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Sometimes you need to look beyond the simple sentence that says "Player X has been diagnosed with Injury Y and will be out for the year," because the finality of the statement doesn't do justice to the emotions it can send through an organization whenever a player such as Casey Janssen receives the news that he has a tear in his labrum and is finished for the year.
"He was crushed," Toronto Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi said in a telephone interview yesterday, describing the conversation he had with Janssen.
Crushed. It's a safe bet there was plenty of that sentiment around the team. Start with the fact that the unflinching Janssen could either start or chew up innings in long relief — the fifth starter's job is now likely in the hands of Jesse Litsch, who could be a right-handed Gustavo Chacin — and add in that he was at his best last season in the American League East Division.
In 30 games inside the division, Janssen was 2-1, with an earned-run average of 0.94, allowing three earned runs in 281/3 innings. In 132/3 innings against the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, he allowed one earned run and one of his teammates said this spring training that he had a better feel for his game than anybody on the staff but Roy Halladay.
"What we'll miss," Ricciardi said with a sigh, "is his bulldoggedness. He's everything we like to think our players are going to be."
For Ricciardi and the Blue Jays' brain trust, this is a deeply personal injury. Like all baseball people, they are sensitive to criticisms of their drafts, and for an organization that took Ricky Romero over Troy Tulowitzki and has seemed to be fighting a losing battle against baseball's chattering classes since Ricciardi made Russ Adams his first No. 1 pick, Janssen, Aaron Hill and Shaun Marcum are all viewed as evidence that the preference given to college players in the organization's early days was based on sound baseball logic.
(As an aside, the "rankings" of minor-leaguers are a political thing, and any organization that deep-sixed as many scouts as the Blue Jays did in Ricciardi's initial years will not often receive the benefit of the doubt.)
Did the Blue Jays think about having Janssen pitch through the injury? The answer is yes.
"It's a small tear," Ricciardi said, "and we talked briefly about it. I just wanted to tell him it was an option, even though it's one I wasn't going to favour. You know, if he was a veteran guy we might have tried to milk it."
Now, the Blue Jays' zest in pursuing a trade for Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants must now be viewed in a different light (and make no mistake, they were ardent suitors).
Club president and chief executive officer Paul Godfrey said yesterday the club had Janssen see Dr. Lewis Yocum in September, and Janssen's shoulder soreness was enough of a clubhouse talking point that Frank Thomas mentioned it to Robert MacLeod yesterday without being solicited.
Ricciardi smartly kept any suspicions he had out of circulation until necessary, not wanting to weaken his hand in any trade discussions. "Everybody feels something along the way," he responded when asked whether there was an inkling at the end of the season that Janssen might be sore. True, that.
So what's next? Free agents? Not a chance. "We don't have the money," Ricciardi said simply.
Beyond that, the best available free-agent pitcher, Kyle Lohse, is being pursued by three clubs that have pitching injuries and don't have the Blue Jays' depth: the St. Louis Cardinals, Texas Rangers and the Giants.
A trade? Know this: the Blue Jays have four left fielders and shouldn't be married to any of them, as much as it's hard to dislike Matt Stairs for any number of reasons. The fact is, the best trade chip of the group is outfield prospect Adam Lind, because Reed Johnson and Shannon Stewart won't likely exact much in the way of return that would be better than Litsch.
"We aren't panicking," Ricciardi said.
And that's good. But the Blue Jays are hurting this morning. Deeply.
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