Call the Doctor

He was probably one of the first I unfollowed for many of the reasons you mentioned above.

ESPN instituted a memo last year to clarify their social media policy, which included a recommendation to their employees that “their first and only priority is to serve ESPN sanctioned efforts, including sports news, information and content.” And if that’s not clear enough, there’s an additional point that “If you wouldn’t say it on the air or write it in your column, don’t tweet it.”

Who knows what his contract with ESPN allows, or if the rules are a little different at the hyperlocal sites. But methinks a higher up could make a stink about Rubin’s rant if they were so inclined.

none of us knew about any of this

I’m not sure I agree with that. Nothing Rubin mentioned was surprising. We’ve heard bits and pieces and much conjecture about just that over the years. This is only the first time all these details have been aggregated. Sure one may be confused or question why this all came out now. It seems far more akin to something an aggrieved Mets-fan blogger would put out rather than a stone-faced reporter.

However, Rubin has always been in my mind the best Mets beat reporter and easily one of the hardest working. His reports, though critical of the Mets, have never been hatchet jobs like Passan and co (or even what Manish Mehta did with the Jets last week) but well researched and thought-out criticisms. It seems to me that Alderson’s comments were the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back for Rubin, sending him into a tweeting tizzy.

sun rises in east. water wet.

About any of this coming out. Maybe the timing is strange, but there were signs pointing to the Mets mishandling injuries for some time. Reyes’ injuries seemed to be handled the most egregiously in recent years, but it didn’t end there. We all know how 2009 went for him, and I think most people understood that it was a misdiagnosis that caused him to miss the whole year.

They did something similar with F-Mart that year too. He hurt his knee during a game, and at first it was called a knee sprain. Then come to find out he tore his MCL a few weeks later and needed surgery. A similar problem happened with Ike this year. I really believe he didn’t have to miss the rest of the season, but that misdiagnosis compounded his injury.

as reported by Rubin….this comes as a surprise to any Met fan? Any Met fan watching Met baseball the last several years?

One night at a home game in summer of ‘09, Omar joined the booth to supposedly do some damage control about the Halladay trade the Mets supposedly passed on. In that half inning he said something I’ll never forget. When asked about Beltran – who I believe was currently sitting out that first diagnosed knee problem with a cortisone shot….Omar said something to do the effect of ‘We have very good doctors, and we like our doctors, but sometimes you have to weigh the medical advice against putting your better players on the DL’.

I was just floored. Yeah, Reyes and Delgado were already down. But to come out during a came an announce to millions that you’re potentially throwing out sound medical advice to get your better players out on the field was quite possibly the dumbest thing I ever heard Omar say. That is until a couple of days later when that Bernazard story hit and he held that press conference announcing his firing.

Now…fast forward and we have a new GM. As much as I like Sandy, I’m not surprised he wouldn’t come right out and say the doctors missed the diagnosis and quite possibly made the situation worse. Although at this stage of them game, he might as well come right out and admit these type of things. Not gonna surprise too many Met fans.

I didn’t hear anything other than maybe the Wagner one that I hadn’t heard before. (But I think there might have been some kind of drama around the situation at the time)

But I’m not sure they’re all THAT big of a deal to be honest. At least in terms of the FO involvement. The Chuch one was a big mistake, but the details on that one are sketchy and it seems like that might have been more on the medical staff than anything.

In the Wagner one obviously FO people shouldnt be saying that sort of thing, but I don’t know if that actually had any influence on how the injury was handled. Putz was a screw up and maybe most illustrates his point (and a double screw up given the mets didnt have Putz take a physical when they traded for him) since they were directly told something, but most of the others are kind of “ehh”

Its not like players on other teams never play though injuries…especially when they are “swollen knees” and muscle strains (especially ones thought to be minor).

is the Mets handling of injuries any different than any other team? Don’t all coaches/players/etc. believe in “rubbing some dirt on it” and “manning up” and “playing through pain”?

Of course, the damning thing is that it is supposed to be the front office that exercises good judgement and restraint in these matters.

I have to say tho, the Ike thing seems kinda different to me. In that case, the doctors made an educated though ultimately incorrect judgement about how to proceed with Ike’s treatment. This does happen even with the best medical professionals. In earlier cases, it seems like the FO colluded with the coaching staff to rush injured players back too soon.

tSure looking at all the injuries compiled together looks bad, but its kind of a mixed bag. Some of them have legitimately been problems with the diagnosis (like Ike, and I think it was initially reported that the Mets didnt think Church had a concussion, maybe Reyes)…but sometimes thats the nature of medicine, I don’t know if that means the docs did a bad job (but thats not even where Rubin was going with this, so that doesnt really matter) Outside of Putz, I don’t know if there are direct stories of the Mets actually ignoring medical advice.

There were a number of players who’s rehabs didn’t go well and had a bunch of setbacks (Reyes, Delgado) or players played through injuries, but so far I haven’t heard anything to directly indicating that the Mets forced those guys back onto the field/into rehab against medical advice.

How much has the organization’s process and culture with regard to injuries changed since Alderson came in and cleaned house?

On one hand you have Rubin, who clearly thought he’d be one of those Ivy League GM’s by now, but is still just a beat writer. He hung on to this information until no one really cared about it, probably because he didn’t want to ruin his shot at a front office job. I’d say shame on him if every other beat writer wasn’t equally negligent.

And Wilpon, whose WFAN Mongo Owner profile in that magazine interview makes me believe this is only the tip of the iceberg.

If he felt the trainers wouldn’t even want to hear about a potential injury they shouldn’t be allowed to clean the Citi Field bathrooms.

Welcome to the club Mr. Rubin

was easily letting Ryan Church onto the airplane after his concusion in Atlanta. If that doesn’t scream incompetence i don’t know what does.

but some how we shrugged it off. now we have evidence that our Med staff is led by nick Riviera and the Dr from family guy.