[新聞] Disabled-list conspiracy theories

看板NY-Yankees作者leddy (耿秋)時間15年前 (2009/05/15 11:22)推噓19(19推 0噓 12→)

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技術性進DL, 再度被ESPN.com Jayson Stark拿出來講, 根本是一種共謀的犯行, 針對小王的部份, 又提到有美聯的GM覺得很不爽, 因為小王被放進DL的前一天, 還在說他自己很健康還要投下一場先發, 結果第二天就被放進DL, 診斷出來的傷勢是"兩邊屁股的內轉肌無力", 其實真正的症狀應該是"ERA腫脹發炎"(那時王的ERA是34.50)。 Cashman解釋說將小王技術性放進DL是不正確的說法, 因為他們沒有將他直接放進DL, 而是先讓他跳過一次先發, 後來去延長春訓時, 治療A-Rod的下盤權威醫師Lindsay, 才診斷出小王有屁股肌肉無力的問題。但令人納悶的是從春訓直到小王被打爆送到延長春訓營投球前, 小王自己, 總教練 Girardi, 還有投手教練Dave Eiland都沒有提到小王身體有什麼毛病, 或是身體那裡有什麼無力的狀況。Cashman的解釋是: "球員有時就跟寵物一樣, 假如他們沒辦法適當或完全地表達他們身體的狀況, 所能作的便是設法猜測他們的身體的狀況到底是怎麼樣?" 寵物...XD... 資料來源: http://sports.espn.go.com/ Disabled-list conspiracy theories Are teams bending the rules? Some DL transactions appear suspicious By Jayson Stark ESPN.com Archive Dontrelle Willis made his dramatic return from the disabled list Wednesday night. And who among us wasn't happy to see him back in the big leagues? Uhhhhh, except, that is, for all those people in baseball who are still trying to figure out how the Detroit Tigers maneuvered him onto the disabled list in the first place. "It was pretty obvious, wasn't it?" said one longtime front-office man. "They invested $29 million in the guy. They had $22 million left. He's a good kid. They'd already eaten [Gary] Sheffield's money. So they needed some extra time to see if they could get the guy straightened out before they went to [Tigers owner] Mike Ilitch and said, 'You've got to eat the rest of it.'" So if you believe the theories of the skeptics around baseball, the Tigers sneakily finagled Willis onto the disabled list with an ailment known as "anxiety disorder." But is that what really went on? Was it really that obvious? The Tigers, naturally, dispute the conspiracy theories that they sneakily finagled anything. (More on that later.) But already this year, we've heard more grumbling about the disabled list -- and the way certain teams have used it -- than we've heard in years. Chien-Ming Wang's hips … Oliver Perez's knee … Willis' anxiety disorder, etc. "I think there's some tremendous creativity now in our game," one National League executive deadpanned. "What I like is the verbiage. We've got some very educated general managers in the game now, and they've come up with some tremendous verbiage to explain these guys' going on the DL. It's just a plot to get everyone to go to Webster's and say, 'What the heck is that?'" OK, no it isn't. But it does generate massive conversation around the sport. And the heart of that conversation boils down to one pivotal issue: When a guy is playing lousy, and nobody says anything for weeks about any aches, pains or swine flu outbreaks, and then he suddenly winds up on the disabled list, is there reason to be suspicious? Are these injuries just remarkably convenient, or are they all legitimate ailments that just look a little funky to the untrained medical eye? "We can't talk about specific cases," MLB's vice president for public relations, Pat Courtney, told Rumblings. "But what we can say is that each DL placement must be supported by sufficient medical evidence, and it has to come from a highly qualified physician." In other words, the commissioner's office is reviewing every case. And doctors are signing every form. And the players in question, their agents and the union have to be on board with every trip to DL purgatory. So why are the conspiracy theories still flying? Let's take a closer look, by examining the three most hotly debated DL placements of the season (so far): Chien-Ming Wang's hips The plotline: On April 25, the Yankees placed Wang -- who, as other clubs keep pointing out, was out of options -- on the DL with what was described as "weakness in the adductor muscles in both hips." The cynics, of course, thought that was a synonym for "inflammation of the ERA" (which was 34.50 at the time). "The day before he went on the DL," said one disgruntled American League exec, "he said, 'I'm healthy. I want to start tomorrow.' And the next day, he was placed on the disabled list. It's a little strange, don't you think?" The Yankees' side of the story: It's never hard to find people in baseball who think the Yankees are trying to get away with something. But in this case, "there's nothing to hide," Yankees GM Brian Cashman emphatically told Rumblings. Initially, Cashman reminds the critics, Wang wasn't even placed on the DL. First, he was skipped in the rotation and sent to Tampa, Fla., to pitch in an extended spring training game for a "mental" break. But after Wang arrived, Cashman said he got a call from Alex Rodriguez, who was also in Tampa rehabbing with Dr. Mark Lindsay, who was described by the GM as a "lower-extremity expert." Cashman told Rumblings: "Alex said, 'Dr. Lindsay says he worked with a runner who had trouble coming back from a Lisfranc fracture [the injury that sidelined Wang last year], and he knows what's wrong with Wang.'" So the Yankees had Lindsay examine Wang. And the report, Cashman said, was that Wang needed to embark on a program to strengthen his ankle, "and he needed to do it now." And only then was he placed on the DL. "So I don't really care what anybody on the outside thinks," Cashman said. "If I have a doctor who tells me a player has to do physical therapy and it could take him up to six weeks to do it, that's not 'convenient.' The fact is, we need our No. 2 starter, but we need to get him right." The dangling question: From spring training right up until Wang journeyed to Tampa, nobody from the Yankees -- not Wang, not manager Joe Girardi, not pitching coach Dave Eiland -- said publicly that Wang had a physical problem or had any weakness related to his previous injury. So if the cynics out there were looking for ammunition, the Yankees provided them with plenty. But Cashman says that's because Wang never told the team he was hurting. "Players are like pets sometimes," the GM said. "If they don't express themselves properly or fully, it's all guesswork trying to figure out what's really going on." Oliver Perez's right knee The plotline: As Perez unfurled one gruesome start after another right after signing a three-year, $36 million contract, the Mets fired away with lots of hypotheses on what might be wrong with him. But none of them included the word "knee." Then, in a whirlwind 48 hours this month, Perez went from a guy who might be headed for the minor leagues to a pitcher who was going to be exiled to the bullpen to a fellow with a knee so hurting he had to go on the disabled list. And don't think the rest of the National League didn't notice how fast that knee flared up. "I'll tell you who should be serving the DL time," one NL exec quipped. "The guys who gave him that contract." The Mets' side of the story: Mets GM Omar Minaya told Rumblings that just because the Mets never talked about Perez's knee issues until the day before he hit the DL doesn't mean they never existed. "He was on our medical reports the whole time," Minaya said. "But it wasn't something where he could not pitch. … If a guy has a problem, these things are not revealed all the time. I don't expect clubs to reveal every little medical problem. They don't have to. And we don't have to." The skeptics keep mentioning that it sure looked funny that it wasn't until after the Mets said Perez was being bounced from the rotation when his knee suddenly became a public topic. But Minaya said that was all a matter of coincidental timing. Perez's final start came on a Saturday, on the road. So "we didn't have [the option to do] an MRI," the GM said. "When we came back home, he got the MRI [the following Monday]. And the MRI revealed the full extent of [the tendinitis]. And that's when we put him on the DL." The dangling question: Minaya says the proof that Perez is legitimately injured is that he didn't go right out on a rehab option, and he hasn't done anything more than long toss. So "if it was a phantom injury, he'd probably have been pitching in one of those [minor] leagues right away," Minaya said. But is that enough to satisfy the conspiracy theorists? Of course not. "When you get into the season, almost everyone has something wrong with him," said an official of one club. "And let's just say if you want to make something of it, you can. So does Oliver Perez's knee hurt? OK, it may hurt. But is that why he's on the DL right now? I'm pretty sure that's not all there is to it." Dontrelle Willis' anxiety disorder The plotline: This case is the most complicated of them all. What the outside world saw this spring was a high-priced pitcher who had a 12.46 spring ERA, allowed 26 baserunners in 8 2/3 innings and couldn't be sent to the minor leagues. Then, just as people were beginning to speculate openly that Willis could be released, the Tigers announced he was being placed on the disabled list with an anxiety disorder. That was confusing enough. But Willis then added to the confusion by revealing that the condition was diagnosed through a blood test. "When Dontrelle said they found it with a blood test, I said, 'Can you do that?'" an official of one club wondered. "If a guy has an anxiety disorder, does it show up in his blood? I never heard of that." The Tigers' side of the story: Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski told Rumblings he knows people on the outside have questioned this. (And sources say other clubs actually called the commissioner's office to raise those questions.) But Dombrowski said sternly, "Be careful. This was very legitimate. This was a very in-depth, in-detail situation. This was not a phantom-DL type thing at all." True, the Tigers never said anything about Willis' condition until he headed for the DL. But the commissioner's office was "aware of this situation for a while," Dombrowski said. "I'm not going to share all the medical information [in public], but this wasn't out of the blue. … We approached them well before we put him on the DL because we knew they'd have to look at this. We gave them very detailed information. "The reality is, this is not a unilateral situation. You just can't place a guy on the disabled list by yourself. It has to get approved by the commissioner's office. In a situation like this, you need to get everything documented by medical experts. They're not going to let you make moves just to make moves. You have to provide all the medical information." The dangling question: It's always a sensitive issue questioning someone who has been publicly identified as having an anxiety disorder. How can any of us ever know, really, what's going on inside anyone's skin? A guy with an anxiety disorder doesn't limp, doesn't wear a cast, doesn't head for the operating table. But on the other hand, Willis' comments have only heightened the skepticism. He said at one point that he's "never depressed." And he said just this week that "I have no condition." So no wonder you hear people from other teams saying stuff like, "I never heard any talk about this before it happened. None. I just saw a guy who had all that money coming. They weren't sure how to get him on the DL. They didn't want to claim it was his arm because they were trying to trade him. And they couldn't put him in the bullpen because he couldn't throw strikes. So it looked funny. That's all." But Dombrowski responded, "If somebody called me into court and said, 'You've got to show me what you have to support this,' I feel very comfortable in saying I could show exactly why we put him on the disabled list.'" The question du jour: Is this cheating? Once upon a time, Braves manager Bobby Cox told Rumblings, these phantom DL crises never were an issue, "because nobody went on the DL unless they had a broken leg." In fact, he said, 30 years ago, players were even afraid to go into the trainer's room out of terror they might wind up on the dreaded "injured list." But times change. And, especially, the figures next to the dollar signs change. So at last look, 162 players were on the disabled list, according to the commissioner's office. Which is a lot more than zero. But, just for perspective's sake, it's actually 18 fewer players than were on the DL at the same stage of last season. Still, is every one of those injuries 100 percent legit? Depends on whom you ask. "What the hell are the Yankees supposed to do with a guy like Wang?" one rival GM asked. "He's 0-3 and giving up 15 [runs] a game. What are the Tigers supposed to do with Dontrelle? They know he can't make the team, so what are you gonna do? They've got millions of dollars invested in the guy. So you put him on the DL, and if the commissioner's office doesn't like it, they can call you a no-good liar." But Brian Cashman said, "I've never once called the commissioner's office and said anybody's injury wasn't legit. If a physician who took an oath is willing to sign the certification, that's good enough for me. I'm not looking to run around questioning what any other team is doing. I don't have time for that." Just because teams don't raise more of a formal stink, though, it doesn't mean that some of these afflictions aren't more, uh, convenient than others. We all know that. "I know they're not all legit," one GM said. "But I'll be honest. I don't find that to be hard-core cheating -- because the player's got to be willing to do it. If the player's willing to go on there, it means the player knows he's not right. Whether it's physical, mental or mechanical, something's wrong -- and there's no other way around the rules." So are we allowed to scratch our heads, arch our brows or even laugh out loud at some of these trips to the DL? Heck, why not? We're just watching the growth, right before our eyes, of another hallowed baseball tradition. "It's kinda like the seventh-inning stretch," one GM said, laughing. "Except it's the seventh-inning oblique stretch." -- ※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 61.225.146.213

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power0727

05/15 11:24, , 1^F

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※ 編輯: leddy 來自: 61.225.146.213 (05/15 11:28)

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OoyaoO

05/15 11:27, , 2^F

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jackselina

05/15 11:28, , 3^F