Article: Elephant in the Room: Sano's Elbow

[Nick Nelson]

You can view the page at http://www.twinsdaily.com/content.php/2598-Elephant-in-the-Room-Sano-s-Elbow

[twinscowboysbulls]

In other words, more precaution should've taken place in July, perhaps recognized he needed to get surgery then, meaning he would be in his 6th month of recovery right now? If there were concerns about his elbow, there is no way they should've sent him to DWL, which means he must've appeared to make a full recovery from his initial soreness/fatigue. Not sure if the Twins Medical staff is to blame here.

[twinsfan34]

You would think, they'd like to find out as soon as possible for this. If he needs the surgery, have it immediately, maybe get some action in July, Aug, or Sept for him so the entire year isn't lost.

 

Hate thinking about this.

[Mike Sixel]

And this is one of many reasons why you can't build your entire philosophy around waiting for your prospects to work out all at the same time.......because there usually isn't a perfect storm of "every prospect working out" and "the one FA I need is available"....

[Thrylos]

Roberto Alomar

Jay Buhner

Jose Canseco

Shin-Soo Choo

Carl Crawford

Rafael Furcal

Luis Gonzalez

Jose Guillen

Todd Hundley

et al.

Had TJ surgery and recovered pretty nicely.

Lets hope that this is nothing as far as Sano goes.

[Lefty]

I wonder if they shut him down as just a precautionary thing? I would think that if they looked at it and gave him a "clean bill of health" that it probably is clean. I don't think they'd take any chances on "The Future." If not, they're not doing him any favors by making him wait until spring training to find out.

 

I also don't wanna think about this! Ever since starting to log on and read on twinsdaily I find myself staring at prospects and wondering what we'll be like down the road. It's exciting to think of these prospects as being Cabrera and Trout in 2016, but they're just prospects at this point. I wish I could get more excited about the big league club right NOW.

[COtwin]

Part of me wants them to decide to just do the surgery now. My nightmare for this is that they wait a couple more months before pulling out the blades. This shouldn't be that hard to diagnose. There should be lots of data on how injuries like this heal and what to expect. If this type of injury has any tendency to linger if surgery is not performed than he should get cut now. If they do perform surgery in a couple of months than somebody(s) need to look for other lines of work.

[jmlease1]

The Twins medical staff has done nothing in the past seasons to inspire confidence in their decision-making, so Sano's elbow makes me incredibly nervous. how many times have they botched one?!?

 

Ugh.

[TheLeviathan]

I feel like I've heard this version of events before.......which means his operation should happen in July of 2015 after extensive rest and rehab.

 

Something like that.

[Lenny Green]

Given Sano's hitting prowess and the fact it might not be clear what to do with the elbow, why not exclusively DH him for the first few months? No throwing at all allowed for some time, then get surgery after the year if it doesn't get better.

[Halsey Hall]

I'd think if there is continuing pain we'd know about it pretty soon. He's working out in the weight room now under the eyes of Perry C. and other trainers. If they spot something he would be shut down.

[Seth Stohs]

The Twins medical staff has done nothing in the past seasons to inspire confidence in their decision-making, so Sano's elbow makes me incredibly nervous. how many times have they botched one?!?

 

Ugh.

 

I may be mis-remembering, but didn't Sano go visit Dr. Andrews, and he basically recommended how the Twins move forward... check him in December, check him in January, go from there? Can't really blame the Twins medical staff, though it is fun, I guess.

[JB_Iowa]

I may be mis-remembering, but didn't Sano go visit Dr. Andrews, and he basically recommended how the Twins move forward... check him in December, check him in January, go from there? Can't really blame the Twins medical staff, though it is fun, I guess.

 

He saw Andrews sometime before November: http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20131107&content_id=63767074&fext=.jsp&vkey=news_milb

 

 

Not sure when or if he has seen him since.

 

Always have to remember that even though a lot of medicine is science, there is still some art involved as well.

[Craig Arko]

I'm waiting on the article predicting the amputation.

[cmathewson]

Thing A has happened 9 out of 10 times. Ergo, thing A is going to happen this time. Faulty logic.

[Jim Crikket]

Sano not being a pitcher makes this a whole different thing, I think. Like it or not, the accepted medical approach for this kind of strain/spran/stretch of the UCL appears to be rest-recheck-throw and if all else fails, do surgery. You may skip some of the process for a pitcher who would have perhaps twice the recovery time, but for a position player, I don't think you rush to surgery.

 

Honestly, even if the doctors decided right now that surgery is likely to be needed, I think I'd rather have Sano start spring training and try to get a couple of months of baseball in at AA-AAA, even if it's almost all at DH. Then he could have surgery in June-July and still be good to go to open 2015 spring training. That seems preferable to me over doing surgery now and essentially losing his entire 2014 of development at the plate against high-minors pitching.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Thing A has happened 9 out of 10 times. Ergo, thing A is going to happen this time. Faulty logic.

 

Except for that time it didn't happen to Alex Meyer and everyone predicted it would.

[cmathewson]

Except for that time it didn't happen to Alex Meyer and everyone predicted it would.

 

That was the 10th time. The other 9:

 

Mays, Milton, Liriano, Neshek, Blackburn, Slowey, Gibson, Wimmers, Deduno

 

Milton was a knee and Deduno was a shoulder. But the other seven were UCLs.

[johnnydakota]

Just move Mauer to 3rd now ....

[B Richard]

I feel as though TR has the tendency to speak rather conservatively or cautiously at times (and rightly so, I do appreciate his methodical approach). This was one of those instances.

 

Here's what's important. We have no reason, as of now, to be any more alarmed about his elbow than we did when he got shut down in winter ball. If anything, we should be more optimistic given that he received a clean bill of health in mid December. This next check is part of the program he is on-- it is NOT a reaction to any newfound or recent tweaks. Everything is going according to plan. Perhaps he will require TJ, but we have no reason to suspect that more than we did at the beginning of December.

[twinsfan34]

I'm waiting on the article predicting the amputation.

 

 

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha

[Kwak]

Gosh, practicing medicine over the internet is difficult!

[orangevening]

I'm waiting on the article predicting the amputation.

 

Total arm replacement could be named "Miguel Sano surgery"

[TwinsAce]

I guess I'm not sure what the big deal is. Sano is not a pitcher.

Now if we were talking about a wrist problem...then I'd be worried. Or an amputation.

[jimbo92107]

Just move Mauer to 3rd now ....

 

Same thought occurred to me. May not be fair to Mauer, but if anybody on this team could do it, Joe Mauer could learn to play 3rd base in a couple months, where most guys might not ever be able to do it.

 

My bigger question would be, can Sano learn 1st base at the MLB level?

[Halsey Hall]

Mauer could play 3rd base right now. He takes hundreds of ground balls every spring at 3rd and doesn't miss. I was kind of surprised they didn't move him there and bring back Morneau. Sano is the reason he's at first.

[Thrylos]

Mauer could play 3rd base right now. He takes hundreds of ground balls every spring at 3rd and doesn't miss. I was kind of surprised they didn't move him there and bring back Morneau. Sano is the reason he's at first.

 

Hear me for a second. First and third (and short and second) are different beasts. First is the second closest position to a catcher in the respect that people throw you balls at a fast speed (sometimes off target) that you have to catch and maybe tag someone. Third, short and second, you have to knock them down and throw them. You rarely throw a ball at catcher, you rarely throw a ball at first. Second and short, you catch double plays. Third, not that much.

 

No Sano.

[OldManWinter]

Worry, worry, worry ...

[jokin]

Hear me for a second. First and third (and short and second) are different beasts. First is the second closest position to a catcher in the respect that people throw you balls at a fast speed (sometimes off target) that you have to catch and maybe tag someone. Third, short and second, you have to knock them down and throw them. You rarely throw a ball at catcher, you rarely throw a ball at first. Second and short, you catch double plays. Third, not that much.

 

No Sano.

 

Same thought occurred to me. May not be fair to Mauer, but if anybody on this team could do it, Joe Mauer could learn to play 3rd base in a couple months, where most guys might not ever be able to do it.

 

My bigger question would be, can Sano learn 1st base at the MLB level?

 

 

 

A good third baseman is somewhat like a hybrid of quick reaction times and proper angles taken by a hockey and soccer goalie combined with a strong and quick-releasing arm, plus the familiarity and comfort of a catcher going both deep into foul territory to cover foul pops and pouncing on dead fair balls in the no man's land between third and home. No reason Mauer can't do this, and do it well.

 

The Sano situation should certainly give pause to the braintrust to fully consider their options in the intermediate and longer-term. Perhaps a reconsidertion of the Mauer-Plouffe platoon option with Mauer DHing against LHP? This of course would open up the spot at 1B, which invites speculation to more strongly reconsidering signing Kendrys Morales at First on a part time basis with Colabello (Morales is 103 OPS pts. better hitting left over right-handed and Morales very likely isn't up to playing in the field for 150+ games, although he did play 152 games at 1st for the Angels in 2009)....or considering the dreaded Parmelee/Colabello tandem.

 

With the Morales option, when Sano is finally here for good, he can fairly seamlessly slide into 1st with Morales DHing full-time, or if Sano is able with his arm, move Mauer back to 1st, Sano to 3rd, Morales still DHing full-time, Plouffe Super-UTIL. Solves some of the short-term offensive woes and doesn't obstruct the long-term offensive goals, either.

[cmathewson]

Gosh, practicing medicine over the internet is difficult!

 

So is scouting baseball players, and a thousand other disciplines that rely on experts. In all these disciplines, we're finding that the wisdom of experts is full of biases and an over-reliance on gut instincts and intuition over data-driven reasoning. This is where the Internet, and the machines that can make sense of the data therein, is a huge benefit to society.

 

Sabermetrics may not benefit society, but it has changed the way we understand the game. It no longer suffices to rely on gut instinct alone. At the very least, we need to check these intuitions against data.

 

We have similar data science in medicine. Watson is a computer that is better than any human medical diagnostician because he can use the massive data stores on the Internet and superhuman reasoning power to more accurately diagnose patients, and provide treatment recommendations.

 

We are not Watson. But we can recognize patterns of faulty diagnoses and treatment. Perhaps ligament injuries are just difficult to diagnose and treat. But it sure seems like this org has struggled where other orgs have not as much. It deserves more study. I am writing this comment because I object to rejecting this study out of hand.