Under The Knife 7/5/22
Бейсбол в путинском стиле
Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend, but let’s get back to baseball. I’m not a huge fan of Instagram. I use mine to show off my cooking and if Facebook wants to show me ads, fine. I’m not on it enough to do more than post some BBQ. However, there is a lot of baseball content on there, some good, some bad, and some that’s definitely optimized for that platform.
TikTok? Nope. Pure information collection machine and while I know “don’t be evil” is a slogan, I’m not convinced that TikTok isn’t the first social with bad intentions.
Back to baseball - some of the content I see on there straddles a line and one where I have to really question myself as much as the content: is this information I disagree with, or is this information that’s disinformation or detrimental to those that see it? I hesitate to call something *wrong* since I’ve been wrong many times before. I was wrong for years about long toss, before Alan Jaeger patiently used the evidence to bring me around.
However, even in a baseball world where something isn’t decided and most things end up in a debate, whether real or financially motivated - embrace debate, my tuchus - there are things out there that are demonstrably wrong, yet presented in such a way that it’s popular. There’s a vast difference between popular and quality, almost diametrical and some of it has gone to the emotional, the same kind of rage-triggering that’s been embraced in politics.
I read Mark Galeotti’s “The Weaponisation of Everything” and it immediately came to mind as I was recently flooded by ‘promoted content’ from one particular baseball account on Instagram. I dug in and found out they were targeting me in particular, though I remain unsure why. This account and others are effectively weaponizing fear - of injury, of not making the team, of not throwing hard enough to get scouted - and turning into not results, but money.
If I had a podcast or some platform, I’d be curious what Galeotti thought about something a bit less mundane than Russian politics and strategy. (Though, check this video out, from a year ago, and see how prescient he is!)
Baseball’s information sphere is getting bigger, but not better. People like Tom House have a broader voice, but the death of expertise and the rise of money in the lower baseball world have led to Putinesque disinformation campaigns. I wonder how much longer it might be before we see even more aggressive techniques invading this space.
For now, we’re going a little long to cover the long weekend, so let’s get to the injuries:
MAX SCHERZER, SP NYM (strained oblique)
JACOB DEGROM, SP NYM (fractured shoulder)
The Mets seem to be getting healthier. In first place regardless, there’s two big additions coming for a team that may be acquirers anyway. With Jacob deGrom starting his rehab journey and Max Scherzer likely finishing his, the Mets rotation is finally closer to looking like what the team had in mind in the off-season. The key now is finishing the rehab job and then getting deep into prevention. That’s going to require a lot of work and focus on two key players. Those man hours don’t get an offset, so watch to see if the Mets can stay at this injury level with the rest of the team. The easy answer would be “hire more Athletic Trainers and therapists”, but that’s seldom done. Is Steve Cohen different here? There’s no indication of it, though there has been some note that Jacob deGrom is using his own team as part of his solution.
Max Scherzer’s surprise second rehab went well, almost identical with a slight build in workload. Again, the pitches and the mechanics looked normal, with the typical against-Double-A-kids results. He’s once again on track for activation and a start Tuesday against the Reds. Despite last week’s swerve, there’s no reason to think Scherzer isn’t going. He’ll be slightly limited, a reported 90 pitches, but his pitch count high on the season is 102, so it’s not a big limit. Recurrence is always a risk with muscular injuries, but there’s been no indication of issue there with Scherzer.
DeGrom faced Single-A hitters and dominated, as expected. There’s really not much to learn, aside from using his pitches, showing that he can get the work in, and that he was at normal three-digit velocity and spin. The key now is his recovery and making his next rehab start, hopefully at a higher level, on schedule and with a slight build in workload. There’s no indication that there’s been any setbacks or that deGrom is needing special work to get where he is, a big positive. If the three to five start guidance holds, deGrom will be back right after the ASB.