Chavez has a Torn ACL
Geoff Baker with the story. Not only is the anterior cruciate ligament torn, but it’s possible that there’s further damage to the other ligaments and a bone fracture. Great.
Baker also notes that Zduriencik has made the call that Saunders not be called up. They want to see him play more in Tacoma, and given the shoulder surgery at the end of last year and the slow start to June, along with the usual arbitration clock concerns, that’s a reasonable decision. Left field will be manned by Wlad, with guest appearances by Cedeno and Griffey.
In the meantime, Josh Wilson, who was picked up off waivers from the Padres earlier in the week, will take the spot on the roster until Lopez comes off the bereavement list, and then they’ll have to decide which of their infielders is heading out.
Update from Baker: MCL torn too, meniscus damaged, deep bone bruise, probably out to start 2010. For a player whose game is speed-reliant, it’s difficult to fully characterize how much this sucks.
Another trade chip gone…great…
Typically when the ACL is torn, the MCL frequently tends to go with it.
FUUUUUUDGE. That’s about the worst news possible from a collision like that. I’d rather he just fractured his tibia or fibia. Friggin knee injuries never go away.
I wonder if they’ve considered bringing up Prentice Redman from Tacoma. He’s hitting .305/.370/.545 with 11 home runs and is an actual outfielder. Just sayin’.
This makes Yuni about -1 win player automatically right?
Endy is a +1 so far through the season so in the rest of the season we could assume Endy would have been worth about 1 more win.
Yuni is killing me, you could see Endy yelling to call it and its clearly his catch. Yuni needs to realize Raul isn’t out there anymore and he has outfielders who can cover that ground.
By the way Endy looked I assumed it was something torn, I woke up today waiting for the bad news.
Redman is a possibility. He’s in his physical prime and if a team wanted to eke out a few wins taking advantage of that, it might be a good move. However, the org still seems to be trying to determine what Wlad’s worth to the organization is and they may continue playing him until time comes for a Saunders call-up. Redman’s window of opportunity is rather small.
Sad thing is, it might take a DFA to make him realize it.
Meanwhile…well, crap.
A bit of downer that Saunders wasn’t called up, but at least he is safe from Betancourt in Tacoma.
Can we just make Yuni a utility player? He has the speed (and desire) to catch flies in the outfield. We can benefit from cutting back his his ABs. That way we don’t fully give up on him and sink the cost of his contract.
Do you have to blame Yuni for this? It was a crappy accident and I feel awful for Endy but it wasn’t anyone’s fault.
Betancourt by himself just through playing is worth -1.3 wins so far this year, so that puts him over -2.5 for the season as a whole. If you assume Endy would be worth another +1, that’s -3.5 Wins. So Betancourt (assuming he plays out the year) looks to cancel out the combined contribution of Beltre and Griffey for the entire year. If they released him now, the damage he’s already done will likely wipe out Gutierrez’s value for the year.
Seriously, Betancourt might very well have curtailed Endy’s career. There’s a long list of athletes (starting with USSM fav Chris “Doyle” Snelling) who were diminished by ACL injuries and never regained their potential even when they were able to return to the field.
There is a protocol. Normally the guy going back on the ball defers to the guy coming in on the ball, assuming he was calling for it. In the replay it certainly looked like Endy was calling for it. He might’ve called late (it’s hard to tell), but hearing that call very close by is all the more reason for Yuni to break off. This wasn’t like the Cameron-Beltran collision where two outfielders were converging horizontally into the gap.
Yes, it was an accident… but it was a preventable accident.
Yes. I talked to a friend with left-field line season tickets and he could hear Endy screaming for the ball. If Yuni was paying any goddamned attention and kept his head out of his bum, he would have been nowhere near there.
I was on the left field line too! Both players were calling for it.
my first thought …
Hmmm…just thinking how long it took Carlos Guillen to really recover from his torn ACL in 1999…
Assigning blame on the Yuni/Endy play is a futile exercise. Maybe technically one is supposed to call off the other. But in the heat of the moment in no man’s land, both men’s actions are understandable, and it strikes me as one of those unfortunate accidents that just happens.
As for who to call up… Zduriencik says that he wants to see more from Saunders before electing to calling him up, and given he has all of 295 career PAs in Tacoma coming into tonight (thanks in part to his shoulder injury), that’s understandable. He’s having a good year but not exactly an Adam Jones of 2007 blow-away ‘You must call me up’ sort of year.
I agree with Jay on Redman. He gives you only so much, but he could help the team as a 4th OF and is an option… but basically just that. He’s an option for the starting spot only if you think Wlad can’t hack it, if Griffey’s too much of a defensive liability over his offense to warrant it, if Bryan LaHair isn’t a better option, etc etc. He’s the NFL playoffs 3rd/4th tiebreaker of LF and/or 4th OF options.
For a player who turns 32 before next season, this could be a career-ender.
Aside from that, it must hurt like hell.