The Cardinals and Injuries

But I really don’t think there’s much anyone can do about it that’s not already being done. As much as we (myself included) like to harp on Dr. Paletta and the medical staff every time one of our guys goes down, it’s not really their fault. If it ever was, they would be sued for malpractice. Doctors don’t make huge mistakes that often, especially on high-profile athletes.

What would be more revealing is if there were a specific injury that was common just to the cardinals over the past few years. Or maybe even a comparison between the number of injuries to starters of all teams in baseball over the past couple of years. After all, anyone that pretends to know why the cards have been injured a lot lately is kidding themselves, so opinions on the subject are next to worthless unless coming from an organizational insider.

a lot of injuries over the past few years, I don’t think we can put the blame on anyone. Baseball is a sport that wears you down. These guys play 162 game seasons, they have spring training, and some play in winter ball. Not to mention, the World Baseball Classic is going to add games under their belts, but ST is being adjusted to accomodate this.

Other teams have injuries just like we do. Look at the Dodgers this year: Furcal, Nomar, Pierre, and A. Jones all missed significant time. The Braves: C. Jones, Hudson, Smoltz, Glavine, and Hampton all hurt at some point.

Basically, what I’m saying is injuries happen. Players take precautions (it’s not like they aren’t out there stretching before every game and warming up) The medical staff does the best job it can to prevent them, but sometimes injuries are just inevitable.

aren’t the only team that suffers with injuries,

take the nats for example, Ryan Zimmerman, Nick Johnson (their main 3-4 hitters) were basically lost for almost the entire season, Chad Cordero (superb closer) lost for the whole season, Guzman was injured, Dimitri Young Injured, Belliard injured, Estrada, Paul Lo Duca were injured. And their main guys they traded for in the offseason, Lastings Milledge, Elijiah Dukes were injured at some point in the season. Wily Mo Pena was injured, Austin Kearns spent time on the DL, Shawn Hill (great starter when he’s healthy) was off and on with injuries, they got rid of patterson cuz of how often he’s been injured the last 3 years.

They basically played with AA or AAA guys for a majority of the season which explained their pathetic win total compared to 07 (still bad, but it’s the nats) but this also explained why they never had offense.

So don’t get angry if ludwick, pujols, glaus, ankiel, etc go down with an injury at some point because everyday players play 140+ games a season and it’s just more opportunities for them to get injured.

While the Cards’ problems may be above average, they aren’t too far above the mean.

Also, do you blame your mechanic when your car breaks down? Maybe if he tried to fix it the first time, but generally not.

“Truthfully, I believe that the organization is going after too many reclamation projects at once. I think that they are relying too heavily on TLR and Duncan’s past and not enough on getting capable bodies to play the field and take the mound every day.”

I certainly agree with this.

You can have some hope of fixing head case reclamation projects (but there’s always going to be a Kip Wells), but mechanics-induced reclamation projects are a much tougher deal. Also, Dunc can improve a guy’s approach, what pitches he throws, and how he throws them, but he really isn’t in a position to fix a guy’s mechanics (because that is a very big task).

The real answer is, as the Cards seem to be doing of late, to draft for good mechanics.