Balta1701

So far I have no complaints about how they have worked with Schultz. This makes the fact that they are treating Crochet much more aggressively stand out as weird even more as that’s the type of program you put a guy on to build up his arm.

Because MLB is now a maximum effort pitching league, and there’s no reason why AAA needs to be one. He can build up his arm with repetition, improve muscle memory, and do so without having 50 or 60 max effort pitches every game right away. Furthermore, they can use it to control his innings total more easily, they could have used him as a 40-50 pitch 3 inning opener at AAA without having it affect the big league bullpen. This would also have the benefit of limiting his total innings, making it more likely that he will be at a reasonable total of innings in August where he can pitch 5 months of the year rather than 3. You could ramp his arm up much more slowly, with lower effort pitches and more controlled outings at least for the first month or two. With his injury history it sure seems smart. But you also say the quiet part out loud - if he gets hurt, you will say “he was always going to get hurt”. It doesn’t matter how irresponsible Gets and Kats are, you will say that to defend them no matter what they do.

Didn’t you just justifiably complain about someone calling you a name two posts ago? I guess it’s ok as long as you are the one doing it. You’re important and correct.

White Sox: “we’re going to make Crochet a starter”. Us: “that’s great just bring him along slowly” Getz and Kats: “no”. WE: “they just know what they’re doing, as long as they have an innings limit on him or about 100”. Getz and Kats in July when he’s close to 90 innings: “Now let’s burn rubber baby!” WE: in July: “well he’s been so successful in the first half let’s keep going, they must know what they’re doing.”

Well you see if that wasn’t true then that would make Katz and Getz irresponsible, and since we know that they are excellent at their jobs it must be true that he threw innings somewhere else. The important thing is that we know the leadership has done a great job. No I didn’t write this post in 2014, why do you ask?

No he won’t. it doesn’t matter if he’s the best pitcher in the league in the first half, no one will believe he can keep it up for 150 innings followed by a playoff run. He probably can’t. Next year - certainly possible.

By gradually building up their arms and technique both before and after the injury? Come on, seriously, how many pitchers can you count who have thrown under 250 innings total including college, the minors, and the majors, over 6 seasons, who are being treated as a normal starter? I would be surprised if the answer in the last 20 years is more than 1.

I only wanted the ABC link.

And then Tony LaRussa insisted on having him in the 2022 bullpen, and Tony LaRussa insisted on having him in the 2023 bullpen, because there’s no way anyone else could have made that decision.

As has been pointed out, the average time for a pitcher to make their first appearance is just under 18 months. No big league pitcher has come back from TJS in that short of a period and thrown more than about 10 innings since 2019 as far as I could find. What's actually ironic is that in January 2023, I wrote clearly that there was a smarter plan for Crochet - sending him to the minors, bringing him along slowly, and I specifically predicted that the White Sox would do the exact opposite, rush him back by May and he'd wind up just like one of the guys who threw under 10 innings. It could never have been more obvious how it was going to go. It

While driving home last night I heard Chuck interviewed by Buster Olney on ESPN Radio and one of the things Buster said was, to paraphrase "often when you hear about clubhouse issues they're minor or blown up, but from what I heard last year in Chicago those issues were real and they were bad." Even the national guys got that part of the story.

Because Rick Hahn irresponsibly tried to rush him back to save his bullpen 13 months from Tommy John surgery.

Pre injury, he had thrown 2165.2 major league innings.

Yes, their objective is to win baseball games. Hurting Garret Crochet this year again rather than bringing him along slowly would hinder that. A trainer can also plan ahead and anticipate potential issues in the long run. This is why guys get off days even if they aren't hurt. If you go to your trainer and outline how immediately you want to get off the couch and start a 4 hour a day weightlifting routine where every day you are doing max weight reps, your trainer is going to say "This is stupid" and if they're an actual coach for the organization you work for, they will prevent you from doing so.

The physical trainer expert here has said 80 innings as a goal the whole offseason. At the pace of yesterday, he'd get there in June. I think they would probably like to push him beyond that, and I wouldn't complain about doing so, but I would have insisted they bring him along more slowly than the White Sox just did, with harder pitch limits and more rest especially in April. I would like to think that, if they were responsible and gave him a few breaks for fatigue or time in the minors they could push him to 125-ish innings and keep him around for most of the year, but with their actions early this season I have no idea what they actually will try to do. They may treat him as a normal starter and just figure they can put him on the IL once he feels pain.

But take what you say and turn it the other way. If the White Sox would have been better off limiting Crochet to 50-60 pitches for the first month and building up slowly to 100, and they don't do that, and then he gets hurt - how many people are going to say "Damn they were irresponsible again" versus "oh well I guess he couldn't' handle it"? Almost everyone is going to say the latter, even if the former were true. And second - yes, it is absolutely the coaches and athletic trainers jobs to know body mechanics, pitching, rehab, and recovery schedules more than an athlete. We know this from every sport, elite athletes will push themselves as hard as they can without recognizing where it puts their body's long term health at risk. NFL players will push themselves to get back on the field through concussions. Baseball players will ignore the pain in their elbow. This is a clear part of an effective coach's job and of an effective organization's job. Reynaldo Lopez in his opening year felt something a little weird in his elbow. The trainers came out, he said he was fine, they went in. Jose Abreu walked to the mound, asked him what was up, he said he felt something weird, Abreu immediately called the trainers back out, they took him out and he went on the 10 day IL just to make sure something small didn't turn into something big. While the trainers needed to do a better job, this was Jose Abreu being the adult in the room and not letting his 23 year old starter overexert himself and hurt himself long term. The correct person in this scenario was Abreu.

No, but I believe it could easily take 2 full years for a pitcher to build up an arm from being a reliever to a starter. I also believe that true TJS recovery to get back to the point where the body can handle pitching at all takes 18 months, unless this new technique changers things. TJS followed by building up the arm of a guy who has never been a starter before definitely seems to be a 3 to 4 year managed process.

There is no version of "arm rehabilitation" that is a substitute for throwing in actual baseball games, and there's no way on Earth he got his arm in any sort of condition in 2023. They pushed him way too hard because Rick Hahn needed him to save his bullpen and that caused shoulder inflammation - in what was absolutely the most predictable series of events I have ever seen in my life. He has to throw in actual baseball games regularly to build up his arm. This process will not be completed this year, it probably won't even be completed next year. Using him as a starter and seeing him have some success is step 1 in this, however the only reason I can't say "I'm surprised they are using him this aggressively with 87 pitches on opening day" is that I'm so used to having them do super reckless things with Garret Crochet already that not surprising at all. Perhaps baffling is a better word.

They're going to push him to like 80 pitches unless he's getting shelled.

No, they have only 1 scheduled Offday before April 11. They will need their 5th starter soon unless there’s a rainout. They wrote that they would do something stupid like pitch Crochet on normal rest in game 5 and call up the 5th starter for game 6, rather than giving Crochet extra rest (obviously with his history as a reliable innings eater he doesn’t need an extra Offday betweeen any of his first 3 starts).

And sacrifice the vital element of surprise?

Y'all be writing that without realizing that this is the official policy of the White Sox. Both in game and front office.