Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
February 23, 2003
Early Injury:

The Brewers have been hit with an early season injury, and Chuck Carlson of the Oskosh Northwestern doesn't like the way the Brewers management is handling it.


Faster than you can say, “shaved labrum,” the Milwaukee Brewers are already facing their first disaster of the new season and they haven’t even had a chance to get sun-burned in Arizona yet.

Hotshot right-hander pitcher Nick Neugebauer has scheduled arthroscopic surgery on his funky right shoulder and it will likely cost him the entire season. Seeing as the Brewers may be staring down the barrel of another 100-loss season, this isn’t necessarily awful news for the 22-year-old kid, who now won’t be hit by any of the collateral damage that usually comes from a terrible season.


Here's the Brewers spin on how this will effect the team, and Carlson's response:

It may be all, or none, of the above but what will be interesting is how new general manager Doug Melvin and neophyte manager Ned Yost handle the first hiccup in their administration.

Already, Melvin has opted for the explanation that this won’t hurt too badly because, well, Neugebauer was never slated to pitch with the big club this season anyway.

Yeah, right.

The team has spent all winter trumpeting a new, young pitching staff that includes, among others, Ben Sheets, Glendon Rusch, perhaps promising young pup Ben Diggins and, yes indeed, Neugebauer.

What the Brewers have to offer — which is all they have to offer — is a titillating peek at the future and at players who, in time, could develop into legitimate big league talent. And make no mistake that Neugebauer is in the vanguard of the youth movement.

If he had found the strike zone with any consistency in spring training he would have taken his place easily in the Brewers starting rotation and everyone knows it. To deny he would have pitched with Milwaukee this season is disingenuous at best.


Compare this to the post on the Orioles' handling of the Bechler death.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:24 PM | Baseball