Posts tagged NickJohnson at FanHouse

Our MLB editor provides weekly dispatches from major league games in Notes From the Clubhouse.

Let's get the obvious out of the way first: the Nationals are not a good baseball team. We knew that would be the case coming into the season. What seems clear after another devastating day for the club, is that they're also a pretty unlucky bunch.

Ryan Zimmerman is already out for most of the rest of the season with a tear in his labrum. Before Tuesday night's game against the Angels, Washington announced that first baseman Nick Johnson will miss the rest of 2008 with a wrist injury. Then pitcher Shawn Hill was torched for eight runs (six earned) by the Halos in three innings. Hill, looked physically broken down and has pitched with forearm pain all season. It was decided immediately after the game he would go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. for a re-evaluation of his arm, an ominous decision considering his lengthy history of arm trouble.

If you're keeping score at home, the Nats have lost the cornerstone in their grand franchise rebuilding effort (Zimmerman), the player who led the team in VORP in 2006, the last time he was healthy for a full season (Johnson) and they might lose the pitcher who led all Washington starters in VORP last year (Hill). They already have the second fewest wins in the majors, and things are probably going to get worse. You almost have to feel bad for them.

The news for Nick Johnson isn't totally unexpected ... but it still doesn't take the sting out for him. Johnson, who has been sidelined since mid-May with a wrist problem, has been diagnosed with a small tear in the ulnar-side ligament in that wrist, and will miss the rest of 2008.

If you're counting, that's the entire 2007 season lost to injury because of a broken leg. And outside of 38 games, the entire '08 season with a bum wrist. That's 286 games lost to injury during two seasons that constitute the prime of Johnson's career at ages 28 and 29. Add in the 155 games he didn't play in during 2003 and 2004, that's pretty much three seasons out of his first eight wiped out due to injury.

You can make the argument that the wrist injury could turn out to have more of an adverse effect to Johnson's career than the horrific broken leg. You never hear people talk about a broken leg lingering throughout a players career. But for a baseball player, especially an accomplished hitter who knows how to get on base (career OBP of .396) to have a torn ligament in his wrist, it's something that has a chance to linger, affect his swing later on, and worst case scenario: become chronic.*

*I am not a doctor.

It's a dangerous time to be a Nationals corner infielder. After missing seven games with an ailing left shoulder, Ryan Zimmerman just wasn't getting any better. After undergoing an MRI, the Nationals discovered why: turns out Zimmerman has a "small labral tear" which may or may not require surgery to fix. From the Washington Post:

"I've had players who've had the same injury who took 10 days off, then played for five years," General Manager Jim Bowden said. "Then I've had some who've been operated on. It can be anywhere in between, and we just don't know yet."

When will the Nats know? Probably sometime in the next few days. The team's orthopedist has recommended rest and anti-inflammatory medication, but the team also sent the results of the MRI to three specialists, including the famed Dr. James Andrews.

Proving when it rains it pours, Nick Johnson's return was also put on ice after he suffered a setback in his wrist injury. He's still experiencing soreness, so he's been put back in a cast for (at least) a couple of weeks.

Kory Casto will be called up to replace Zimmerman. He's hitting .314 in 21 games at Triple-A Columbus, though it's worth mentioning he's hit just .272 over his entire minor league career and just .130 in 16 games for the Nats last year.

It's almost cruel to think that a guy can miss a full season due to injury, then have to miss more time the very next season. But that's just the way Nick Johnson's career has been. Johnson broke his leg late in the '06 season at Shea Stadium, which caused him to miss all of 2007. Now, in May of 2008, Johnson may miss at least another couple of weeks with an injury he suffered ... again at Shea Stadium:

Nationals first baseman Nick Johnson has been sent to Washington for an MRI on his right wrist on Thursday. He had X-rays taken on Tuesday and the results were negative.

Johnson is listed as day-to-day, but the veteran was seen wearing a soft cast and could be sidelined a lot longer. Johnson strained a tendon in his right wrist during his last at-bat on Tuesday against the Mets.

"I felt a little pain after the swing," Johnson said. "I ended up walking. I went back on the field and it felt tight. I was trying to loosen it up out there. I wasn't going to hit if my spot came up again. It was pretty painful after the game."

As the article notes, it's the ninth straight season where Johnson has missed time due to injury. So if you want to talk about snakebit: that's Nick Johnson. You can also describe the Nats as kinda snakebit as well. Not only has Johnson been the driving force in their lineup, they signed Dmitri Young last season to replace Johnson. And now they're both hurt. Aaron Boone will now get the bulk of the time at first base.

Get your Nick Johnson tear-flavored dirt! Only $1,400!

We've already covered one of the more maddening, or at least confusing, tenets to Yankee fandom, the idea that there is some sort of "class" associated with being a Yankee. This class precludes facial hair, naturally, as well as overzealous celebrations. Why? Because old men say so.

So maybe it's piling on the Yankees a little bit today -- it is Mother's Day, after all -- but Phil Mushnick's column in today's New York Post is not to be missed. If you're rich, stupid, and looking to cement your True Yankee Fan status to anyone who would dare question it, well, have the Yankees got a deal for you!

"2005 Opening Day Batter's Box Dirt Collage" for $120 (call me cynical, but the dirt looks suspiciously similar to 2006 Opening Day batter's box dirt). Ian Kennedy's "Yankees New York Yankees Clubhouse Locker Room Name Plate" is selling for $500 (how a locker name plate was used in a game escapes us, but Shelley Duncan's is a steal at $300).

For $250, you can own Jose Veras Jose Veras ' alleged "game-used" Yankee duffel bag (I can't recall Veras using that duffel bag in a game, either, but that's the beauty of the hidden duffel bag trick).

The real kicker is a Kyle Farnsworth name plate for ... $100. One hundred freaking dollars. For that, you could buy a GTA 4 and an XBOX Live subscription and actually play online with Kyle Farnsworth, which would be way cooler. As long as you're prepared to take a legendary series of virtual kicks to Niko Bellic's virtual crotch, that is.

THIS

IS WHERE THE POWER LIIIIIIES

Join host Mel Allen as he takes a look back at the stories that mattered in the world of Major League Baseball this week on "This Week in Baseball," conveniently presented in the form of a chatroom transcript for those of you reading AOL Sports' "Fanhouse" blog, and presented in HD on certain cable systems you live nowhere even close to getting.

/TWIB opening music

Our MLB editor provides weekly dispatches from major league games in Notes From the Clubhouse.

With nearly a month of the baseball season in the books, the Washington Nationals pretty much are what we thought they would be -- a bad team (9-17) wallowing in the cellar of the National League East. Just why they are struggling so much is more of a surprise.

The starting pitching has actually been very strong. Odalis Perez, John Lannan and Tuesday night's starter Tim Redding all have ERAs under 4.00. The offense, despite battle-tested pros like Ryan Zimmerman and Nick Johnson and young hitters with upside like Lastings Milledge, is really scuffling. Cristian Guzman is the only regular hitting over .300. Milledge is the only other player hitting over .255. Ouch.

That's especially hurt the Nationals in the power department. They have 14 home runs as a team, the second fewest in the NL. They rank 14th in the league in doubles (44) and 15th in slugging percentage (.334). And unlike last year, it doesn't appear they can blame the ballpark. Nationals Park seems to play a lot more neutral than RFK, which was a definite pitcher's park.

Manager Manny Acta, one of the more statistically-inclined skippers in the league, isn't worrying too much yet. "The power numbers will come," said Acta before tonight's game with the Braves. "The only reason [the middle-of-the-order hitters] don't have five, six, seven homers is because of the batting averages.

Nick Johnson might be the real-world equivalent of Charlie Brown. The Washington Nationals first baseman missed large swaths of the 2003 and 2004 season with injuries and broke his leg in September of 2006. That injury sidelined him for all of last season leaving a once-promising hitter as a 29-year old desperate to make up for lost time.

Things looked like they were looking up for Johnson in Spring Training when he won the starting job. On the surface, it would seem like he's not going to keep it for long. He's hitting just .216 as of this morning but a deeper look suggests Johnson is, again, being stymied by luck.

When Johnson puts the ball in play, 28% of the time he hits line drives. 74% of the time line drives become hits so Johnson should have a high batting average on balls in play. It's just .241, though, which is why Johnson's scuffling in Mendoza line territory. Based on that profile, Fangraphs computed Johnson's projected OPS (PrOPS) and came up with a line of .336/.493/.549.

PrOPS thinks Johnson's been something like the 5th best hitter in the National League in April, putting him just behind some guys named Burrell, Utley, Pujols, and the aforementioned Chipper Jones.

If his performance holds up and, for once, luck breaks his way, Johnson should start posting some excellent numbers as the season progresses. Of course, given his history, he'll probably break his thumb just as he starts heating up.

Major League Baseball has made intelligent, progressive decisions in the past (night games, racial integration, not ever letting Pete Rose do anything ever). The decisions to name Gatorade the official sports drink of Major League Baseball and to allow no player in the dugout (or The Dugout) to be seen drinking anything BUT Gatorade are perhaps baseball's greatest. Sugar water that tastes like Kool-Aid if you put too much water in it is sure to enhance the natural performance of a guy like Da Meat Hook.

What's next? Today's Dugout looks into the not-so-distant future to see where baseball refreshment is headed. Spoiler alert: It is headed to somewhere where they'd let Dmitri and Delmon Young be in commercials for children. After the jump, a commercial full of stars using words full of stars!

From the San Francisco Chronicle comes the news that Brian Sabean and the Giants are looking to acquire a left handed hitting first baseman. Teams that happen to have a left handed hitting first baseman that's expendable may now commence drooling at the prospect of trading with Giants GM, who made a name for himself by giving up way too much for not enough.

Anywho, two of the names mentioned in the Chrons article were Nick Johnson and Scott Thorman. Johnson, at this point, is probably not going anywhere, simply based on the fact that he beat out Dmitri Young for the Nats' starting job. I mean sure, he's tradeable, and not to take the fantasy baseball angle here, but when a guy who can't stay on the field finally looks healthy and someone starts sniffing around, I'd probably move him. But again, real life and whatnot.

Thorman, however, is imminently movable. In fact, Frank Wren had mentioned some early season trades and there were rumors aplenty that Thorman might be one of the guys moved. So maybe something between Wren and Sabean will happen in the near future.

"Huhllo?"

"Brian, heeeey, it's Frank. What's going on, buddy?"

"Nothing."

"Well, look, I've just got too many darn good left handed, power slugging, All Star potential ridden first baseman this year."

"Go on."

"Well, I was taking at look at that Cain kid you guys have out ..."

"Deal."