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What a bummer. Ohtani has been part of my baseball following reinvigoration.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/3824...eff-passan
Every minute of the past three years Shohei Ohtani spent on the baseball field was a gift. The most perfect ball-playing specimen ever to wear a uniform, simultaneously one of the best hitters and pitchers in a sport that for a century had demanded players choose one track or the other, Ohtani recalibrated what the game could be. He was baseball at its zenith. He is baseball, period.
What everyone took for granted, as he launched majestic home runs and unfurled unfair pitches, was the Faustian bargain underpinning it all -- that as Ohtani trafficked in the impossible, he was relying on a wholly imperfect vessel to deliver it. Ohtani's most formidable opponent was never the pitchers or hitters he faced. It was his body and its capacity to withstand everything he asked of it. Ligaments do not care about legend.
Ohtani being Ohtani, he reacted to the news that he had suffered a tear in the ulnar collateral ligament of his right elbow in Game 1 of a doubleheader Wednesday by batting second for his Los Angeles Angels in Game 2. Ohtani will not pitch again this season. He might need another Tommy John surgery. His already-complicated free agency, just two months away, is now even more confusing. And Ohtani knew all of it in the second game, which, in hindsight, makes a moment that looked so wholesome at the time so heartbreaking now.
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Don't have to be an Angels fan to appreciate what this kid Ohtani has brought to the game. It'll be a long time before current analytical bb management allows development of this kind of all around player again.
What Harvard Business School educated exec types are looking for are chess pieces they can move around and exploit for themselves.
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He wants to continue as DH, but I think that is foolish on his part. He has nothing left to prove before free agency and millions more to lose. He doesn't owe the Angels anything.
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Ombligo wrote:
He wants to continue as DH, but I think that is foolish on his part. He has nothing left to prove before free agency and millions more to lose. He doesn't owe the Angels anything.
That's the only thing he "does" owe them. They pay him to play if he can.
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vision63 wrote:
[quote=Ombligo]
He wants to continue as DH, but I think that is foolish on his part. He has nothing left to prove before free agency and millions more to lose. He doesn't owe the Angels anything.
That's the only thing he "does" owe them. They pay him to play if he can.
He was showing signs of fatigue and the Angels kept him on a five day rotation. That is an aggressive rotation for any pitcher but unsustainable for one known to be having soreness. The club knew they were going to lose him and I think they decided to just get everything out of him they could with no concern of injury.
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Ombligo wrote:
[quote=vision63]
[quote=Ombligo]
He wants to continue as DH, but I think that is foolish on his part. He has nothing left to prove before free agency and millions more to lose. He doesn't owe the Angels anything.
That's the only thing he "does" owe them. They pay him to play if he can.
He was showing signs of fatigue and the Angels kept him on a five day rotation. That is an aggressive rotation for any pitcher but unsustainable for one known to be having soreness. The club knew they were going to lose him and I think they decided to just get everything out of him they could with no concern of injury.
For this future Dodger, the Angels thought they had a shot at at least the wild card at the end of July. They went for it but fizzled. They shut Trout down and Ohtani may get another Tommy John. Angels ownership is in major disarray. Stadium deal blown up,
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Ombligo wrote:
[quote=vision63]
[quote=Ombligo]
He wants to continue as DH, but I think that is foolish on his part. He has nothing left to prove before free agency and millions more to lose. He doesn't owe the Angels anything.
That's the only thing he "does" owe them. They pay him to play if he can.
He was showing signs of fatigue and the Angels kept him on a five day rotation. That is an aggressive rotation for any pitcher but unsustainable for one known to be having soreness. The club knew they were going to lose him and I think they decided to just get everything out of him they could with no concern of injury.
I worry due to the way other injuries have been handled there that either there is negligence or worse. I hope he takes care of himself from here on out. He's the best thing in baseball for quite some time.
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kj wrote:
[quote=Ombligo]
[quote=vision63]
[quote=Ombligo]
He wants to continue as DH, but I think that is foolish on his part. He has nothing left to prove before free agency and millions more to lose. He doesn't owe the Angels anything.
That's the only thing he "does" owe them. They pay him to play if he can.
He was showing signs of fatigue and the Angels kept him on a five day rotation. That is an aggressive rotation for any pitcher but unsustainable for one known to be having soreness. The club knew they were going to lose him and I think they decided to just get everything out of him they could with no concern of injury.
I worry due to the way other injuries have been handled there that either there is negligence or worse. I hope he takes care of himself from here on out. He's the best thing in baseball for quite some time.
This is true. He's incredible, but it's not like there aren't other phenomenal, exciting players as well. Aaron Judge, Elly De La Cruz, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Matt Olson just to name a few.
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vision63 wrote:
[quote=kj]
[quote=Ombligo]
[quote=vision63]
[quote=Ombligo]
He wants to continue as DH, but I think that is foolish on his part. He has nothing left to prove before free agency and millions more to lose. He doesn't owe the Angels anything.
That's the only thing he "does" owe them. They pay him to play if he can.
He was showing signs of fatigue and the Angels kept him on a five day rotation. That is an aggressive rotation for any pitcher but unsustainable for one known to be having soreness. The club knew they were going to lose him and I think they decided to just get everything out of him they could with no concern of injury.
I worry due to the way other injuries have been handled there that either there is negligence or worse. I hope he takes care of himself from here on out. He's the best thing in baseball for quite some time.
This is true. He's incredible, but it's not like there aren't other phenomenal, exciting players as well. Aaron Judge, Elly De La Cruz, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Matt Olson just to name a few.
You're right, and it's not fair, but no one is like Ohtani, for whatever reason. He's just so dang likable.
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