Josh Reddick injury report

In case you hadn't heard, newly acquired A's OF Josh Reddick had surgery in November for a chronic wrist injury. He tweeted today that he had his last therapy session at home.

4 months ago OaklandSi 12 comments 2 recs |

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

that's before the trade

so I’m sure Beane was aware but liked him enough to pull the trigger.

It's just more exciting with Billy Beane running the team.

by ru155 on Jan 18, 2012 1:20 PM PST reply actions

it's just an item worth noting

wrist and finger injuries often affect hitting longer than some people imagine. I still believe DeJesus was at least somewhat affected by his thumb injury at the beginning of the season. Then, Geren not playing him only set him back as far as getting in the swing of things, so to speak.

by OaklandSi on Jan 18, 2012 3:00 PM PST reply actions

Yeah, I didn't know about this. Kind of worrisome considering Reddick's best asset is his power.

by NateHST on Jan 18, 2012 6:53 PM PST up reply actions

Reddick's best asset is power

That is worrisome.

by OnlybuyBeaneJerseys on Jan 19, 2012 7:00 AM PST up reply actions

his best asset is his power?

That doesn’t seem to show up much in baseball reference. And keep in mind that he played half his games in the tiny “left handed hitting paradise” bandbox known as Fenway Park.

by OaklandSi on Jan 19, 2012 8:01 AM PST up reply actions

In the minors, given 30 or more games at a level, he's never posted an ISO less than .200

Fenway’s not really a bandbox for LHH, either. It’s pretty hard against LHH, especially for hitting homeruns. Actually, his best asset is probably his defense, but considering he’s throws right-handed and the injury was to his left wrist, that shouldn’t affect that much, if at all.

by NateHST on Jan 19, 2012 2:17 PM PST up reply actions

dunno about that - that pesky pole is mighty close

by OaklandSi on Jan 19, 2012 5:29 PM PST up reply actions

Yeah, but you only have about five-to-ten feet of space to hit it before the RF wall shoots way out in right-center. I think for LHH, it's like 20% harder to hit a HR in Fenway than the average park. I'd have to double check the numbers though.

by NateHST on Jan 20, 2012 2:52 AM PST up reply actions

At first I did a double take

Reddick’s best asset is his power?

Then I saw that his ISO in 2011 in 254 AB was .177. The fact that he was able to post a well-above average ISO while dealing with a chronic wrist injury gives me hope. I suppose there’s at least an outside chance that the surgery brings his wrist back to 100%, and his power significantly jumps because of it.

by Billy Frijoles on Jan 19, 2012 9:53 AM PST up reply actions

then his chronic wrist injury would be his excuse for the last three years?

I would of course love to be pleasantly surprised.

by OaklandSi on Jan 19, 2012 12:09 PM PST reply actions

meant to be a reply to Billy Frijoles

by OaklandSi on Jan 19, 2012 12:10 PM PST up reply actions

Well the previous 2 years were cups of coffee at the MLB level.

2009 and 2010 were about 60 PAs each. 2011 was his first real year in the big leagues, and his stats were decent. If he was dealing with a chronic wrist injury and was able to put up stats like that in his first big league season, I have some hope. To your point though, his ISO was not because of lots of HRs. He seems to hit a lot of doubles and triples with a sprinkling of HRs.

I suppose his best asset is ability to hit extra base hits (i.e. slugging), which, may or may not mean the same thing as “power” depending on your perspective. But it’s something he’s consistently done over his career and, in a good sign, in his first extended look at the MLB level he was able to replicate those results while dealing with injury.

If this surgery actually fixed it (which I have some hope for since it wasn’t performed by the A’s medical staff) then I would hope he can hit at least 15 jacks and bunch of 2Bs and 3Bs (since he hit 7 HRs in 87 games last year while dealing with the injury).

Also I am by no means an expert on park factors but Oakland looks to be better for home runs by LHB than Fenway (89 to 79, via statcorner.com). So all signs are pretty good, except this one:

Fenway is leaps and bounds better for doubles by LHB (142 to 88).

So if I understand these numbers we can expect that the ballpark is not likely to depress his home runs but his doubles may evaporate, negating all value that he gives with his bat; that is unless his wrist surgery was performed by Bartolo Colon’s miraculous Dominican doctor and gives him superpowers. Dammit, I spent 4 paragraphs trying to convince myself to be optimistic about this!

Welcome to Oakland. Sigh.

by Billy Frijoles on Jan 20, 2012 8:01 AM PST up reply actions