O's: What about Sarfate?
Reliever Dennis Sarfate, who has been sidelined most of the year because of a circulation problem in his pitching arm, made his final injury rehabilitation appearance on Friday night. The club must make a decision on his future status in the next day or so, and that may be more complicated than you'd think.
Sarfate has been on rehab assignment since July 24, so his 30 days are up today. He must either be returned to the 25-man roster, waived and outrighted to one of the minor league affiliates or -- if the team can make the case that he's still not physically ready to pitch -- returned to the disabled list.
What I'm trying to get straight in my head is why the Orioles didn't wait a week until Aug. 1 to send him on the 30-day assignment, which would have allowed him to come back when the roster limit rises to 40. Probably because the club needed the bullpen depth at the time and figured he would pitch well enough to return to the major league bullpen way before now. Instead, his rehab hasn't gone that great and the O's need to bridge the final week until the roster expansion.
The other complicating factors are the strong performance of Kam Mickolio, who has pitched his way into a setup role, and a seemingly rejuvenated Chris Ray. Can't imagine the O's would option Mickolio again to avoid a tough decision, so it would appear that there just isn't room for Sarfate until Sept. 1.
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Comments
Pete,
Don't Bass and Berken each have options? They could flip flop them for the next two weeks!
Posted by: Keith Rowe | August 22, 2009 2:31 PM
Kam stays.
Posted by: gmac | August 22, 2009 3:06 PM
What Keith said.
Posted by: Roy | August 22, 2009 3:13 PM
Sounds like Sarfate has "tendonitis" still to me.
That or what Keith said.
Posted by: James C | August 22, 2009 3:22 PM
Fire Trembley
Posted by: Anonymous | August 22, 2009 4:58 PM
Someone we never hear about: Lou Montanez. What's up with his recovery?
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Pete's reply: He has agreed to play winter ball. Don't know if he'll make it back in September.
Posted by: mortsoft | August 22, 2009 5:06 PM
Having had thumb surgery, It takes a long time to recover. Your muscle around there atrophies, and any hit to the general area, causes mind numbing pain. It can take months for making a fist not to hurt, much less swinging a bat as hard as he can.
Posted by: Egghead | August 22, 2009 7:04 PM
Pete
What about Sarfate
Posted by: Anonymous | August 22, 2009 7:31 PM
Pete -
I thought the rehab assignment limit was 45 days for pitchers, 30 days for position players. I'm pretty sure it's longer for pitchers, since they wouldn't be playing every day.
I may be mixed up though, maybe it's 15 and 30 days.
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Pete's reply: It's 20 for position players and 30 for pitchers.
Posted by: jeffChill | August 22, 2009 10:00 PM
Thanks for clearing that up for me Pete. I tried to look it up myself but only learned of about 100 players who have gone on rehab assignments in the past 6 years.
And for anyone who is interested, Bing's "decision engine" was no better helping me (not) find my answer than Google.
Posted by: jeffChill | August 22, 2009 11:13 PM
I would welcome a summary of where the 10 players from the Tejada and Bedard trades are now (progress wise), and what the smart money is saying about their future. For instance, what is the thinking on Patton? He was the #1 guy in the Tejada deal.
Posted by: easywriter01 | August 22, 2009 11:53 PM
FIRE ANONYMOUS!
You can't make a bad team winners.They have been in last place since April.There's a number of reasons for that and Trembley is NOT one of them.
Posted by: fireladdie72 | August 23, 2009 8:07 AM
fireladdie72,
DT is MOST of them. He's liked not respected, he's predictable not ingenious and he is a very poor manager. His line-ups are horrible, his timing on removing pitchers is woeful, the fundamentals and baserunning on his team is pathetic and the buck stops with him! His talent pool is not there with that I will agree with you, but his lack of motivational skills and emotion cast his fate before the all-star game, DT is a lame duck Manager and only he is to blame! Good Luck Dave!
P.S. Anonymous though annoying is dead on correct!
Posted by: Keith Rowe | August 23, 2009 12:30 PM
Sarfate is not a solution. He is a 2 pitch pitcher. Outright him or put him on waivers. Kam stays!
Posted by: Anonymous | August 23, 2009 4:33 PM
Why not keep more relievers and go back to a 4 starter rotation?
This is not insane - 4 starter rotations were the standard when I started following baseball in the early 70's.
5 starter rotations were fine when pitchers were going 7+ innings but we (and other teams) are having pitchers make it into the 5th or 6th inning at best.
Since we are relying on the bullpen on a daily basis, I would cut back to the 4 man rotaion and make more relievers available.
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Pete's reply: You can't do that when these guy have been groomed to pitch in a five-man system. If you want to start from scratch in the minor leagues and pitch guys every fourth day, that's one thing, but you'd just hurt these guys by doing that.
Posted by: Larry-ORF | August 23, 2009 11:10 PM