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Amaroq -> Battling through injury (10/23/2005 5:36:54 AM)
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One thing which stands out to me about these past two postseasons are pitchers 'trying to go' despite injury:
Schillings bloody sock
Peavy getting shelled
Clemens trying to go today, but just not being 'right'
And of course, it evokes other images: Jason Schmidt with tendonitis, not giving it the time to heal and losing a bid for the Cy Young award. Rob Nenn playing through injury and effectively giving up his career trying to get the Giants through the World Series in 2002.
It provides a very interesting decision for the manager: do I start my injured #1, or do I go with a lesser pitcher?
But, for that to get passed on to us in-game, I think we need a bit more detailed injury system - and real risk-reward issues. I'd like to see this expanded on - and I'm sure its a fertile field for your imagination, Shaun, but at a minimum I'd like to see
- a noticeable negative impact to performance for 'playing hurt'
- a chance of more serious injury
- a chance of mild 'setback' if a player tries to come back too early
- a chance for injury to permanently alter a player's ability levels (e.g., if my 90/70/90 pitcher hurts himself, he might come back from injury 90/30/50, or some such)
- a chance for true career-ending injury, and/or injuries of extreme duration (more than a year)
- possibly 'nagging' injuries which can't heal without surgery; surgery being season-ending.
We'd need to have some form of 'injury report' on given players - with an assessment from the trainer indicating how long the injury will last for, whether the player can play, maybe what aspects of his game it will impact (throwing, fielding/running, hitting), whether we risk injuring the player worse by playing him, whether the injury will improve if we continue to play the player, whether surgery is an option, and how long it would take. He might 'make a recommendation' for beginning players, said recommendation usually being 'to play it safe' but perhaps being more risky during the postseason.
What I'm looking for is having to agonize over whether to play my favorite player or whether to rest him, especially for an important game against the division leaders, or in the postseason. [:)]
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