El Duque can pass his physical? Shades of Sirotka?!? I'm sure reachin here...but just wondered that this morning.

well here in the afternnon I feel he will be fine... He has not pitched since OCT.

Sirotka may have been damaged goods but the trade still went through. I don't have much doubt that Duque won't pass his physical.

well here in the afternnon I feel he will be fine... He has not pitched since OCT.

 

that's not the type of things they'll look for in a physical. It will be things like how loose the joint capsule is and the structural integreity of the the labrum. These are things that rest doesn't help. Sirotka's injury was structural where the labrum was partially torn from the joint.

 

That being said, he should pass the physical as these weren't the types of problems he was having last year.

Here's the deal. You can find enough scar tissue and such in any veteran pitchers arm/shoulder to halt a trade due to a failed physical. The thing is, all teams know this. Most of the time, they're just checking out the shoulder/elbow for risk management reasons.

 

In this trade, however, El Duque's healthy is not going to be the deciding factor in whether the deal goes through... The D'Backs don't care about El Duque. They just got El Duque as the free prize in the bottom of the box of Chris Young. They know El Duque's not 100% and is not a good candidate to throw more than 100 innings. That's why they got him. If he was going to throw 200 innings, his contract would be far too expesive from their point of view.

 

In other words. This trade is final.