Following up: Bobby Jenks recaps two years from hell

Bobby Jenks
Bobby Jenks in 2011 (Keith Allison / Flickr)

Catching up on a couple stories worth highlighting from the week

Back in May, Bobby Jenks officially closed out his career with a win, taking the form of a $5.1 million settlement from the hospital that botched his back surgery.

On Wednesday, he opened up about the procedure, what led to it and what came after in a first-person piece for The Players’ Tribune. It opens with Jenks occupying the driver’s seat of a car wearing only underwear and broken glass after a Percocet-and-Ambien-fueled tornado of chaos that could’ve ended much worse.

Jenks goes into great details about two years from hell in Boston. It started in 2011 with a bicep tear, back injury, pulmonary embolism and colitis, and it concluded with a flawed surgery that almost killed him, an addiction to painkillers and a divorce.

Jenks has talked about this to some extent before — he opened up about his addiction before his return to SoxFest back in 2014 — but the settlement allows the story to have a beginning, a middle and at least one end. Two battles remain, however: Jenks is seven years and three months sober in a terrific development that will require constant vigilance, and he wants to draw attention to the practice of concurrent surgeries, which he calls “straight-up evil.”

* * * * * * * * *

One year after the one-for-one trade between the White Sox and Mariners involving Alex Colomé and Omar Narváez, only Colomé remains with the team that acquired him. The one-man transaction machine known as Jerry Dipoto sent the catcher to Milwaukee for a 22-year-old fourth-rounder who hasn’t yet advanced past A-ball and a competitive balance draft pick.

It seems like a light return considering the Narváez contributed 22 homers and a 120 OPS+ while playing 132 games, but the problems that plagued Narvaez with the Sox followed him to Seattle. And when reading this indictment of Narváez’s defense from Corey Brock of The Athletic, perhaps Narváez became an even more extreme version of himself on both sides of the ball.

The way Brock tells it, for all the ways Narváez overachieved at the plate, it apparently became clear that Narváez was absolutely not the catcher to develop the young pitchers the Mariners absolutely need to succeed.

Seattle couldn’t take the chance on keeping Narváez, not because some feel his bat will regress moving forward, but because of a real fear he couldn’t help — but could actually hinder — the development of these young pitchers who have arrived or will arrive soon in the big leagues. […]

Really, it was ]Tom] Murphy — with Nola backing him — who made parting with Narváez relatively easy. Acquired March 29 from the Giants, Murphy was one of a few bright spots for a 94-loss team last season. Almost immediately upon joining the Mariners, he got rave reviews from pitchers for his pitch-calling, meticulous preparation and conviction in executing a game plan.

Narváez’s case fascinates me for how tough baseball can be. He went from a Triple-A Rule 5 pick to baseball’s third-most productive offensive catcher, which should seem like a major triumph. Yet two teams with major problems developing players have dumped him for diminishing returns because his inability to handle pitchers is just too loud, and it’s not for a lack of trying.

Perhaps a successful franchise will give Narváez the support to give him a year that actually feels like a success. The Brewers have plans, some of which might extend beyond hoping.

Perhaps the best part of this trade? I’d missed this play the first time it happened:

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tommytwonines

You didn’t mention Him, Jim. Congratulations. Since the last topic was Narvaez and his defensive woes, it wouldn’t have quite been “jump the shark” territory, either. 

tommytwonines

We’ll see. 

Yolmer

That was good for a laugh. It seems like a team should use Narvaez as a part time catcher and part time first baseman. His bat and on base skills may be good enough for that to work, kind of like a best scenario outcome for Zack Collins.

Also, do you not put much stock into the Ozuna rumor Jim? I figured there would be a post on that.

NDSox12

Jon Heyman seems to have shot that one down:

Rumor that Marcell Ozuna is signing with the White Sox with announcement coming Monday is not true, I’m told. White Sox appears to be concentrating on pitching at the moment.

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 8, 2019

Yolmer

That’s reasonable. I don’t think you’d want to discount the foreign reporters entirely because so many players live abroad in the offseason, and the foreign reporters would know what they are doing better than the US media. I think Ozuna would work as a signing too, so it is an interesting rumor.

GrinnellSteve

Perhaps the focus is on pitching because the Sox know the number they need to beat to get in the Cole sweepstakes. Reports have the Yankees offering $245M for 7 years.

metasox

Sox already knew it would be that or higher. They better concentrate on pitching. There should be a few decent position player stragglers to plug a spot late, if necessary.

Trooper Galactus

It might be easy to kick back and say the White Sox won that trade, but honestly, how many teams would trade anything more than what the M’s got for Narvaez to get Colome at $10m+?

hackwilson

One day at a time and easy does it Bobby.
Bret Gardner is lefty power RF where Ozuna is not.
After Wheeler I would recommend a circle the wagons plan.

Amar

Brett Gardner’s ISO in 2019 was nearly 80% higher than his career average (~6000  PAs). I’ll pass

MrStealYoBase

Rosenthal’s Athletic piece today gave me an idea:

Price & Benintendi + $30M for Luis Gonzalez? (Could be any mid-level prospect, not really the point). 

Red Sox looking to dump salary and get rid of $63M/3 for Price and 3 years of arb salaries for Benintendi.

White Sox pay ~$85M over the next 3 years (Price’s salary plus arb numbers for Benintendi) for a league average-to-slightly below average starting pitcher and average-to-above average corner outfielder. 

Soxfan2

Eh. I’d rather have Ryu for the Price money and Benintendi is very meh to me. He had a -3 DRS in Left Field and is really lacking in power. I’d rather have Ryu and Ozuna.

Trooper Galactus

The Red Sox are not going to move a cost-effective asset to dump salary. I don’t know why Benintendi trades keep getting posited in this light.

asinwreck

Marvin Miller is in the Hall of Fame.

They waited until he was dead, and more than a decade after his punching bag Bowie Kuhn got in, but Marvin Miller is in the Hall of Fame.

Joliet Orange Sox

I saw this on MLBTR and was happy to see it. I think Miller was on the right side of the union/owners battles but even people who disagree have to acknowledge Miller was an important figure in baseball history.

Trooper Galactus

It was really difficult reading that Jenks piece. I’m glad he received a hero’s welcome at SoxFest a few years ago, apparently in spite of his own expectations. He’ll always be a World Series hero on the South Side.