You consider 12th and 6th overworking? Isn't that what an elite closer's workload should look like? Or would you prefer having one of the position's best players sitting on the bench more relative to his peers?
You're going to need to quantify the easy innings and consecutive outings claims. And if you're going to cite his age as a reason he needs to be protected, then you have to cite evidence that young relievers have to be protected even more than Osuna has (12th most innings out of 30 closers. Until you provide evidence that he went on more consecutive days than most and/or had more easy innings, that can't be used as part of the argument).
Lol. If you want to present a credible claim, then yes you do "need" to. That better tough guy? And comparing Osuna to "top" closers, I don't think that's a valid comparison. If you want to assess risk of injury, shouldn't you be comparing him to all other closers, not just a randomly selected subset? And you certainly can't conclude that it hasn't been done before that relievers haven't pitched as many innings as Osuna before age 22 just based on looking at top closers from recent years. And given that many relievers were starters earlier in their careers, it wouldn't be a surprise if not many had broken in in a big way at Osuna's age. But one can't just assume that it leads to a greater injury risk because it fits their argument.
Well, you said his arm was a ticking time bomb so I'm just trying to figure out why that would be. I think it's reasonable to say that someone who's 12th in innings among the 30 who would be expected to pitch the most innings among his position (the team's best relief pitcher) is not being overworked. And you dropped the "easy innings" thing. So the only other claim left of yours that you might be basing this on is the assumption that no one, or few, relief pitchers have pitched so many innings at his age or younger.
Although I like what your proposing here I read that they did the trade so they could buy him out to get under the luxury tax so it would reset. Making this move and eating salary I think prevents them from doing that. I’m not sure how retained salary works with the tax
But that would be true for all pitchers who've undergone the procedure, yes? Or to look at it a different way, he's already "had" his TJ, whereas another hard-throwing reliever doesn't have his out of the way yet (and the vast majority of closers are hard-throwers). I just don't see how having undergone TJ previously, in an age where the surgery is ubiquitous, makes it a noteworthy risk that separates Osuna from other pitchers in such a way that would affect his valuation.
Yes, I understand your point. I just don't know if it significantly elevates his risk enough to change his valuation. According to Fangraphs, there were 161 pitchers used in MLB in 2016 who have had Tommy John reconstruction surgery. About 30% of pitchers have had the surgery. For a surgery that ubiquitous, and with velocity the highest it's ever been, we can assume that many of those pitchers who haven't had the surgery yet will at some point in their career. So everyone's risk profile is pretty high as a pitcher these days, and I don't think we know enough about predicting arm troubles to make it a significant factor in making a decision on someone like Osuna, based off of one previous TJ that he was successfully recovered from.
