Rincon Finds A Home

by joeiscool12 on Jun 24, 2008 2:11 PM EDT

According to Anthony Castrovince at MLB.com, the Indians have signed reliever Juan Rincon and infielder Tony Graffanino to minor league deals.

Rincon, 29, lost effectiveness in August of '06 and pretty much never recovered. It's easy to try to tie his decline to his May '05 performance enhancing drug suspension, but he was solid for the rest of that season.

Graffanino, 35, is trying to work his way back from knee and ACL surgeries.

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Per one of my other favorite baseball sites, mlbtraderumors.com. In a sense, we are paying him to make the Indians bullpen worse, so it sort of helps us.

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MLBTradeRumors.com

is a fantastic site. It’s my first stop everyday after the local pit stops of Joe C. and LEN III. They also have a new visual set-up over there too, and I advise everyone to check it out.

Thanks for the quick work, joeiscool12.

by Jesse on Jun 24, 2008 4:47 PM EDT 0 recs

In a way, we traded Rincon (and ate his salary) to the Indians for Craig Breslow. Right now, that doesn’t look like too bad a deal.

by Jon Marthaler on Jun 24, 2008 4:56 PM EDT 0 recs

minor league deal

he may never even get the chance to make the Indians’ bullpen worse

http://noblingblings.blogspot.com/

by Aaron Fix on Jun 24, 2008 6:53 PM EDT 0 recs

Good point...

... but at least he isn’t making OUR bullpen worse anymore.

by joeiscool12 on Jun 24, 2008 7:23 PM EDT up 0 recs

Great icon Joe

is that from Venture Brothers?

by montanatwinsfan on Jun 24, 2008 10:31 PM EDT up 0 recs

Ha

No, it’s Captain Murphy from Sealab 2021.

by joeiscool12 on Jun 24, 2008 11:02 PM EDT up 0 recs

sealab...

only caught it twice, but loved it. Gotta admit my favorite is Harvey Birdman, but Aquateen Hungerforce comes in a close second.

by montanatwinsfan on Jun 24, 2008 11:09 PM EDT up 0 recs

most of that stuff

is on too late for this old guy.

by montanatwinsfan on Jun 24, 2008 11:11 PM EDT up 0 recs

Huh?

It’s easy to try to tie his decline to his May ‘05 performance enhancing drug suspension, but he was solid for the rest of that season.

Of course he’d be solid for the rest of the season, it’s not like steroids are magic beans that would automatically stop working once you stopped taking them. He had worked them out of his system after a year, and he was left as the Juan Rincon we knew, which is the pitcher he always would have been without PED’s. As sad as it was for one of our own to be connected to PED’s, Rincon wouldn’t have been a major leaguer without them. I think he’s proved that in the years since.

by Neil on Jun 24, 2008 10:55 PM EDT 0 recs

That's ridiculous

Can you provide details on what Rincon took, and at what rate any benefits would diminish?

Also curious if “the years since” include 2006, when he pitched essentially as he did in ‘05. At one point in ‘06, he had eight straight scoreless appearances. Didn’t allow an earned run in 13 straight appearances. Had a better post-season in ‘06 than ‘04. He had 26 holds and a 2.9 ERA in ‘06.

by Johnny Safron on Jun 25, 2008 12:11 AM EDT up 0 recs

What Rincon Took

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Neil doesn’t know. But do we need to know? If you are talking about a normal steroid cycle (6-12 weeks from a couple of weightlifter types I know), by the time Rincon found out he was busted, he could have let his current cycle go through (mid-May suspension, “steroid-free” by say August), and it could have easily carried him through to the end of the season.

Maybe he took something accidentally, very possible, but look at his first/second half splits since ‘03:

Split ERA BA OBP SLG
1H03 3.12 0.222 0.308 0.311
2H03 4.42 0.241 0.325 0.340
1H04 1.84 0.178 0.276 0.224
2H04 3.55 0.185 0.253 0.311
1H05 2.54 0.213 0.306 0.262
2H05 2.37 0.236 0.303 0.286
1H06 2.06 0.231 0.301 0.275
2H06 4.11 0.320 0.373 0.418
1H07 3.98 0.276 0.359 0.449
2H07 6.43 0.270 0.352 0.423

When the second half comes, all but 2005 he really seems to hit a wall. It seems to me at least that he was taking something that was helping him in only winter 04 through his suspension. If I had to guess, I would think he looked back on how he felt in 04 and decided to take a gamble.

by GACTwinFan on Jun 25, 2008 2:15 AM EDT up 0 recs

Unfortunately, no one can prove it

Because the federal government hasn’t done a study on the effects of steroids. Odd, right? You’d think they would want hard evidence on its effects. Also, since MLB won’t release specific information on what he was caught with, I admit we are left with speculation.

What we do know is that steroids do not give you strength on their own. They allow you to work out more often because they heal muscles quicker. This is actually very important for a pitcher who is breaking down his muscles and tendons significantly every few days. If Rincon had been working out significantly more from 04-05, as GACTwinsFan suggests, due to the steroids, the strength and stamina of his arm would have been increased greatly, which wouldn’t have just disappeared once he stopped using. The strength and healing process would have lessened over time, and seems to have caught up to him late in 2006, if we were to go by GAC’s splits.

Juan Rincon was obviously a good pitcher, otherwise he wouldn’t have made it as far as he did. I just get tired of Twins fans decrying the big stars for their use of PED’s while overlooking Rincon because he was one of our own. To me, it was obvious (and statistically supported) that Juan was busted, then started his slow demise. To hear people call it a “decline” or “hoping he’ll get back to form” to me smacks of homer-ism and short sightedness.

by Neil on Jun 25, 2008 10:53 AM EDT up 0 recs

I suspect it's a combination of things

Mother’s little helper His fastball was never that good until one year it shot up 3MPH. That was 2003, when he was the long man in a very good bullpen. Then he took over as the set-up guy and the fastball stayed right there until he was caught. Since then, it has wavered between 91 and 93 and not be consistent. I suspect he was juicing. Not in the huge way, but just enough to recover from more intensive fastball enhancing workouts than he normally would be able to do.

Confidence I contend he’s never been the same since the infamous Ruben Sierra homer in Game four of the 2004 playoffs. He’s shown flashes of his former self, but he’s reverted to that scared kid on the mound an awful lot since then.

*Age His career follows a fairly typical age/performance bell curve. It’s just that this year, the bottom fell out of it.

"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot

by cmathewson on Jun 25, 2008 10:22 AM EDT 0 recs