Imagine if Mets had Yankee-style injuries

A pitcher pitches an inning with a broken elbow. Another pitcher suffers a gruesome injury jumping on a trampoline. A third pitcher, traded for the team's top prospect, goes on the DL. Sounds like the Mets. But it's the Yankees.

The Mets have a well-deserved reputation for screwing up medical matters, but the Yankees have had their own woes lately.  The difference is that nobody is saying "Same old Yankees." Not yet, anyway.

On  Saturday, Cesar Cabral, who was on track to win a job in the Yankees bullpen, pitched an inning with a broken elbow. Now he's on the 60-day DL.

In 2009, Jon Niese appeared to injure his hamstring making a play at first. The crack Met medical team decided to let him try a practice pitch. I still cringe at the sight of Niese crumpling to the ground, now with a completely torn hamstring. 

If Cabral had been a Met, we probably would have had photoshopped pictures of the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail on the mound in a Met uniform while Met trainers agree with him that the loss of his arms and legs is "just a flesh wound."

After missing most of last season, former Met phenom Ike Davis has seen his comeback complicated by something called Valley Fever. The general reaction? Only the Mets could have a player come down with a disease most people have never heard of.

After missing most of last season, former Yankee phenom Joba Chamberlain has seen his comeback complicated by an injury caused by jumping on a trampoline. The general reaction? What a good dad!

When the Mets traded top prospect Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano, they were accused of negligence in failing to realize that Zambrano had a damaged arm.

When the Yankees traded top prospect Jesus Montero for Michael Pineda, manager Joe Girardi described it as "great news" when an MRI showed only shoulder tendinitis.

When reporters noted that Phil Hughes was also diagnosed with shoulder tendinitis last year, and he missed three months and finished the season with a 5.79 ERA, here was Girardi's response:

"They both got tendinitis, but I wouldn't necessarily say they're similar [injuries]," Girardi said. "There's a lot of parts to that shoulder."

Girardi's rationalizing about Pineda's injury reminds me of how some people said that Johan Santana would make it back faster than Chien-Ming Wang and others who had the same injury because all injuries are different.

Of course, all injuries are different. Pineda might miss much less time than Hughes.

Or he might miss more time.

It's way too early to judge the Pineda-Montero trade. And unlike the Kazmir debacle, this trade looked like a good deal for the New York team, or at least a fair deal, depending on how upset one was to see Montero go.
 
But it's fair to say that the trade could look better as of now. And it's fair to say that Mets are no longer alone when it comes to medical misadventures.

Message to Joba Chamberlain: Time to grow up

Joba Chamberlain is his own worst enemy. Not only did he never really apologize Tuesday for his recklessness in jumping on a trampoline when recovering from Tommy John surgery, when he explained how he messed up his ankle, he refused to even admit that he really had an open dislocation in the first place. (Brian Cashman had to do damage control later, explaining the exact nature of the injury.)
 
Talk about denial not being just a river in Egypt. Joba denied he felt much pain. He denied that he would miss much time from this injury; insisting he would be back in 2012. He even denied that this was much of a setback from his recovery from Tommy John surgery, saying:

"It's going to give me more time to rehab," he said. "It's going to allow me to continue my shoulder strengthening and everything that goes along with that. It will put me past that year mark of June. It will be stronger for that and I think that's a positive."

There must be a pony in there somewhere, Joba!

Let's review. A 250+ pound professional ballplayer, who is paid for what his body can do, and who is recovering from Tommy John surgery, thought it was a good idea to jump on a trampoline. Then, he still won't even acknowledge that it was a bad decision, trying to put a positive spin on it. Good grief.

And call me hardhearted, but I'm not buying him pulling the dad card here, when he explained the "biggest thing" he took away from this: 

“This game is very important to me. It allows me to do a lot of things, but my son is my pride and joy. The biggest thing is to don’t be so hard on yourself and realize what you were doing; you were trying to be a great dad."

Yeah, because that's the biggest problem with Joba Chamberlain; that he's just too hard on himself. Now I'm worried he's going to get another injury -- hurting his arm again from patting himself on the back so hard!

And sorry, but I guess I missed  how recklessly risking your career and your future earning powers makes you "a great dad." As my friend Sully Baseball put it, "Do you know what a REALLY good father would do? Not put at risk a career that could not only take care of his kids financially but their grandkids as well."

Joba also said, "I’m never going to look at anything I do with my son as reckless.” Not even when he had to sign a waiver warning him of paralysis, death, and all sorts of injuries that could ensue when going to this trampoline facility. Using Joba's logic, that skateboarder who fell with his kid at a skateboarding park is a candidate for Father of the Year!

He also called the incident "another thing in the book of Joba." Is that book written in crayon?

When asked what he learned from this debacle, Joba said this:

"Never question being a father," Chamberlain said. ""I felt like I let my team down, to be perfectly honest with you, and that's the most frustrating part. But when I looked back and realized what was going on, I will never question being a father."

Oh, great. Thanks in no small part to the Bob Klapisches of the world, who have been pushing this "he was just being a good dad" nonsense, Joba really believes this stuff.

But maybe it's time for Mr. Chamberlain to start questioning things -- starting with his terrible decision-making, and continuing with his lack of conditioning and commitment to the game.
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And it's time for Joba to grow up already. Is he really trying to tell us there was nothing that he could have done with his son in Tampa, Florida, one of the great vacation spots in this country, that didn't involve risking his career and health. Really?

Joba  also said:

“It’s still frustrating because I feel that I let [the team] down,’’ he said, “but that’s the biggest thing that I got. It’s just another hill that I’ve had to climb, and we’ll get over it and we’ll get going and be better for it.’’

Except he's the one who put the hill there. Not anybody else. He really is his own worst enemy.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

The curious case of Joba Chamberlain and the trampoline

Squawker Jon called me yesterday to tell me the news of Joba Chamberlain suffering an open dislocation on an ankle due to jumping on a trampoline. This was the second Friday in a row with shocking news -- last week, of course, was Andy Pettitte's return. But this week's news, of course, is really awful.

First of all, I hope Chamberlain makes a full recovery -- it sounds like a horrible, gruesome injury, and he reportedly lost a lot of blood. And what a terrible thing for his young son to see. Ankle injuries are serious stuff -- it's taken nearly two years for Kendrys Morales to recover from busting up his ankle. Joba's got a long haul ahead of him, that's for sure.

That being said, I know I will get some grief for this, but I have to wonder what the heck he was thinking here. Any time you engage in a physical activity, it's a risk, especially when you are a professional ballplayer who is paid based on being able to perform physical tasks, which is why the Yanks ban so much off-season physical activities, including pickup basketball, as Aaron Boone learned. (If I ran the Yankees, I would ban players from doing anything more strenuous in their free time than tiddlywinks and Monopoly, but that's me!)

Anyhow, given that Joba is recovering from Tommy John surgery, you would think that he would think, if nothing else, that if he were to stumble on the trampoline, that he could mess up his arm again. In addition, according to Daily News columnist Bill Madden, Joba had been "explicitly told by the Yankee trainers not to engage in any sort of physical activity that would potentially put his arm in harm’s way."

And trampolines are more dangerous than you might think. Did you know that a lot of homeowners' insurance companies will not cover you if you have a trampoline? They are that dangerous. As the Bleeding Yankee Blue blog pointed out, a lot of people -- over one hundred thousand in 2006 -- get hurt jumping on trampolines. And, as I discovered today, a few people have even died from using trampolines.

In addition, I did some research on Tampa play centers that have trampolines. We do not know as of yet which place Chamberlain went to with his son, but I found information on two big trampoline centers in Tampa --AirHeads Trampoline Arena and Boing! Jump Center. And at both places, you have to sign waivers detailing all the risks you potentially face at their facilities. Here is just some of what the two-page AirHeads waiver says:

All participants acknowledge that participation in ATA trampoline games or activities entails known and unanticipated risks that could result in physical or emotional injury, paralysis, death, or damage to myself, my child, to property or to third parties.  I understand that such risks simply cannot be eliminated without jeopardizing the essential qualities of the activity. The risks include, but are not limited to: Slipping and falling, collision with fixed objects or people, injuries that include: sprains, fractures, scrapes, bruises, cuts, dislocations, pinched fingers, and serious injuries to the head, back or neck; the negligence of other participants, myself, or my child; my own or my child’s physical condition; physical contact with others; and failure to warn of an inherent risk.  

The Boing! waiver says, in part, that:

Such risks could result in, but not be limited to, damage and/or injury to myself, to property, and/or to third parties and/or entities, including, but not limited to: loss of property, loss of balance, fatigue, dizziness, paralysis, quadriplegia, death, and/or physical and/or emotional injuries, including, but not limited to, sprains, strains, contusions, abrasions, fractures, scrapes, bumps, bruises, cuts, lacerations, soft tissue damage, dislocations, pinched fingers and/or nerves, and/or serious, crippling and/or disabling injuries to the face, arms, hands, legs, feet, head, back, shoulders, spine, spinal cord, neck, internal body parts and/or any other body parts.

So, if Joba went to either of these places or to another other trampoline facility, chances are extremely likely that he would have had to sign such a waiver. Why didn't it occur to him, when signing a waiver saying about how you could potentially die or become a quadriplegic from jumping on a trampoline, that perhaps it wasn't the greatest idea in the world to do so?

I have heard people defend Chamberlain for going to a play center, suggesting that he was just being a good dad with his son. Yet he could have just let his son jump on the trampoline, or picked a less dangerous activity to do with his son for that day instead. You can think I'm too judgmental if you want, but I can't get past why an injury-ridden ballplayer recovering from surgery would think that jumping on a trampoline would be a wise decision. This isn't like getting injured by riding the Dumbo kiddie ride at Walt Disney World, after all.

So, I hope Joba fully recovers from the ankle dislocation. But I also hope that he starts taking things more seriously. As much as I think the Derek Jeter worship in this town is over the top, I do appreciate that Derek has always taken care of himself and stayed out of situations that could jeopardize his health and his career. It might do Joba some good to think to himself once in a while, "What would Derek Jeter do?"

What do you think about Joba Chamberlain? Tell us about it!

Why I Find the "Overrated Baseball Players" List Amusing

There was a whole to-do yesterday over four Yankees being named to Sports Illustrated's poll of the Most Overrated MLB players, with Alex Rodriguez, Joba Chamberlain, and Derek Jeter taking the top three spots, and Nick Swisher tying Jayson Werth and Jonathan Papelbon for fourth place.

And for once, A-Rod, the "winner" of the contest voted on by his peers, outdid Derek Jeter, No. 3 on the list, when it came to handling negative attention with a smile and a laugh. For that matter, Joba Chamberlain, who came in second, said all the right things, too. Jeter, not so much.

Here's the scoop. Erik Boland of Newsday describes the scene in the clubhouse yesterday, with Joba, who "won" the title last year, teasing A-Rod about it:

"I lost," Chamberlain proclaimed for the rest of the clubhouse to hear. "I got beat out. No. 2, though...I guess I passed the torch on to Alex."


Upon seeing Rodriguez enter the clubhouse, Chamberlain, surrounded by reporters, yelled at the third baseman.


"You’re next Al, you’re next!"

Here's how A-Rod reacted:

Rodriguez smiled for almost the entirety of the time he spent talking about the anonymous poll.


"I’ve been on this list before," A-Rod said before pausing and taking note of 3/5 of the list comprising Yankees. "So it’s three Yankees? So I’ll see you guys next summer again."


Rodriguez also poked fun at his past reasons for making headlines.


Players vote?


"I’m sure I’ll be on it next summer so I’ll try to come up with some better material for you guys," he said.   "But, I will say this. If this is the only thing we’re talking about, fellas, we’re doing good."

 Here was Jeter's reaction, which wasn't quite so jovial:

Jeter was not close to being amused.


"We're doing this again?" he said. "I have no comment on anonymous polls. I've never understood those anonymous polls."


He added: "It's the same thing they do every year, right? I'm focused on more positive things. How about that? There's your quote."


Discussing his chase of 3,000 hits later on, Jeter amended that.


"Consistency is underrated," he said, putting emphasis on "underrated." "That's the quote."

Jeter usually has the right thing to say, as in saying nothing while saying something, but I thought he came off as really cranky here. This poll, voted on by 185 MLB players, is the quintessential example of the "you're just jealous" sentiment. Yankees win every year (Jeter was just as perturbed when he "won" the honor a few years back), because players are jealous of the attention and money they get.

Jayson Werth is on the list this year because he's making a ton of money with the Washington Nationals, and others are envious of his money. Nick Swisher is on the list because of his fame, endorsements, and probably jealousy about his TV-star wife. I would like to think that Jonathan Papelbon is on the list for being annoying, but his inclusion is most likely about jealousy, too. Any player who is on this list ought to consider it a badge of honor, quite frankly. A-Rod and Chamberlain took it in that spirit, while Jeter was peeved.

At any rate, Jeter's talk of his "consistency" is no longer applicable to his career, unless you consider consistently hitting .257 over the past year, with just seven homers, as a good thing. From the start of his career, until May 31, 2010, he put up the following stats:

.317 BA .387 OBP .458 Slug .845 OPS

Here are his stats from June 1, 2010 through yesterday:

.257 BA .333 OBP .336 Slug .670 OPS

Yikes!

Just Say No to Michael Kay's "JoSoMo" Nickname

I am very excited about the way Joba Chamberlain, Rafael Soriano, and Mariano Rivera are pitching out of the bullpen for the Yankees this year. I am significantly less excited over the possibility of the wretched "JoSoMo" nickname sticking to the trio. Ugh. C'mon, Michael Kay, as if foisting "QuanGorMo" onto Yankee watchers weren't enough, now you come up with JoSoMo? Good grief.

My friend Sully Baseball has been complaining about what a terrible era we're in for baseball nicknames, with the creativity consisting of the first letter of the first name, and the next three letters of the last name (A-Rod, A-Gon, etc.), or shortening the last name (Youkilis becomes Youk, etc.) What Kay is doing is even worse. It's like putting Squawker Jon and I's names together and calling us JoLi. JoSoMo is not a nickname; it's an abomination!

How about something emphasizing the power of three, like Triceratops? Now that's a cool nickname. Three Mile Island -- they're so tough, they're nuclear? Three Ninjas? The Three Kings? The Three Amigos? We could get musical with Three Dog Night or Three Days Grace or Three Doors Down. Or operatic with Threepenny Opera! Heck, even Three Billygoats Gruff would be better than JoSoMo!

Or maybe one of our readers has a better idea for a nickname. Please, somebody must have a better idea than JoSoMo!

* * *

I am going to the Yankee game tonight with Kelly, my childhood friend from Passaic, New Jersey. We haven't seen each other since Reggie Jackson was on the Yankees!

What do you think? Tell us about it!

So What to Do About Joba Chamberlain?

There's been a whole to-do this week about the Yankees and weight. First, CC Sabathia said he lost 25 pounds after he dropped his habit of devouring full boxes of Cap'n Crunch cereal (hey, maybe that's what the CC stands for in his name!) Now Joba Chamberlain admits to packing on a few pounds, but claims it's all muscle. Right.

I'm of two minds about Joba. On the one hand, I think the Yankees did him a tremendous disservice with moving him from the bullpen to the starting rotation and back. And I think it was ridiculous for Brian Cashman to characterize anybody who disagreed with the Yankees' strategy as "stupid."

However, there's also some real questions, I think, about Chamberlain's work ethic. And showing up to spring training packing on a few extra pounds doesn't help. If you're working in a cubicle farm, it doesn't matter how much you weigh. But if you're a professional athlete struggling to keep his job, you might want to take a cue from your veteran teammates and show up in shape. Or at least pitch well enough so that your weight isn't an issue.

When I slammed the Yankees last month for the way they handled Joba, I got a lot of responses from Yankee fans who were angry at Chamberlain for his work ethic, for him not being in shape, etc. and who felt that he was the only one to blame for his predicament.

On the other hand, it seems like the Yanks have let him get away with that for a long time; it's interesting that only now Cashman mentions using the minor league options with Joba when he flat-out last year said they wouldn't do it.

Wally Matthews made a point I have wondered about myself when he wrote:

Fans ask me all the time if the Yankees know something about Joba Chamberlain that the rest of us don't, some unflattering bit of information that makes them continue to treat him as if he is fragile, or unstable, or in some way unreliable.

Clearly, they know the Joba Chamberlain who chose to reveal himself on Wednesday: the 25-year-old who already knows so much about pitching he no longer needs to bother with the little things anymore.

Like getting in shape.

I don't expect to hear the inside story, if there is one, anytime soon, though. Heck, I'm still waiting to hear how A.J. Burnett got that black eye!

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Do you think Yankees messed up Joba Chamberlain? Brian Cashman sez you're "stupid"

I'm really starting to think Brian Cashman contracted Joe Torre Disease this offseason. The symptoms include believing you're bigger than the Yankees, waging a battle in the media against real or perceived enemies in the front office, and thinking that your you-know-what doesn't stink.

Funny thing is, I have agreed with many of Cashman's moves over the years. Don't forget, he traded for Alex Rodriguez and Bobby Abreu and Nick Swisher, and believed in Robinson Cano before anybody else knew who the second baseman was. Cashman's pickup of David Justice won the Yankees the 2000 World Series, and his stealth swoop of Mark Teixeira helped win the Yankees the 2009 title.

All that being said, the GM seems to have made a lot of inexplicable moves and comments as of late. The latest is Cashman's interview with ESPN NY's Wally Matthews, in which he says that anybody who disagrees with the way the team handled Joba Chamberlain is "stupid":

 "Those people are stupid,'' Cashman said of critics of the Yankees' handling of Chamberlain. "It's just an easy, stupid, idiotic thing to say. There's no screwing anything up. That's how Andy Pettitte came in, that's how guys have been broken in for years. They're starters in the minor leagues, they come up and we use them in the 'pen, and eventually they break into the rotation. So what's the problem? I just think it's naïve."

Aside from the fact that it's pretty insulting to suggest that anybody who disagrees with Cashman is "stupid" and "idiotic," Cashman's Pettitte comparison is inaccurate. Do you know how many relief appearances Pettitte made in 1995, before breaking in to the starting rotation? Five. Do you know how many relief appearances Chamberlain made before becoming a starter? 41. Not exactly the same thing. Not to mention that Petttitte was never moved back and forth repeatedly, the way Joba was.

Pettitte, as a rookie with the Yanks, made five relief appearances over seven innings from April 29 to May 13, 2005. The last of the five was 3.1 innings. Pettitte broke into the starting rotation on May 27 of that year and never looked back. Compare and contrast with Chamberlain, who went from reliever to starter to reliever to starter to reliever to competing to be the starter to reliever. It's enough to make your head spin -- and to help mess up a pithcer.

I do think there is more to the story as to why Joba hasn't been the same pitcher he was in 2007. The injury issue -- what Cashman finally acknowledged the other day -- matters, as does him not appearing to have the determination that, say, Cano had to improve his game. The article also mentions rumors about Chamberlain "burning the candle at both ends."

So I'm not saying that all the moving around is the sole reason Joba is no longer Joba. But it is at least part of it. And why Cashman doesn't want to acknowledge any responsibility is infuriating.

Heck, even Joe Girardi, who is also interviewed in the article, says, "I think there can be some confusion for a player when you're bounced around like that." But what does he know? I guess he's just, um, "stupid." Right, Brian?

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Curtis Granderson is something sort of grandish as the Yankees win

The Grandy Man Can! Curtis Granderson has hit three homers in the past two days, and his two-run homer Monday night, combined with Javier Vazquez's great pitching, helped the Yankees win.

I'm glad to see that Granderson is finally hitting - he's .427 in his last six games. The center fielder is an easy guy to root for, between his engaging personality, and all the charity work that he does. Grandy is also a fellow blogger, so how could I not like him!

Granderson was one of Brian Cashman's big acquisitions this winter; Javier Vazquez was the other one. And Javy struggled so much in the first month of the year that he looked like Cashman's Folly. But since then, his ERA has dropped over five runs, and he's pitched more like the Atlanta Braves ace he was last year, and not the hurler Yankee fans remember from October 2004.


Anyhow, Granderson and Vazquez were the two big heroes of the night. But strangely enough, the New York Post didn't see fit to mention either of them on today's back page. Instead, with their cynical "Who Needs 'Em!" headline, Joba Chamberlain and Alex Rodriguez are lumped together as the forces of evil in Yankeeland. See why I complain about the media!

Maybe the Post is just mad that four hours after a headline on a George King blog entry claimed that "Girardi says he is sticking with Joba," Girardi went to Dave Robertson and Boone Logan instead!

As for Joba, I think Girardi is doing the right thing in trying something different. If Joba name were Joe Blow, and not Joba Chamberlain, he would have been demoted a long time ago.


A-Rod, of course, did not hit #600, but he did appear to have a lot of Yankee fans in the house cheering him on. I squawked a lot yesterday about Yankee attendance. As Squawker reader Peggy noted, the Indians have the worst attendance in the majors, averaging around 16K a game. For what it's worth, last night's attendance was 27,224, which ranks third for Cleveland's home game attendance, after Opening Day and Stephen Strasburg's second major league game.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Are you concerned about Joba Chamberlain?

I was a guest on my friend Larry Milian's radio show last Saturday on South Florida radio station WFTL before Old Timers' Day. He also had on CBS-era pitcher Stan Bahnsen on during the same time, so I got the honor of talking baseball with Stan. Here's very knowledgeable on past and present Yankee history, as well as pitching.

Anyhow, we were talking about Joba Chamberlain, and what to do on him. The subject of whether he needed to be sent to the minors came up, with us talking about how doing so has made others straighten up. Anyhow, it was a very interesting discussion. I mentioned about how miserable it was to watch his starts last year - they were so slow-paced - and how I wanted him in the bullpen as time went on. But how he hasn't been the Joba of old in the pen.

It's now a week and a half after this talk. And Joba, who his own peers voted as "Most Overrated" player, got booed by Yankee fans yesterday after giving up that homer to Scott Podsednik. He also was mentioned as being part of a possible Dan Haren trade. And Joe Girardi is still making noise about replacing Chamberlain with Dave Robertson in the eighth inning.

So I'm wondering what readers are thinking. Are you sick of Joba? Do you want him off the team, or in the minors? Do you want him as a starter again?

Personally, I wouldn't be averse to him being sent to the minors, but even then, I don't know if that will solve him. It's all just a mess.

What do you think? Tell us about it!