How Following the Mauer Usage Model Could Produce an MVP Season for Buxton

[JD-TWINS]

3 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

I was sleeping during med school so I am in no way qualified to make these type of decisions. 

However... I can't help but consider the possibility that a trip to the DL in April or May last year may have been another option for load management with better results in the end. . Keep in mind that I haven't seen his medicals nor would I know what they mean if I did. 

The result of the load management efforts to keep him off the DL last season didn't work because he was placed on the DL for an extended period of time despite efforts to avoid that. 

So we got the extended DL time that they were trying to avoid plus the preventative days off that he could have played and we also (I assume) got a lesser version of Buxton due to not being 100% when he did play.

It seems that we maximized his time off and minimized his performance this way.  

I can't help but wonder if he shouldn't have been DL'd back in May instead. Maybe got him back closer to 100% after X many days of consecutive rest and rehab required on the DL. 

I don't know... It just seems that last year's plan didn't work.

If healthy play him... when not... DL him.  

 

Didn’t work because he hurt his knee and needed a procedure & rest. Can’t do that in May if you’re still hitting the baseball well. He played off & on while continuing to help the offense………didn’t work in ‘22 because he was injured. He played 2nd most games in a season last year. Only played over a hundred games once! ‘22 wasn’t his first year being hurt.

Need to try & load manage from the jump this year to TRY and extend his health and get more at bats. “Putting him out there until he’s hurt…….” hasn’t been real positive historically.

[Riverbrian]

31 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

Didn’t work because he hurt his knee and needed a procedure & rest. Can’t do that in May if you’re still hitting the baseball well. He played off & on while continuing to help the offense………didn’t work in ‘22 because he was injured. He played 2nd most games in a season last year. Only played over a hundred games once! ‘22 wasn’t his first year being hurt.

Need to try & load manage from the jump this year to TRY and extend his health and get more at bats. “Putting him out there until he’s hurt…….” hasn’t been real positive historically.

You could be right. I won't argue. 

I'm willing to give Byron, the front office and the medical staff the benefit of the doubt.

From everything I've read about needing 4 hours of prep just to play one game certainly deserves my respect and I will certainly give that to Byron... I'm certainly not knocking him. I wish him the all the health my wishes will provide him. 

I'm sure it was a hard decision on what to do because he was hitting the ball. The surgery to fix the knee would have knocked him out for 6 to 8 weeks that's a long time.  

But that hitting the ball did stop. Injury related... I don't know but he wasn't hitting the baseball in May. He had a 3 for 45 stretch dropping him from .290 to .202. He produced a .610 OPS in May. 

Reports are that the knee injury probably led to the hip injury that shut down his season eventually.

Hindsight is easy... and it's really easy when I have no responsibility whatsoever. All I can do is speculate and wonder. I do defer ultimately to the people with the information but I also wonder if they second guess themselves privately. 

[USAFChief]

"Don't play him because he might get hurt and then he won't play. Have him sit out games so he doesn't have to sit out games." 

There's a logic flaw there somewhere.  Can't put my finger on it, but I sense it.

[The_Phantom]

70/15/15 is an absolute pipe dream. 
 
last year they were incredibly cautious to “avoid injury time” and it was 31%CF/22%DH/47%Off day. Well I guess 43% off day and 4% late game substitution.

To think you’re gonna go from 31/22/47 to 75/15/15 is crazy 

[Ricky Vaughn]

I get wanting to keep him healthy, but most of his injuries haven't been caused by wear and tear. Concussions, broken hand and foot, migraines, crashing into the wall. Last year was really the first of what I would call a wear and tear injury. His knee hurt when the season began last year. Was it caused because he pushes so hard in the off season that he never gets a chance to heal?