Cubs Invite 19 to Spring Training

This is clearly gamesmanship although I don't think the Mets "have a leg to stand on" --- The definition of "elective" surgery to me means it's ultimately the patients decision to go ahead with surgery which is any procedure that isn't life or limb threatening and (big AND) doesn't have a short timeline to make that decision before a good outcome can't be achieved (ie. fixing significantly displaced fractures which if not treated in a timely manner would lead to a bad result). The definition of "necessary" surgery is harder to define, since other than cosmetic surgery most surgeons who recommend a procedure think it's necessary based on a particular outcome trying to be achieved (albeit the chance of the surgery achieving it's goal or a good outcome can vary based on the specific medical problem and the track record for a procedure). Certainly the fracture scenerio I mentioned above fits here. In Beltran's case the outcome trying to be achieved is knee pain relief which is more subjective and can't be (ideally) objectively measured. Microfracture surgery is unlikely to restore the damaged articular cartilage to "good as new" condition. It's a procedure recommended to try to achieve pain relief. So using the terminology being used, it's more of a legal (contracts) issue, not a doctor recommendation issue. Beltran's surgery was clearly elective. It certainly can be considered necessary although I don't like that term (I prefer to use the term "reasonable") since "necessary" has a different meaning to each person involved here...a patient, a doctor, a lawyer, a sports agent and a baseball GM. Cosmetic surgery (elective, yes; necessary, no) isn't covered by most insurance plans (although it's lucrative work because it's a cash up front business).

You're talking median, Nav is talking average. I personally think median probably matters more here, though.

I mentioned Theriot (in a separate paragraph) because we're all familiar with him and he's arguably an average hitting SS. In my example above his OPS of .712 sets the average for major league baseball. If I expand my list of shortstops to all ML SS's with 250 PA's or more, Theriot's SLG ranks 18/35. ( http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/positi... ) I'd say that's average power by that measure. But most of us don't think Theriot has any power at all.. not really. So, when writers say Castro has below average power now but may grow into average power, what are they all talking about? That's what I'm asking. As far as I can tell, he's already there power wise.