Last year was such a confluence of good fortune. Most of our minor leaguers performed well, a better percentage than we could reasonably expected excelled. Injuries seemed, to me, to be few and those guys who started off the year injured seemed to make progress during the year. The Guardians had, I think, the fewest days on the IL of any team in the majors.
Then the reality of sports, especially professional sports, starteed early this spring training.
Cody Morris - Injured lat. We will see how that plays out. The hope is that, as in some cases in the past, the Guardians in-the-abundance-of-caution philosophy will lead to a short recovery period.
Then came today:
Daniel Espino - Pain in his shoulder...again. You see, the Guardians are so hush-hush, maybe due to HIPAA, when a player is injured. First it was his knee last year. Then that morphed into it being his shoulder...then silence. Some videos of him doing strength training this winter. But no throwing. Then came the word: discomfort in his shoulder and, after imaging, some damage was found. At least 8 weeks out from starting baseball activities. Not good. Experts drank the kool-aid, ranking him as our #1 prospect and one of the top 20 in baseball. Not happening, at least not right now.
Chase DeLauter - If I wasn't so mad at him and so ticked off about how his first draft had screwed the Guardians, I would almost feel sorry for Scott Barnsby. He gambled that he got a steal, totally disregarding DeLauter's injury which didn't allow him to go full out before the draft AND the fact that he was eaten up early in the season, before the injury by college lefties. I do feel sorry for DeLauter as the reports make it appear that the surgery they did may have resulted in creating a problem somewhere else in the same foot. Another surgery, another 4-5 months wasted. Remember when the put in the wrong size rod in Matt Whitney's leg? These surgeons have to be better than this. The only good news for DeLauter is that he is closer to the majors than the 16-year old international signees are, meaning he still has time to put himself in a good position to get put on the 40-man roster close to the time he is ready for the majors (as opposed to Brito and Noel) But right now, Barnsby looks like an idiot for taking this chance and, adding the scouting reports on the rest of his draftees, it looks like he doesn't know what he is doing. Hey, this may turn out well but, on paper, we may be in real trouble in terms of our 2022 draft. Small market teams cannot do this, especially when it was obvious there were guys who were as or more talented and made more sense for the organization in the first 5 rounds or so.
Hey, it's baseball and it's early and more injuries can pop up or injuries that are left over from the last year or appeared over winter workouts can be reported like they were for Espino and DeLauter. We just have to all hope that these reports will be few and far between and our top prospects will continue on an accelerated learning path and be in Cleveland helping the Guardians win sooner rather than later AND that we will have a whole bunch of guys come out of the woodwork this year like Tanner Bibee did last year.
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