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James Looks Forward to Spring Training
Written by Akshay on February 15, 2008 – 8:48 amChuck James will face a tough spring training this year. Pitching through a full 7-month season for the first time in his career, James’ unorthodox delivery was most likely the reason for the injury. Using his body very little puts an enormous amount of stress on an arm that is throwing a baseball 90+ mph. James’ status for this spring is a lot more uncertain than it was last spring when he was coming off an 11-win campaign as a rookie. Neither the Braves nor James know whether he’ll be ready to go at the beginning of the season.
An MRI and other tests towards the end of last season showed a slight tear in the rotator cuff. That’s not good news for either the Braves of James entering this season. James has been resting his shoulder since last season instead of his usual off-season job of installing windows for Lowe’s.
James has also said that he won’t pitch off a mound until Spring Training and will hopefully be ready to go by the start of the season. Unfortunately, the Braves had better be cautious with James this time and try to ease him along. There are several areas for improvement that Chuck will have to go through before he can be a stable, every-5-days, #4 starter for the Braves.
James will absolutely need to change his delivery. While James’ delivery allows for deception with his change-up as well as fastball, the force that he puts on his shoulder will continue to provide problems for the young pitcher throughout the course of the seasons. That could prove to be dangerous for both Chuck and the Braves, as major shoulder surgery could potentially be worse for him than elbow surgery – it has not been perfected like Tommy John surgery on the elbow or ligament replacement surgery in the knees. It’s potentially much tougher to repair a rotator cuff than a torn ligament.
Also, James will definitely need to develop a third pitch consistently. He has only been able to pitch through a line-up a max of two to two and a half times because it’s easy for hitters to figure out the adjustments he has made between starts.
Hopefully Chuck will be healthy by the start of the season and will have all of his health problems and home-run trouble behind him.
Posted in General | 3 Comments »
By Cheyanne on Feb 15, 2008 | Reply
If Chuck James is having such a problem with his rotator cuff with only 6 weeks until the season starts what is the chace he will be ready to start. Given that he has to change the way he throws. Is there a better chance that we will see him pitching relief come Opening Day?
By Akshay A on Feb 18, 2008 | Reply
Cheyanne,
There’s a chance he won’t be ready for the season (a good chance at that). James had never pitched a full major league season before last year and never got the kind of stress over a whole season that he did last year. With Jurjjens and Reyes and maybe even Hampton looking for those last two rotation spots I’d say there’s a good chance James starts in the bullpen on opening day, who knows he may even be on the DL. We won’t know how his shoulder is adjusting to the rehab until a little later.
By Akshay A on Feb 2, 2009 | Reply
Cheyanne,
There's a chance he won't be ready for the season (a good chance at that). James had never pitched a full major league season before last year and never got the kind of stress over a whole season that he did last year. With Jurjjens and Reyes and maybe even Hampton looking for those last two rotation spots I'd say there's a good chance James starts in the bullpen on opening day, who knows he may even be on the DL. We won't know how his shoulder is adjusting to the rehab until a little later.