Under The Knife 2/26/24
There, There
The opening week of camps has been delightfully free of major injuries. There are some, but devastating, season-enders before the season even starts are tough and take such life and hope out of the game. That doesn’t mean they’re not coming. Our knowledge of what has come in the years before exists, even if it appears it’s changing. As well, there are warning signs.
Yes, there are a lot of sprained elbows and low back issues. There are more lats and oblique strains. We’re also seeing a lot of overuse/fatigue issues, like hamstrings and calves. Thinking of it in normal, non-athlete terms, these are the things one gets when one either does too much - think, goes out and plays a game or goes for a long run or bike without building up enough, or properly, or simply doing too much without recovery.
This all in spite of more medical, scientific, and technological tools than ever before. Recovery gear once seen in only the cutting edge training rooms is now on the shelves at Best Buy. I asked a team doctor over the winter why we were still seeing so many elbow sprains and he quoted myself back at me. “Didn’t you say we were staying steady because of the advances, rather than seeing these shoot up as they might have if we didn’t?” I make a good point at myself. As well, another official reminded me about horses and water. “Every spring, we give the dad talk, we call it. Be a good boy, do the right things, but if not here’s what you do. We give them all a pre-paid Uber card and a car service here in Phoenix. Yet we all see once a year, some idiot will get a DUI. He had every opportunity not to, and yet.”
All true.
My assumption heading into this season is that the changes we’ve made in the off-season change the shape of the season itself. If we avoid some injuries in the spring, we likely get them in the fall. It used to be almost all Tommy John injuries happened before May 10th. That hasn’t held true for the last two seasons and maybe before - I’m not willing to say anything in ‘20 or ‘21 was “normal”. This is neither good nor bad, unless the number goes down in total, unexpectedly. We saw more fatigue injuries, both short term and seasonal, and I expect that will be the same, maybe worse with some of the early season leg and back issues.
We haven’t fixed the problem yet. We haven’t even figured out where the leak is, let alone the shut off valve. All in all, I expect 2024 to be like the twenty-plus seasons I have written about before. I don’t expect that I will have days where I wonder what to write about.
Let’s get to the injuries (and, non-injuries):
BYRON BUXTON, CF MIN (no injury)
Last year, the theory the Twins had was that putting Byron Buxton at DH would keep him healthy. Smart theory, but it didn’t work. But did it keep him more healthy? While it’s easy to say he played in less games than ‘22 or even ‘19, it’s unknowable for us. That theory tested, Buxton is back in center and any expectation that he’ll go more than half the games this season is likely an optimistic Twins fan that’s spent a little too much time waiting on ice fishing that didn’t come this year.
Add in that Buxton thinks he can get 30 steals this year and it appears the plan is to just go for it. If Buxton’s likely to get injured, it makes more sense to run him out there and get as much value as possible when he’s healthy. Common sense should reign, but at this stage, Buxton and the Twins are just squeezing to see if there’s some more juice.
But what if this succeeds? If Buxton’s knees, legs, and back make it through a full season and recall his big 2017, it’s not that trying to spot him in or manage his workload was bad. Just that it didn’t work and his availability is more random or luck than anything else. There’s a chance Buxton makes 500 plate appearances and puts up five wins for a competitive Twins team. It’s just not a big chance.
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