Under The Knife 3/21/25

Distant Early Warning

I’m intrigued by Texas signing Patrick Corbin. Lottery ticket deal, innings-eater at worst. He’s gone 30 starts at least since 2017 (save ‘20), but what really gets me here isn’t that a guy who was weighed down by the expectations of a contract signed somewhere new, but that this is one of few situations where someone clearly goes from one program to another. The Rangers have been strongly emphasizing pitching development and technologies for years, albeit with mixed results, while the Nationals have largely been in a team-for-sale holding pattern since their World Series. The Nats are many things, but progressively focused isn’t one of them.

Players moving from one team to another take these kind of things into account more than you think. I’ve had agents call me asking about medical staff, sports science focus, and many other things as clients weigh offers. Money always outweighs everything, but there are things that can tip it.

When you see someone going from very good to very bad, or vice versa, it gets interesting because there’s something new to learn. Does a new team’s program make a difference? Does a player stay healthier? Sometimes it’s a lateral move, such as Max Kepler going from a very good Twins medical staff to a very good Phillies staff. Any difference might be luck or it might tell us something, but it’s very difficult to see from the outside, even when I’m poking at it as I do.

All a player needs is one guy who says “I can fix him” and to some extent, Corbin’s not broken. He’s healthy. He eats innings and there’s certainly a value in that, especially given the young arms of the Rangers. Every decent inning that Corbin can throw saves one that they don’t force on Emiliano Teodo or Jose Corniell. We saw what happened when the Dodgers had to dip down, chewing up years of their young arms in the process.

We’ll see how it works out, especially if the Rangers unlock something. I’m watching, but I’m not alone. Let’s get to the injuries:

JARED JONES, SP PIT (inflamed elbow)

“The world weighs on my shoulders, but what am I to do?
You sometimes drive me crazy, but I worry about you” - Rush

Neal Peart missed by a body part here, but worlds weighing on elbows only make sense if you’re a baseball fan and that was more Geddy Lee than Peart from what I know. But I’m worried about Jared Jones and by proxy, the other good young pitchers in Pittsburgh. This isn’t a knock on Pittsburgh. They were smart enough to acknowledge that no one knows how to keep pitchers healthy with Paul Skenes last year, but with Bubba Chandler on much the same path, the Pirates have a chance to be good or at least competitive with three good, young, cheap starters.

If healthy.

That’s the problem with Jared Jones, who has some elbow inflammation and is headed for a second opinion. A second opinion isn’t always a negative and the answer isn’t always bad, but you don’t go get one if you like the first diagnosis in most cases. Jones has his whole career to think about, so maybe this is along the lines of many pitchers wanting their own guy to see them, a Neal ElAttrache or a Keith Meister or a Chad Lavender, but I have to worry about Jones just as any other pitcher. We’ve already seen Gerrit Cole and 13 others have elbow reconstruction from the pros alone in 2025. I’m not insulting Jon Roegele, who does g-d’s work keeping that list up, to say it’s likely not comprehensive.

You know the possibilities by now. The hope is there’s no damage to the UCL or any other structure, with the worst case being reconstruction and working its way down to having him back for Opening Day. That one’s not likely, given that he’s likely at least going to miss a week of work and I’ll assume they’ll be conservative with him. Call the best case “not much time missed” and we’re good. We don’t know enough yet to do anything but point at possibilities. And hope. And worry.

LUIS GARCIA, SP HOU (inflamed elbow)

Just as it seemed Luis Garcia was making progress with his troublesome elbow rehab, something has cropped up again. Garcia has been shut down and won’t make the Opening Day roster, with questions about when and even if he’ll make it back, recalling the years-long struggles of Lance McCullers. At nearly two years post-surgery, Garcia’s elbow should be nearly back to normal rather than still bouncing back.

Garcia had been scheduled to step up to live batting practice but instead, he’s headed for an examination and more imaging. The reconstruction itself seldom fails, but if the mechanics weren’t cleaned up, other things can go wrong, so there’s a broad range of outcomes here. Garcia is definitely out for the start of the season, but there’s no context in telling you the range is from here to eternity.

This is a reminder that while almost 90 percent of pro pitchers that have elbow reconstruction will return and return well, that’s not 100 percent. All of those miss extensive time, go through a long and painful rehab, and there’s a cost to the team as well. And yet, baseball hasn’t even really tried to fix the problem. Keeps me in a job, I guess.