MRI on every pitcher that you acquire in a trade or free agency -- the elbows, knees and shoulders," Robinson said before the Astacio deal was announced. "That's the only way you're going to be able to look at the elbow and shoulder and knees, and get a pretty good idea of what's in there."

I imagine the Orioles policy going forward is to require an MRI for pitchers.

[El Gordo]

You didn't want Gonzalez, so you're a bit biased here, but what if it was Capps we signed, and he got hurt without an MRI? You wanted Capps. What if we signed him without an MRI and he gets hurt? Or, what if you wanted to give him an MRI but he said no?

Most FA pitchers won't agree to do MRIs. There is nothing good that can come out of them, because even healthy pitchers often look like messes on MRIs and other such scans. If you are insisting on getting an MRI from a FA pitcher, you'll never sign anybody. Gonzalez had some injury concerns, but not enough to walk away from signing him if he won't agree to take an MRI. The physical was enough. If he refused a physical or to share any recent medical reports, then you've got a bigger red flag, but not getting an MRI isn't a blunder. You're simply wrong here.

Is this true? What is the source you are basing this on?....:scratchchinhmm:

[VAB2110]

Didn't Tony say that people in the FO and ownership were upset that AM didn't give the MRI? Why would they be upset if its a meaningless thing to do?

Probably hindsight. The MRI probably wouldn't have shown anything other than the same wear and tear he had last year when he threw, what, 80 games or something. Atlanta offered him arbitration so they obviously thought he was healthy. What it comes down to is just bad luck.

[Mackus]

Everyone is different...i can tell you who I WOULDN'T sign...an aging pitcher with a history of arm issues....unless of course, you are giving him a cheap 1 year deal or something like that.

Every pitcher is aging, most years you end up being a year older than the previous one. 32 isn't ancient. His injury concerns weren't so grave that an MRI should be a prerequisite of signing a contract, IMO.

If Gonzalez was willing to do it and MacPhail and the doctors just thought it was a superfluous test and wanted to save the grand or whatever it costs, then I'd be upset. But my guess is that Gonzo wouldn't take one, which is the right move on his part, and that when the physical didn't turn up any red flags, the Orioles chose to sign the guy they thought would be the best reliever, which is the right move on their part.

If we could've easily done the test and were just like "Nah, screw it" I think that's a mistake. But, I don't think its very likely that that is how things went down.

[TGO]

SG, I mostly agree with you but you're being a little flippant, especially with square634, who knows what he's talking about and is raising good points. More info is not always better. Consider this: for several years we used those Ritterspusch psychological tests in the draft, and their usefulness was dubious at best. We probably passed on at least a few players who did not score well and targeted a few players who did score well and we probably were worse off for that.

Now, that being said, I still think Gonzalez should have had the MRI done. Yes, it would have picked up a number of issues just based on the fact that he's a pitcher, and yes, lots of pitchers probably will refuse to do them, but we aren't talking about Cliff Lee here. If it's a coveted free agent and other teams are willing to sign him without doing medical tests, fine (though you still have to consider the medical risks in your contract evaluation). But there were multiple relievers available, ESPECIALLY if you were willing to sign a type A guy. Frankly lots of us thought we were going to avoid type A free agent relievers. Going into that market opened up several other options (Soriano, Valverde) that most of us originally thought were out of the question.

[Mackus]

Is this true? What is the source you are basing this on?....:scratchchinhmm:

No source, just my interpretation and the application of common sense from the free agent's perspective.

If someone can point to something that shows MRI's are common, or even just not rare, than I'll concede the point. But barring that, I'll stick with my opinion that they aren't a component of your typical signing, and that Gonzalez' history doesn't make him an atypical signing where an MRI would be a requirement of agreeing to the contract.

[El Gordo]

Capps had an elbow issue last year...if you sign him and don't give him an MRI, you are an idiot.

Oh and I am wrong because YOU said so? LOL Pardon me if that's not enough for me. LOL LOL :rofl:

LOL. You are wrong because you are making categorical pronouncements about something you know next to nothing about..... as usual. :rolleyestf:

[TGO]

People keep mentioning Atlanta offering arbitration, but I have already said that should not be taken as an indication of a clean bill of health.

Atlanta was on the hook for maybe 5-6 million. And as someone said they also could potentially have traded him and offloaded the risk.

We are on the hook for 12 million and a very valuable early second round pick.

Completely different risk profiles!

[JTrea81]

Interesting that Roch did a story about this. The O's know an article might be coming out and are doing a pre-emptive strike. I wonder what else the warehouse will release?

The timing of this does seem a bit odd.

This was pretty old news and you would have thought he would have addressed it sooner when he was asked, but the club probably delayed responding to him until they knew Tony's article was about to be released so they could "upstage" it so to speak.

[El Gordo]

No source, just my interpretation and the application of common sense from the free agent's perspective.

If someone can point to something that shows MRI's are common, or even just not rare, than I'll concede the point. But barring that, I'll stick with my opinion that they aren't a component of your typical signing, and that Gonzalez' history doesn't make him an atypical signing where an MRI would be a requirement of agreeing to the contract.

This is the problem with this issue. Lack of information. To bad someone like Roch who has access to this kind of info, or should have, can't provide it when he opens his can of worms.:rolleyestf:

[ledzepp8]

Yea because telling him to drop his pants, turn his head and cough is really going to do a lot to tell how structural sound his elbow and shoulder is.

Yeah because clearly physicals performed on professional athletes are the same as physicals performed on you by your primary care physician.

[ledzepp8]

Who knows...but who cares? If you find something on an MRI that you don't like, at least at that point you have more info and you can make a more educated decision on things.

The Orioles went into this blindly when they could have at least had some vision into the future.

I think the point is that more times than not you're going to find something in an MRI that someone somewhere might not like but that it won't necessarily predict any future injury.

[square634]

Give me a break...The person reading the MRI, the doctors, etc...understand all of this. if things come up on an MRI that are normal, they aren't going to change their minds in all likelihood.

The idea here is that you gather as much info as you can and with that info, you determine if it is worth the risk or not.

Not gathering all the info you can is stupid. What you choose to do with that info, how you interpret it, etc...are 2 different things...But you should at least gather it to begin with.

In certain situations, bad, faulty, unnecessary information is more likely to mislead someone than point them in the right direction. I challenge your basic premise that more information is always better or more valuable than less information. A few months ago, I wrote a 12 page paper with 30+ citations of peer-reviewed medical journals on this issue as it relates to prostate cancer screening, but I'm sure you would have neither interest in reading it nor the capacity to recognize the implications that are applicable to the analagous situation of MRI screening in all free-agent pitchers.

[SilentJames]

I don't quite understand. You're saying that it's better to just not know? That you trust ignorance over the judgment of the O's medical staff? The cost of an MRI would have repaid itself 1000 times over in lost productivity. Hell, for less than the cost of one win in free agency you could buy a bunch of medical imaging equipment and do the tests in the Warehouse.

No no no, not in the slightest. I am just saying that I remember a time when people were criticizing the Orioles for being TOO cautious with free agents.

Agreed, that this is a time when the MRI being overlooked really bit us in the ass. No doubt about it.