Under The Knife 2/18/25

Winter Outside, Spring At Heart

I’ll be on Foul Territory this afternoon at 1:45 Eastern. And if you’re joining from there, welcome!

Indianapolis got hit by a nasty snow squall Sunday night and there were storms coming in to Daytona, moving the race time up. Weather is always a factor, to the point which I’m still a bit surprised that someone hasn’t built a dome for spring. Yes, they all have indoor cages and tunnels, but I’m talking a dome or at least a big tent.* It’s part of the reason why Phoenix has more teams now, but with the Rays outside for at least a year, I’m curious whether more will be made of it. Regardless, on all those indoor and outdoor fields, things are happening, including injuries. Let’s get to it:

GIANCARLO STANTON, DH NYY (inflamed elbow)

It’s the Mets that play near the US Open, but it’s the Yankees that are suffering from what Giancarlo Stanton called tennis elbow. Tennis elbow or lateral epicondylitis is simply tendonitis in a very specific area, often caused by the repeated motion and force of a tennis stroke. The weight of the racket - especially in the olden days of wood - as well as the jarring force of each hit causes the issue. Modern rackets and other dampening technologies reduce the occurrence, but it still does happen and it’s not always tennis. Functionally, it’s the same as in a pitching or throwing motion. Force comes into the arm and finds the weakest area to damage if it can’t manage the load and it’s usually the elbow.

For Stanton, he told the media that he suffered with this last year and was able to play through it with treatment. He says it remains manageable, but that he’s been shut down for “a couple weeks” while it calms. He never said it, but that implies that it flared on his initial spring work and that rest that would have occurred in the off-season didn’t cure the issue. That it’s in both elbows is unusual; most doctors I spoke with on this couldn’t explain why that is, given the normal and expected mechanism.

If it was managed well last year, given his IL stints from other issues, with regular rest and treatment, there’s no reason to think that won’t work again. This isn’t likely to be an issue that’s cured, but handled well enough to play. Stanton showed us all in October that the talent is still there and the news that there’s a chronic condition is some explanation as to why it doesn’t show more often. He’s already just a DH at age-35, so there’s not a lot of room to maneuver, so expecting similar playing time to last year should already be baked into the models, which is the case with Fangraph’s handful. Those range from 107 to 122, which seems reasonable. Stanton has three options left on his deal at $22m, which he’s sure to take.

FRANCISCO LINDOR, SS NYM (back strain)

Francisco Lindor ended last regular season with a back injury that took him out of his every day status. The Mets were able to control it and the playoff run happened in large part because Lindor is just that good. He is age-31 this season and there’s a question about whether Lindor needs to take more time off, which is being spun as “load management” and used as a pejorative.

The real question here is whether extra off days here and there would make Lindor better and healthier — would a 150-game Lindor be able to do more than a 162-game Lindor? That’s an unknown for most, but the Mets have one of the world’s leading workload specialists on staff, so my guess is that it’s not unknown to them. It certainly behooves every team, Mets included, to put its team and players in the optimal positions to succeed, but everyone should be aware there’s compromises. 80 percent of Lindor might be better than 100 percent of a backup and that taking it lower might be necessary at times, if things don’t get so low as to have breakdowns.

The thing to remember is that baseball is famously a game of failure, but it’s not a game that goes to failure. A pitcher doesn’t come out of the game when he can no longer throw. He comes out when he can no longer throw effectively. Velocity doesn’t drop from 100 to 0. It drops from 100 to 98 and the hitters start squaring it up. That pitcher who is “absolutely gassed” likely throws the next day as part of his routine.

However, baseball is not trained as an endurance sport. While there’s more acknowledgement of workload, even the low hanging fruit from serious endurance sports hasn’t been onboarded to those it could help. I’ll try not to rant, but to not take it seriously makes things like Lindor’s mild back issue a big deal when people don’t understand the basic concepts and have a microphone.

Lindor’s back issue? It was muscular in nature, he did well with a mild strengthening program after rest, and I’m told he’s focused more on core strength and mobility this off-season. I expect him to be normal, even if he doesn’t play 160 games.