Writings on baseball by Matt Barnard and Dan Stein.

Kerry Wood's missing his next start
 
I'm going to refrain from getting too excited about this news, but any time a pitcher with Kerry Wood's injury history is held out due to arm problems, there's reason to be at least a little bit concerned.

The linked article from ESPN.com says the MRI Wood underwent Wednesday showed "inflammation underneath the muscle and mild tendinitis in his elbow." What that means precisely in terms of how long he's likely to be out I have no idea - the current word from the Cubs is that it'll just be one start.

Also from the article: "I don't think it's going to be really much more than one start," Cubs trainer Dave Groeschner said. "We'll just rest him, skip him a start and then get him back throwing and maybe push him back to the end of the rotation."

"But it's too early to tell on that right now. Obviously, he has to be pain-free. He's going to have to calm it down over the next few days. Kerry was kind of relieved to see the (test) results. Everything looked good, structurally. There are no muscle tears or tendon tears."

Wood's been excellent this year, and losing him for any length of time would be a major blow to the Cubs' staff, particularly with Mark Prior still on the shelf. Carlos Zambrano and Matt Clement (particularly before tonight's outing) have been phenomenal thus far, but the team's got to be concerned about the number of injuries it's accumulating.
posted by VZW Watcher at 2:00 AM -

Baldwin up and starting, Yates down
 
James Baldwin is scheduled to start tonight for the Mets, having been called up yesterday with the demotion of Tyler Yates. I haven't watched much Met baseball yet this season as I just arrived in New York, but the one start of Yates's I saw (April 9th against the Expos) was pretty good - he gave up just five hits over six innings, allowing no runs or walks and striking out four in his first major league appearance. Of course the Expos have been a brutal offensive team all year, which makes the performance look a lot less impressive in retrospect than it did at the time.

Yates earned his demotion with three crappy outings (4/14 vs. ATL, 4/30 vs. SD, 5/8 vs. MIL) in his first six. Having only started one game in his first five years playing professional ball, Yates started 23 times at three different levels last year but only lasted a total of 107.1 innings (that's including three relief appearances in the Florida State League). I don't have the breakdown of his numbers at A-level St. Lucie, but he averaged five innings or less a start at both AA Binghamton and AAA Norfolk. Expecting him to be able to thrive as a starter (able to pitch effectively deep into ballgames) was kind of unrealistic, and really didn't make much sense given that Jae Seo, who was a reliable, adequate starter in 2003, didn't even make the team out of spring training.

Of course, the Mets knew their pitching staff wasn't deep, as even their intended top three (Al Leiter, Tom Glavine and Steve Trachsel) were question marks either due to age and/or recent performance (Trachsel was probably the surest bet). So they went out and signed several guys off the scrap heap like Scott Erickson, one-time Yankee Randy Keisler and James Baldwin. Erickson, as you probably know, made the rotation out of spring training but got hurt (again) just before his first start on April 8th vs. the Braves. Keisler's pitching at Norfolk, where he was a teammate of Baldwin's until yesterday. Baldwin's been decent at AAA (a 3-2 record with a 2.90 ERA over five starts and 31 innings), but nowhere near as good as Matt Ginter's been (a 1.30 ERA over five starts and 27.2 innings, including a sparkling 24/3 strikeout-to-walk ratio).

Baldwin's apparently got an out in his contract that he can exercise at the end of May, so maybe it behooves the Mets to take a look at what they've got. But this is a guy who has started 200 games and pitched over 1200 innings at the major league level - there's not a whole lot of question about what kind of a pitcher Baldwin is. He's a 32-year old, back-of-the-rotation guy who allows way too many baserunners and doesn't appear to be showing any improvement as he ages. So why waste time with him at all? If he wants to leave at the end of the month, wish him well. I don't mean to suggest that someone like Matt Ginter is the answer (Aaron Heilman, who pitched very well this spring might be a better one), but the chances of Baldwin being a contributor to this Mets team are pretty slim.
posted by VZW Watcher at 3:22 PM -

In Queens and writing again
 
As I'm in Queens for the summer, I'm going to try to come through with daily postings so I feel like I'm doing something mildly productive. It's been awhile since either of us has written anything to this blog (Dan's The Target Demographic has been graced with some content), and we've obviously missed a lot. We're now nearly a month and a half into the 2004 season, and it seems silly to attempt to cover what we've missed - so I'm going to pick it up from here.
posted by VZW Watcher at 3:16 PM -