Michael Pineda has a torn labrum; shoulder surgery scheduled

By Craig CalcaterraApr 25, 2012, 4:56 PM EDT
60 Comments

Some pretty bad news for the Yankees’ young starter, who had an MRI yesterday:

Jon Heyman just tweeted that the tear is “pretty severe.”

The labrum — which is in the shoulder — is not a good injury for a pitcher to have. Indeed, Tommy John surgery can represent less of a long term risk to a pitcher than severe shoulder injuries can. His season is definitely over at the very least.

In the wake of a Jon Paul Morosi article assessing the Jesus Montero-Michael Pineda trade there was a lot of back and forth on Twitter this morning talking about just how premature such assessments were. I agree that, given how much control the Yankees have over Pineda — five years at this point — it is kind of crazy to declare a trade winner. But man, this is not the way anyone in New York wanted things to start out.

UPDATE:  Let’s head one conspiracy theory off at the pass:

UPDATE II: Grant Brisbee has a rundown of some past horror stories — and success stories — involving pitchers who had torn labrums.

Jim Crane thought the heat over sign-stealing would blow over by spring training

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By Craig CalcaterraFeb 20, 2020, 3:57 PM EST
13 Comments

The Astros’ sign-stealing story broke in November, a steady drumbeat of coverage of it lasted through December and into January, when Rob Manfred’s report came out about it. The report was damning and, in its wake, Houston’s manager and general manger were both suspended and then fired.

After that a steady stream of media reports came out which not only made the whole affair seem even worse than Manfred’s report suggested, but which also suggested that, on some level, Major League Baseball had bungled it all and it was even worse than it had first seemed.

Rather than Manfred and the Astros putting this all behind them, the story grew. As it grew, both the Red Sox and Mets fired their managers and, in a few isolated media appearances, Astros’ players seemed ill-prepared for questions on it all. Once spring training began the Astros made even worse public appearances and, for the past week and change, each day has given us a new player or three angrily speaking out about how mad they are at the Astros and how poorly they’ve handled all of this.

Why have they handled it so poorly? As always, look to poor leadership:

Guess not.

In other news, Crane was — and I am not making this up — recently named the Houston Sports Executive of the Year. An award he has totally, totally earned, right?