Tonight, I was watching the Rays and Yankees on ESPN2, and the subject of Rocco Baldelli came up. Steve Phillips and Orel Hershiser were talking about something they don’t really know about – mitochondrial disease. Now, I don’t know much about the disease, but I don’t believe what they were saying. Phillips and Hershiser were talking about the amount of time that Baldelli has missed and how mitochondrial disease possibly played a role. Hershiser claimed that the disease made him so fatigued at times that Baldelli felt he was injured, implying that he wasn’t actually injured. Let’s see here – torn ACL, torn UCL (Tommy John surgery), recurrent hamstring problems. Those sound like real injuries to me. From what I understand, Baldelli becomes more fatigued due to the disease. When athletes get fatigued, their mechanics start to fail, whether they be throwing, hitting, or running. When you start to go away from your normal mechanics, your body is taxed differently than it normally is, and that results in injuries. If they wanted to tie his disease in with his injuries, that’s the route to take, not the seemingly “fake” injuries route.

They also gave their opinions on the Joba Chamberlain plan. They proclaimed that they don’t think the Yankees have the bullpen depth to move Chamberlain out of the 8th-inning role. They also covered the risks in their rotation, but I feel they left out one major component. Tom Verducci and Will Carroll have both mentioned a rule involved with young pitchers – an increase of over 30 innings from one year to the next results in heightened risk (injury and/or loss of effectiveness) the following year. That means that Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy can’t be in the rotation all season, and that’s probably a major reason why the Yankees are planning on moving Joba to the rotation.

Getting off my soapbox, I’d like to talk about the Chris Young extension. It’s rumored that the deal is about the same as the deal Troy Tulowitzki ($31M over 6 years) got in January. Just over a month ago, I mentioned Young as a guy that would be worth signing to an extension after a good 2008 season, but it seems that Arizona is more confident in Young’s ability. This type of extension is one that is great for both sides. Young gets the guaranteed millions every young player dreams of, and Arizona gets cost certainty through 2013. Congratulations to both Chris Young and Diamondbacks’ fans.