Dodgers Add Angel Berroa, Call Up Andy LaRoche

Impatient with infielder Chin-Lung Hu’s .159 batting average, and surely confused at times by what appeared to be a 13-year-old boy from Taiwan playing shortstop, General Manager Ned Colletti finally addressed the shortstop position Friday.

The Dodgers acquired former competent shortstop Angel Berroa, who failed to make the Kansas City Royals out of spring training and was demoted to the minors.

Berroa captured the American League Rookie of the Year award in 2003, but has since struggled. Before the trade, he was hitting .291 with 10 home runs in 189 at bats at Triple A Omaha (whoopdeedoo!). The first place Diamondbacks are no doubt shaking in their boots.

All that said, this is not a bad trade for the Dodgers. When starting shortstop Rafael Furcal returns from injury, Berroa will assume a utility role and strengthen the Dodgers bench. Until then, the Dodgers are not likely to get much offensive production out of the shortstop position.

Management had planned to ensure that Berroa could handle the starting shortstop job before demoting Hu to Triple A Las Vegas. One would think that Colletti would have at least liked to see Berroa get on base before he made any decisions, but not striking out in every at-bat sufficed, as the Dodgers demoted Hu on Monday after Berroa went 0-3 Sunday with two strikeouts.

The good news for Dodger fans is that rookie infielder Andy LaRoche is taking Hu’s roster spot. LaRoche is a highly regarded prospect, rated by Baseball America as the second best player in the Dodgers system, behind phenom starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw.

Although fellow rookied Blake Dewitt has a firm grasp on the third base job for the time being, LaRoche has been playing a lot of second base at Triple A Las Vegas, and has played first base and outfield in the past.

With first baseman James Loney’s recent slump, 40-year-old second baseman Jeff Kent’s age, Dewitt’s youth, and outfielder Matt Kemp’s looming suspension, LaRoche should be seeing some playing time, especially against lefties. He also becomes the Dodger’s primary right-handed pinch hitter. Whatever his role, LaRoche is hopefully in Los Angeles to stay.

UPDATE: LaRoche started at first tonight and homered off Randy Wolf in his second plate appearance since being recalled.

Andy LaRoche Eyed as Jeff Kent Replacement

With Jeff Kent's batting average fallen more than 30 points this month, The Dodgers are comtemplating making room for prospect Andy LaRoche at second base.

Manager Joe Torre was reported by The Los Angeles Times as having discussed moving LaRoche to second base intermittently because Kent is missing time with spinal pain, and because LaRoche has some experience there. The team wants to find playing time for LaRoche in order to shore up offensive shortcomings.

LaRoche -- a third baseman -- appears to have lost his position at least for now to Blake DeWitt, who has been hot since LaRoche went down with a thumb injury. LaRoche has since returned to action for Triple A Las Vegas, where he is being tried at first base with the idea of spelling mildly slumping James Loney once LaRoche returns to Los Angeles.

Torre also mentioned LaRoche as a possibility playing the outfield.

Injury Analysis: Adrian Beltre

An old injury, just revealed by the Mariners, Adrian Beltre has evidence of an injury to the radial collateral ligament at the base of the left thumb. Since Beltre throws right, I suspect he suffered this injury from one or more fielding attempts where the thumb of his glove struck the ground forcing his thumb toward the index finger.

If you are paying attention, Andy LaRoche just had surgery and will miss at least a couple months (and in all probability not be right for the balance of the 2008 season) for an injury to the ulnar collateral ligament of the base of the thumb - the opposite side of the joint where the base of the thumb is attached to the bone of the hand (first metacarpal) where the mechanism of injury is the opposite of Beltre's (the ligament in the webspace between the thumb and the index finger is the ulnar collateral ligament, while the ligament on the outside of the thumb is the radial collateral ligament).

LaRoche's injury is colloquially referred to in medical parlance as a "Gamekeeper's Thumb." No, not an injury to soccer's goaltender, but an injury to bird-handlers (in old England, as a matter of fact, where the malady was first described) who raise and harvest various birds for human consumption (chickens and game hens for example) and the "Gamekeeper" would sacrifice the bird by snapping its neck with their hands. When the maneuver is performed hundreds of times, the stress on the ligament at the base of the thumb became evident because the condition was so disabling to the gamekeeper and they complained about it to observant doctors.

The injury is also called a "Ski Pole" injury which is what happens to skiers when the ski pole is violently loosened from their grip in a fall when their hand is around the handgrip of the ski pole and the wrist is fixated in the pole's strap, ostensibly as a tether so as not to lose the pole in a fall. The thumb is taken violently beyond its normal range of motion, rupturing the ligament.

It's important to recognize that the thumb (along with the index finger) is responsible for about 90-percent of the function of the hand. The ulnar collateral ligament (LaRoche's injury), clinically, is far more important to the function of the thumb than the radial collateral ligament on the opposite side of the base of the thumb (Beltre's injury - which now chronic and likely healed).

If one examines Beltre's performance both before and after this ailment is believed to have originated, which has been done elsewhere (The Fantasy Hot Sheet presented by The Roto Times: Beltre, Granderson, Rolen and more, March 25, 2008, by Rick Wilton), you'll notice that his productivity is about the same, indicating that, while he has pain and perhaps some mild disability from that old injury he can still play and still produce.

All athletes, especially professional athletes, play with some degree of pain and disability. Just because something is found on an MRI and the athlete has some discomfort in that area does not necessararily mean that that finding is the cause of the problem and certainly not one that requires fixing. One third of the population taken at random off the street, for example, on an MRI has one or more bulging intervertebral discs in their back - and no symptoms, no disability.

When somebody has back pain or a back injury and an MRI is indiscriminately ordered, select unknowing (or unscrupulous) medical practitioners will ascribe their patient's problem to the disc and recommend surgery. The results of disc surgery (discectomy and/or laminectomy) are well known postoperatively: one third get better, one third get worse, and one-third are exactly the same as before the surgery. In well-controlled studies, randomized to surgery versus no surgery, two years after the diagnosis of disc disease producing back pain is made, the outcome of patients in both surgical and conservative management groups is precisely the same - the same number are better, the same number are worse, the same number are just the same.

Clearly, it's possible that the abnormal disc that is imaged by MRI may have nothing to do with the back pain. Along with lots of things MRI imaged in MLB players, so it could be true with the radial collateral ligament of Beltre's thumb. I would like to see a study where a series of asymptomatic baseball players undergo MRI of the thumb. I suspect there would be a significant number with evidence of old functional injuries not dissimilar from Beltre's, and this could all be much ado about nothing.

LaRoche Injury Ends Nomar Garciaparra Experiment

Dodgers manager Joe Torre's considerations to move third baseman Nomar Garciaparra to second base and other positions have been ended -- at least for now -- with an injury to 24-year-old third base prospect Andy LaRoche.

Garciaparra, 34, had been under consideration to become a multi-position, substitute utility infielder playing not only third base and second, but shortstop and occasionally first, as Garciaparra has significant experience at all of the positions except second base.

But LaRoche -- who was to have been eased into the starting third base job -- tore the ulnar collateral ligament of his right thumb, and has undergone surgery to reconnect the ligament and repair a chip in the first metacarpal bone. LaRoche will be out until at least mid-May, and likely will be unable to resume normal play until June 1 or later.

That virtually assures that Garciaparra will open as the sole, full-time third baseman.

Speculation had been rife that Torre would favor Garciaparra over the talented young LaRoche, but many forget that it was just a dozen years ago that Hall of Famer Wade Boggs fell from favor when he played for Torre on the Yankees. Garciaparra may have been headed for a similar fate, as he would have been demoted to stopgap sixth infielder substituting intermittently for shortstop Rafael Furcal and second baseman Jeff Kent, veterans who have struggled due to injuries.

The 40-year-old Kent -- who has failed to reach the 500-at bat plateau since 2005 -- already is experiencing hamstring problems this spring. Furcal, 30, lost 30 points off his batting average last year after dealing with ankle and spinal trouble.