Juan Francisco recalled/Mike Leake to DL

[knoonan991]

From the Cincinnati Reds Twitter

Juan Francisco recalled, Mike Leake to disabled list with fatigued right shoulder.

http://twitter.com/CincinnatiReds

[Knightro28]

Interesting. Wonder how long he'll be down for. He's at 138.1 innings is that correct?

Is this another case of "When he comes back healthy and rested, we'll see how he throws" a la Volquez? Could he come back into the rotation for playoffs? I personally don't think he will be in the playoff rotation, but it is definitely not set in stone.

[mound_patrol]

I would have liked to see him get to 150/160 innings before they shut him down, but maybe they plan on using him for the playoffs.

[CySeymour]

he'll probably come back, but only in relief or emergency start. Just my guess.

[GIDP]

They really screwed him when they started shifting him around and skipping starts all over the place. The so called plan they had him place for him was clearly the wrong plan.

[CySeymour]

Originally Posted by GIDP

They really screwed him when they started shifting him around and skipping starts all over the place. The so called plan they had him place for him was clearly the wrong plan.

May be the case. They probably should have just kept him on his start every 5 days, then shut him down at his innings limit.

[GIDP]

Originally Posted by BigKlu

May be the case. They probably should have just kept him on his start every 5 days, then shut him down at his innings limit.

It would have made more sense to do that.

[mound_patrol]

Originally Posted by GIDP

It would have made more sense to do that.

Make more sense yes, but I think the Reds were hoping and praying that shuffling him around wouldnt affect his results and he'd be available down the stretch.

[knoonan991]

Originally Posted by BigKlu

May be the case. They probably should have just kept him on his start every 5 days, then shut him down at his innings limit.

In all fairness, hindsight is 20/20 so I can't necessarily fault the decision.

But I think you are right, He probably would have been more effective in his later starts.

[GIDP]

The skipping him starts, and then moving him to the pen is more the issue.

[texasdave]

Maybe the best thing to do if you know you are going to have a young pitcher with an innings limit is to keep them in extended spring training until such time that they can enter the rotation and pitch on through to the end of the year. I say this because 1) you won't be scrambling at the end of the year, if the team is in a pennant race, looking for another starter, and 2) early in the season there seem to be more off days and postponed games and a team might be better able to go with a four-man rotation.

[Stray]

Yeah I think all of the shuffling was probably bad for him, but it could also be that he's out of gas. His fastball was around 88/89 and breaking pitches in the mid 80s. That's really bad, and obviously very hittable.

I wouldn't feel comfortable with him taking the ball in an important game for the rest of this season, but that's just me.

[Mr. Redlegs73]

If his shoulder truly is fatigued this is the best decision they could make. Is throwing him out there just so he can pitch in a pennant race or the playoffs really worth the possibility of him ruining his shoulder for good, therefore cutting his career short ala Brandon Claussen.

[redssince75]

"Fatigued right shoulder"? That's awfully vague, and no real way to prove or disprove it objectively, is there? Can you really put people on DL for such non-specific "injuries"?

[New York Red]

Originally Posted by knoonan991

In all fairness, hindsight is 20/20 so I can't necessarily fault the decision.

But I think you are right, He probably would have been more effective in his later starts.

Agreed on the hindsight part.

I think the organization's plan for Leake - whatever it was - may have been thrown off a bit by the way he began. He was our best/most consistent starter for the first couple months of the season, so he was going out there every fifth game because we needed him to. It would have been a difficult decision to limit his starts at that time. I agree it'd be nice to have a strong Mike Leake right now, but would we be in this position if we hadn't had him pitching so well early in the season? I can see both sides of the coin on this one.