Mets closer Edwin Diaz likely done for the season celebrating WBC victory
LandrysFedora
Posts: 2,133 ✭✭✭✭✭
in Sports Talk
This was just a freak injury suffered by Diaz celebrating a huge WBC victory for Puerto Rico. It was nothing from play on the field. And now the Mets electric closer is likely out for the season. A huge blow to the Mets and their fans. Some critics are now coming out criticizing the WBC for this. I say it has nothing to do with the WBC and just a freak thing that could of happened anywhere. I personally love watching the WBC. The games in Miami had an electric atmosphere! They had a weeks worth of Marlins fan attendance numbers for each individual game played there! What do you guys think? Yes or no to the WBC going forward? Maybe move it to another time of the year (November?)
0
Comments
Youd see even more injuries in November. Aside from the cold youve had guys that played a full year and are in recovery mode by then. It would be an extra long season for playoff guys and guys the missed the playoffs would be trying to instantly ramp up after a month off. Theres really only two choices spring training, or let guys leave their teams during the season to do it which is very unlikely. Its unfortunate hes done for the year with surgery but guys get hurt in spring training all the time as well and theres several other pitchers that are needing TJ surgery already from the spring. Freak accidents like that were probably going to happen at some point one way or another
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
I agree that freak accidents can happen anywhere that's why I don't blame the WBC. The way I see this going forward is that gm's are going to start putting clauses in contracts to protect their interests ($$$)
call me absolutely crazy, but why on God's glorious and grandiose green earth is there a world baseball classic being played a couple of weeks before the regular season commences
it's like every single individual associated with this dying sport was born under a rock
hey let's stick a guy on second who didn't merit being there...............now let's add a shot clock.................and now let's have a big ass international tournament right before the MLB season starts
would someone please douse baseball with gasoline and light a match already
you'll never be able to outrun a bad diet
Most teams try and block certain players from going but some players have enough leverage to go. The Mets couldnt say no to Diaz while letting Lindor play either. The Latin guys really take it seriously and enjoy playing with their countries name on their jersey and this is much more than an exhibition to them unlike the Americans.
Contracts like Diaz and especially Lindor the teams would already have some sort of injury insurance so an insurance company is likely paying most of Diaz contract this year even though it still counts against the Mets payroll
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
It's not just what it costs monoterialy but he is a big loss to the team period. And its all because of playing in a game that means nothing instead of being in spring training like he should have been.
Its a real tough situation to deal with and getting players to skip these types of games for their countries will likely never happen at all. Too much pride.
Celtics fans felt the same way about the FIBA Eurobasket tournament going on last offseason just weeks before the NBA season started. Unfortunately, our main free agent signing in Danilo Gallinari played and then tore his ACL while playing for his home country team,Italy. Technically he's out for the year but he's been rehabbing like crazy hoping to make it back by/during the playoffs. Odds are against that happening but he's got most of the fanbase rooting for his comeback.
Eric
Erikthredd’s MJ Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/publishedset/395035
Erikthredd’s Nike Air Jordan Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/basketball/key-card-sets/nike-poster-cards-michael-jordan-1985-1992/alltimeset/408486
And what says he wouldnt get hurt in spring training? Theyve had multiple spring training injuries so far. Theres not a force field around people there
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
I really hate tournaments like the WBC. They are truly meaningless. I mean, really, who cares who wins. And to lose a player for an entire season because he wanted to play in one is inexcusable.
there have been lots and lots of clauses put into contracts limiting player activities outside of the MLB season. I can see no reason why adding clauses to contracts forbidding playing in these "extracurricular" tournaments would not be warranted.
not only is the risk of injury always there, but there is unnecessary wear and tear. especially on pitchers
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
The Latin and Asian teams take it very seriously wearing their country on their chest. The whole point of the WBC was replacing baseball when the Olympics dropped it and to make the owners more money.
I'm not sure how something could be extracurricular when its literally run by MLB
The risk of injury is there any time you step on a field anywhere. Would it be better if they got hurt in spring training instead?
I get not wanting pitchers there for other reasons, but many of the reasons being presented by people have nothing to do with pitching physiology
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
If I'm paying a player, any player for any sport to play I'm putting a clause into the contract that he or she only plays for my team
Period
I don't care if Diaz got hurt playing or celebrating, he wouldn't have been there if I had him under contract.
So what if it means alot to represent their country? They can represent it in other ways, I'm paying you to play for me, it's pretty simple.
If you refuse to sign a contract due to wanting to play elsewhere then the clause will be if you get hurt even tying your cleat in the dugout then you don't get paid?
I completely agree with you.
As a Mets fan of 50 years I’m trying to keep my anger in check here. I have been a staunch opponent of The World Baseball Classic since it started. I remember in 2017 when Jeurys Familia was overused in the WBC, and Seth Lugo tore his UCL after pitching 15 WBC innings and then overdoing it afterwards trying to make the team. It’s crazy for pitchers to be throwing meaningful innings in early March.
The worst part is, at its heart, this tournament is phony. Many countries are represented by Americans with only an ancestral connection (Matt Harvey pitching for Italy?) As an American, I could not care less about the US team. All I know is that every three years this ruins a relaxing spring training that I generally look forward to all winter.
I get that the players seem to enjoy it, but who really cares? Like all of us, their job should come first.
You’re 100% correct on all points, but there is clearly immense pressure from the league on teams to allow players to participate. Every time Buck Showalter talks about the WBC, I can tell he hates it, but he has to pretend otherwise or he’ll get scolded by MLB.
I am glad to see somebody else, beside me, be against this. Fans pay big money to watch a professional baseball team play and if one of their players gets hurt under any conditions the team is hurt.
Speaking for myself literally the last thing I'd be concerned about is getting scolded by MLB; .
I am not a fan of the WBC, but injuries can also happen during spring training. The only ones that should be limited are pitchers and their usage.
I am also against all these international games MLB, NFL and NHL teams are forced to play. Wasn't there a Mexico game cancelled a few years back because the playing turf wasn't safe?
Perk….. good post.
There is a difference in getting hurt during the wbc as opposed to spring training, they’re paid to be at spring training.
And I still don’t like Bobby Witt playing in the wbc and sitting on the bench, he needs reps at the plate and in the field. I don’t buy that standing around and watching all the great players is doing him any good. He needs to be on the field.
A spring training field.
On the field but in training camp where all MLB players need to be. Let the amateurs play the WBC games!
Does the WBC help a team get into the playoffs and win a world series? I will answer for you.
NO.
not at all. in that respect, the WBC is absolutely nothing BUT an extracurricular. It has nothing to do, AT ALL, with the regular or post-season. it is the definition of extracurricular.
Is there a reason myself or any fan of MLB should care about how important it is for some players to play in the WBC?
NOPE.
It is nothing more than a well-funded barnstorming tour.
as far as making a comparison to the Olympics, I dont think professional athletes should compete there either. not because i am an adherent to the school of only amateurs competing in the Olympics, but because, again, it has nothing to do with what those professional athletes are paid to do. Nothing to gain professionally, only an opportunity to get injured and hurt your team and fan base.
Comparing the injury risk of playing in the WBC to spring training is disingenuous. there is a vast vast difference between using spring training games to work on things and ramp up intensity in anticipation to the regular season beginning, and playing highly contested intense games this early in the year. games that dont mean anything in the quest to win a WS championship.
any player is susceptible to injury, but this senseless exhibition is so harmful to pitchers specifically. there are only so many bullets in a pitcher's arm each season. less and less as the years go by. Why in the world would GM's agree to waste ANY of those in the early spring when they could be needed in October?
'
it is beyond me.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
All I’ve been hearing all day today is Latin players saying the WBC is more important to them than their paying jobs and commentators asserting that anyone who devalues the WBC is racist and “privileged.” Never mind that one of the WBC’s most vocal detractors has been lifetime lib Keith Olbermann.
Well let them quit their "Jobs" and have at it
Some of you seem to be ignoring the fact that the WBC is an MLB tournament not some random tournament everyone is going too. MLB wants MLB players in it. Most of the owners want MLB players in it as well just maybe not a few specific ones. The higher the ratings the more money they make. You may not care about it in the USA and largely the USA players dont care that much either and just use it as spring training, but its massive for the Asian and Latin teams. 48% of all Japanese households watched the Japan Italy quarterfinal as just one example.
Pitch counts are in place as are usage rules to mitigate the risk as much as possible, but every time they throw in anyway there is some risk. MLB will never allow the WBC to become an armature tournament and many of the superstars that like playing in it would never allow a clause in their contract banning them from doing it.
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
All it will take is a few more of their stars to get hurt to see a change!
For anyone that was wondering how players from some of these countries feel about the event, Lindor came out and said the WBC means just as much to them as the regular season
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
I saw several of them say it means more to them than the regular season. And I really don’t care.
They aren’t being paid to serve their own interests.
Theyre serving MLB and the owners interests by playing in the WBC. They all play in winter leagues in foreign countries anyways.
They arent being paid to have no decision making of their own either. The value in the league is the players, not the owners. Replace every owner nothing changes maybe even gets better. Replace every player and the product diminishes significantly. Good for them for having pride in their country
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
Altuve got hit pretty good in the hand with a fastball tonight. Guess we'll see if he misses any time now. It didn't look too good from what I saw.
One thing I find perplexing about this tournament that is so important to so many players. If “playing for your country” is such a beautiful thing, why are so many Americans playing for countries other than America?🤔
thats a good question
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
and, add Altuve to the list of exhibition casualties
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Because they wouldnt make the American roster for the most part and MLB wants rosters to have players on all teams. Guys like Manny they picked playing with their friends, plus if he played for team USA Arrenado is there so him playing for the Dominican allows them both to get at bats. Several of his Padres teammates were on the DR as well. They were trying to make a super team and ironically they get to watch USA play in the finals now
The one that made no sense was Stroman whose from NY flipping to PR after playing for USA last time. Everyone else has been pretty consistent with their decision making
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
@Basebal21 said: Because they wouldnt make the American roster for the most part and MLB wants rosters to have players on all teams.
You missed that by a mile.
How so? MLB wants competitive rosters and preferable MLB players or at the very least minor league guys on all the rosters. The guys playing for Italy wouldnt make the USA roster. Same with the GB roster. Those are the two teams that had primarily USA players.
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
you mean like the Dominican team last WBC whom David Ortiz took upon himself to fly the entire team back to the DR on the off day to party at his club......then they subsequently tanked it the next game because they were all trashed? I wouldn't say it's as much as playing for the name on the front of the jersey so much as it's an opportunity to hang out with their bros for 2 weeks (while getting paid).
I would also point out that a lot of the players from other countries do not have the same... maybe loyalty to MLB or their parent club as the average American/Canadian player would. Does anyone think Ohtani cares more about MLB than the NPB? I don't, nor do I care that he would. He's here to bank the most money and compete against the best players. He isn't going to be hanging around Anaheim getting paid $500k-1mill a year to be a club "ambassador" in 15 years, like Tim Salmon. Just as I would assume many of the Latin American players care more about the Caribbean Series (Serie del Caribe) seeing that pretty much all of them would play there in the off-season if their MLB clubs would allow them to, regardless of injury risks. It's like Russian/Czech players in the NHL. Once they are no longer capable of making more than a million here, they're back to the KHL to make the same money and can at least live at home.
and MLB is paying for the insurance on all MLB affiliated players. Except Kershaw whom the insurance company wouldn't insure due to his injury history.
Dodgers pulled strings to keep Kershaw out. Its not the first time theyve done it and wont be the last.
Its no secret that the Asian and Latin players care way more out it and that aside from Japan no elite team sends their best players possible. Cuban players refuse to play there and the USA has never sent their best roster ever
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
It wasn't the Dodgers. It was MLB's insurance company who wouldn't insure Kershaw due to his lengthy injury history. don't know if it's even a matter of "caring more", it seems like a combo of a lot of US/Canadian MLB players who still seem legitimately unsure if they're even supposed to care about the WBC, and a simple matter of the WBC not being as important as the MLB season - and especially those who are in a position to be a on playoff team. It matters to some, but to others, both players and even a good section of fans, it still seems like a glorified exhibition like back in the day when MLB would send a knockoff "All-Star" team to Japan to play the NPB All-Stars after the season was over in November.
Right now, the WBC is not even on the level of the World Cup of Hockey, and the World Cup of Hockey isn't on par with (Winter) Olympic hockey when NHL players are involved, to most fans, anyway. When players are suiting up for Team Israel and various other countries that they've probably never even visited, let alone had at least one parent be a native of, it seems contrived. Oh your 3x removed Great Grandfather was born in Italy? Ok suit up! Never mind that your passport has no stamp from Italia. Everyone is sitting there saying, wait, why Is Lars Nootbaar playing on the Japanese team? Oh, he wasn't good enough to make the US team, but he's good enough to play for the team who won the tourney over his actual native country who only sent a bunch of #3 and #4 starting pitchers.
That stuff doesn't happen in other INTL competition. You have to have one parent born in a certain country to be eligible to play on a World Cup soccer team. It would be like the World Cup of Hockey having a Team Ireland composed of McDavid, Crosby, MacKinnon, Patrick Kane etc because they all had Irish lineage a century or more ago. It's MLB having to grab a bunch of ringers to fill out rosters because there aren't enough countries to make up the tourney, and then you add in the innings pitched limits and that stuff, it all seems convoluted, stupid, and amateur hour half of the time.
Then if one watched any of the MLB Network-Rob Manfred's WBC-pet-project-hype machine programming, you would have heard over and over that guys like Mike Trout opted in this year because their peers had so much fun (read: their peers appeared to take it seriously) on that 2017 team. Apparently not enough fun to send any SPs better than AARP rep Adam Wainwright, and never mind that Verlander's career has overlapped with the WBC and he's never played, at least as far as I can recall, but hey this thing is a big deal! We can all remember the star soccer players who said no thanks to playing in the World Cup.
The Dodgers have behind the scenes influence that they can use to keep a pitcher out. Its no secret that the USA has never sent their best pitching staff ever to a tournament whether it be the WBC or Olympics.
The WBC ratings were massive and the tournament even had more people come to games than the entire A's season combined.
The finals had a record 5 million on FS1 and 4 of the 7th largest games happened this year. There was only one game on FS1 that had a higher rating last year for MLB and that includes the post season.
Lars Nootbaar has Japanese heritage on his mothers side and is the first player ever to play for Japan that wasn't native born there.
The European teams have to have Americans as part of growing the game. Italy and GB were the two teams that were mostly American as they had to be.
I get that people dont think its a big deal, but internationally it is. Multiple games had over 40% of Japanese households watching the game and it did bit numbers in the USA as well especially considering the time of year and March Madness going on.
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
“The European teams have to have Americans as part of growing the game.”
You can’t have it both ways. If American players are supposedly swelling with emotion representing their country, I would think it would be a tad uncomfortable playing for a different country against yours. It certainly creates the impression that guys are just paying lip service and don’t really take it that seriously.
Add Adam Wainwright to the list of WBC casualties. he will miss the opening day start and a few weeks after.
what a waste
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
At age 41 you would think it would be obvious that extra stress at the beginning of the season should be avoided. But the emperor has no clothes.
^^^ one would think
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Again the USA players that were playing for Italy and GB didnt have the option to play for USA, they simply arent good enough to make the USA roster. They took advantage of the opportunity they had and yes the WBC is a job tryout for guys that arent in the MLB. A pitcher from Israel got signed by the Tigers for the performance he had so it would be foolish for a player thats not on a big league roster to turn down an opportunity
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
Wainwright got hurt in the weight room after the WBC was over, had nothing to do with playing in the WBC
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
It was before the final game. But with all of these injuries it’s impossible to state that they would have happened anyway without attending the WBC. Life is not as deterministic as that. They might have, they might not have. The bottom line is, there is no sound reason to take the risk.
It was off the field in the weight room doing a workout he would have done anyways meaning the WBC had no impact on it. As for why take the risk, well this was his last chance to participate in it. The next one is 2026 since this one had been pushed back the time is a little shorter, but by that time he will almost certainly be retired or simply not good enough to get an invite. There were a couple of the USA pitchers that were in that situation of this was their last chance. Obviously a number of pitchers didnt want to play and sat it out, these guys wanted to play in it
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
nope, it happened while the tournament was still going on. what a waste.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
It may have happened anyways, or maybe not. that is speculation. what is not speculation is that it DID happen while he was under the watch of "team" USA.
As for this being his "last chance" to play in the prestigious WBC, who cares. other than Wainwright and possibly his mom. He is under contract to pitch for the Cardinals. He will be unable to do that for at least 2-3 weeks because of an injury sustained while training for the WBC.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
He pitched Sunday, he was hurt working out Tuesday, it had absolutely nothing to do with the WBC. Team USA doesnt come in and dictate a new workout program like a new high school, these guys were all doing the same workouts they would have been otherwise. Team USA wasnt supervising his workout holding his hand telling him what to do.
As for his last chance to play in the WBC he obviously cares. Doesnt matter if you care, he did.
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
Was he working out in the Cardinals facility or a WBC facility? I can tell you it wasnt the Cardinals. Again, it COULD have happened anywhere. but it didnt.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Add Rhys Hoskins to the list...wait he got injured in spring training??? He didn't even play in the WBC? No way.
Players play, it is as simple as that. Pretending an injury in the gym during an off day workout has anything to do with the WBC is second level stupid. Diaz's injury is the only one that is directly attributable to the WBC, unless you think players magically don't get hit by pitches during spring training, and it appears to have been a fluke injury. Nothing more, nothing less.
It reminds me of all the pantie pulling when an NFL player gets an injury during a celebration (Lamar Houston, Stephen Tulloch, etc).
Robb