Woodruff

I saw a post a couple of weeks ago talking about how Butch and Cohen are really good at not pushing our pitchers and what not and this is no disrespect to them but just wondering if we pushed Woodruff to hard to recover from his previous injury. As you know he had surgery to put a screw in his elbow for a fracture that could not heal because of inadequate blood flow which the screw solved and also removed a bone spur. Do you baseball gurus think Butch and Cohen new how important he was to our rotation (cause he was) and tried to push him back faster than he needed to causing him to re-injure himself. Just something I thought about earlier and wondering what some of you baseball guys opinions are.

Just my opinion but its hard to know unless you have insight to how much knowledge Butch and Cohen had to the extent of the injury. Would be hard for me to believe that Woodruff would have been asked to pitch at all if anyone knew he had a fracture in his elbow or bone spurs but I don't know who knew what when.

Why would you post this? Why do our fans assume terrible, negative shit like this?

The answer is no.

My answer would be no. The bone spur wasnt going away no matter what they did, and was going to give him problems. As far as the fracture- that kind of stuff just happens to pitchers. They did a good job of giving him time to try and heal- and short of just shutting him down completely- not much they could do. And if he had needed to shut it down completely- the Ortho Dr would have told them to do that.

No. Because they sent him to the MD no less than three times and each time the MD cleared him. The only thing that was seen on the x-rays were the bone spurs. We completely shut him down in the fall, and sent him to a MD, and then in the spring, when he was still having pain, we shut him down and sent him back to the MD who cleared him again. He pitched in SWAC games and it's not a coincidence that both of his good performances were after he had very lengthy rest breaks. After the Governor's Cup, we sent ham back again to the MD who only then found the hairline fracture.

My guess is what happened is either:

A. The MD has a crappy x-ray and it didn't pick it up, which is very possible because those types of fractures can be very small.

Or

B. The hairline fracture finally got big enough to be viewed because his arm was literally starting to come apart from the stress of pitching.

So, if anyone is "at fault" here- it's the doctor, and even then it's not like he was negligent.

If we were trying to push Woodruff, we would have started him during the first series, and put him out there against LSU.

No. If anything, Cohen and Butch are usually way overprotective of players with injuries. This is a definite NO in my opinion. And like Goat said, I really have no clue why someone would bring that up. No offense to the OP, but this is the exact mentality that our fan base needs to change. There's enough things to recruit against us with without us hypothesizing that our coaches are ruining our best pitchers' arms.

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Originally Posted by CadaverDawg

No. If anything, Cohen and Butch are usually way overprotective of players with injuries. This is a definite NO in my opinion. And like Goat said, I really have no clue why someone would bring that up. No offense to the OP, but this is the exact mentality that our fan base needs to change. There's enough things to recruit against us with without us hypothesizing that our coaches are ruining our best pitchers' arms.

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I am in 100% agreement. It's one thing to question why Joe Blow is starting at 3rd, why we put so and so on the hill in a particular situation, why we bunted in the 2nd inning with no outs, etc., etc. But to bring up a situation regarding a particular player's health/injury when it relates to the coaching staff POSSIBLY, MAYBE, WHO KNOWS, putting them in the lineup when they are questionable is inexcusable. You are right on CD.

I'm not sure the op was accusing the coaches of doing something reckless with the kid as he was saying they were a-typically not as cautious as they should be.

Anyone who might interpret this situation as reckless by the coaches is just looking to be critical.

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Originally Posted by gravedigger

I'm not sure the op was accusing the coaches of doing something reckless with the kid as he was saying they were a-typically not as cautious as they should be.

Anyone who might interpret this situation as reckless by the coaches is just looking to be critical.

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Exactly never said coaches were reckless the question was did we rush him back which is no kid just had a tough year just wondering everyones opinion. Been to almost every game this year and wish we had the kid in the weekend rotation but he should be well rested next year.

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Originally Posted by gravedigger

I'm not sure the op was accusing the coaches of doing something reckless with the kid as he was saying they were a-typically not as cautious as they should be.

Anyone who might interpret this situation as reckless by the coaches is just looking to be critical.

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Yea, I don't think he meant it in a bad way at all...but it can be misinterpreted and used against us just by being posted. No offense to the OP.

I think I tend to lean toward Engie's approach when it comes to our mindset as a fan base. You never see stuff like this thread on a Rebel board because they are all on the same page. They are a propaganda machine and it is a well oiled machine. Too often our own fans draw negative attention towards our program, and even when it is a simple question like this thread, it can be used against us in recruiting.

I know it can sound stupid, and this is a very minor example....but my whole reasoning for bringing it up is to try and help get us all on the same program building page eventually in the future. There is nothing about questioning whether Cohen and Butch rushed Woodruff that can benefit our baseball program. Nothing at all.