Under The Knife 3/29/23
Hope and Faith, 2023
It’s Opening Day Eve, which should be filled with anticipation. Of course, Opening Day should be a Monday, a holiday, and filled with as close to 15 games as the rain gods will allow. I get why MLB doesn’t want to line up with the NCAA Championship game, but a theoretical Florida Atlantic vs. Miami matchup on TBS doesn’t sound like a ratings juggernaut to me. There’s likely no perfect way to do it, or at least I don’t know it.
Bud Selig famously said that each team should have hope going into the season and, that’s not the case. While the very structure of the playoffs makes it as near impossible to pick a winner as it is to pick an NCAA bracket, it’s pretty easy to tell you that there’s a handful of teams that won’t be there. Maybe we get another team making a jump, like Baltimore last year, but their reward would be a one-game coin flip game, likely without their best pitcher on the hill.
For medical staffs, the theoretical award at the end of the season is similarly gone for some of the teams. I always looked hard at games and dollars lost and here, before a real game has even been played, teams have players on the shelf. Edwin Diaz is going to cost $18 or 19 million and the Mets staff had absolutely nothing to do with that one, but it will count against them just the same. (Yes, the Mets get reimbursed, but an injury is an injury.)
The Dodgers start the season without Walker Buehler, still awaiting his return from Tommy John. Cade Cavalli will miss 162 games for the Nats. If you’re a pitcher at any level that had Tommy John in 2022, you’re not back yet. Not a single pitcher from 2022 and certainly not from 2023 have made it back from Tommy John and at the MLB level, not a single pitcher has made it back in 12 months or less. Worse, if we go back to July of 2021, only 11 pitchers have made it back … out of 142!
So here we are, on Opening Day eve, with 131 pitchers out there rehabbing. Some might make it back. Some might already have been cut and moved on with their life, wondering what might have been if their elbow had held up. We should wonder too. We’re definitely not keeping them healthy, at any level, and what we’re doing clearly isn’t working. I don’t have the answers, but you know what - the people who run the game still aren’t even asking the questions.
At least they show some of the stars in this Opening Day video!
On to the injuries:
ADAM WAINWRIGHT, SP STL (strained groin)
This is a simple injury. It’s a strained groin, which happens, and I don’t think any of the easy hot takes have anything to do with it. Sure, Adam Wainwright played in the WBC and was reportedly injured in a workout ahead of the championship game. Sure, Wainwright is heading into his age-41 season and pitched 192 innings last year, coming off 206 in 2021. That’s among the leaders in either year and cumulatively, I’d guess. But groin strains happen. Adrian Houser didn’t play in the WBC, certainly is younger and didn’t have as much workload. Some injuries just happen.
That doesn’t make it any better for Wainwright, who will miss six weeks, according to the Cardinals and confirmed with a solid source. It’s a Grade II strain. Wainwright will be shut down, has already started rehabbing, but it’s the question of how long he’ll be down before being able to throw again that will create the real lost time frame for the Cards ace.
There’s depth, with Jake Woodford and Steven Matz ahead of Andre Pallante, Dakota Hudson, and Matthew Liberatore, as well as Cooper Hjerpe, who could be a fast mover with his stuff. That doesn’t mean the team can just wave their hand and replace Wainwright. They learned that lesson last year and is one of the major reasons he’s back. He just knows how to pitch and that curveball hasn’t aged a day.
One thing I am noticing is that teams are taking ramp ups and workload more seriously, factoring it in to rehab times. Don’t be surprised if Wainwright comes back quicker than expected and ramps up in St Louis rather than Memphis. The Cards are well set up to take a short start, could shadow him with one of the long/swing pitchers, and again, there’s depth.
TRISTON MCKENZIE, SP CLE (strained shoulder)