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May 7, 2007

Under The Knife

The Rocket's Fuel

by Will Carroll

Roger Clemens is a Yankee again, the highest paid player in baseball history on paper by my math. People are breaking this signing down in many ways, but for me, the question is only whether Clemens, one of the all-time greats, can stay healthy. He did it last year, more or less, the way he'll do it this year--playing a shortened season designed to stave off fatigue during the playoff chase. He'll return to a rotation that isn't dissimilar from the one he came into in 2006, an injury-plagued and underperforming bunch. He's not going to go much beyond 100 pitches, he's going to show signs of wearing down by September, but throughout, he'll be effective enough to keep his team in games. With the current Yankees lineup, we have to figure he's going to get more run support than he did in Houston, where it seemed at times that the offense stopped to watch Clemens the way that the Bulls occasionally did when Michael Jordan was on the floor. Clemens may not be the kind of every-night superstar that Jordan was, but he's close. You don't get many chances in a lifetime to see guys like this play. If you're in Scranton or Trenton, be ready.

Powered by the work of Timothy Ferriss, on to the injuries:

• There's a part of me that wonders whether I'm going to have to write an essay on concussions for Baseball Prospectus 2008, just as I have for the last two editions of Pro Football Prospectus. Let's see if this shakes you up--after Brayan Pena's concussion, the result of a backswing, he could not hear. In addition to memory loss, the catcher lost his hearing temporarily. Pena's out for now and, given the severity of his post-concussion symptoms, this one could be a while. The problem with concussion recovery is that there are no real timeframes. Guys like Mike Matheny and Corey Koskie will never come back, while Jim Edmonds went from being unable to fly to playing in the World Series within a few weeks. We'll just wish Pena the best of luck in this recovery and hope that research like that done by the Dodgers' Stan Conte helps prevent the next concussion. MLB needs to make this a priority.

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