Under The Knife 4/17/23

On The Clock

Two weeks isn’t enough time to judge anything in baseball. Joe Sheehan famously says we have to have two months, at least, but with much of the focus on baseball’s new rules being positive over these first two weeks, I’ve been peeking around at the dark side of this. That’s not to say I have any definitive conclusions. Those won’t come until a full season and likely multiple seasons, since the game itself will make adjustments, especially on the training side.

What we have seen is an increase in injury, both real in number but also in perception. When fans and importantly the announcers and commentators start talking about it, it’s usually a problem. We’ve seen injury stacks, rotations going to eight and nine deep already, and some of the slowest returns from spring injuries we’ve ever seen, with that last one being the most confusing.

My initial worry is that we’d see less time between pitches wearing pitchers down and leading to fatigue injuries. There’s easy corrections, starting with pitchers training for that, both on mound and off, which some did. Teams have found ways and loopholes to give a breath, but I don’t think we’ve yet seen enough time pass to really see the effect. Will pitcher’s bodies catch up before they break down? That’s a key workload question that sadly few are measuring.

We’re seeing some isolated signs but it’s too early to draw conclusions. Patterns start somewhere and there’s still time for teams to break negative patterns before they take teams out of contention. There’s lots to get to, so for now, let’s get to the injuries:

JUSTIN VERLANDER, SP NYM (strained shoulder)
MAX SCHERZER, SP NYM (strained oblique)

Spending doesn’t just happen on payroll, despite an obvious bias to that. Steve Cohen has opened the checkbook in pretty much all manners, but in a lot of ways the Mets are just playing catchup. They’ve been able to spend their way back to where teams have been for years, but their Madoff-hamstrung ownership left behind. Sports performance, sports science, and sports medicine were always trailing, despite the best efforts of a lot of people. Having some questionable direction from places like owner’s kids intruding into the space didn’t help either.

Things are improving, but the Mets aren’t going to get healthy overnight. The team chose Justin Verlander over Jacob deGrom largely for health reasons, but he’s yet to make his debut and is behind where he was expected. Is that a slow recovery from the minor shoulder strain or the Mets being a bit more conservative with pitching injuries than in the past due to better management and information? That part I’m not sure of, though I’m leaning to the latter.

As for Scherzer, that same conservatism shows as they shifted Scherzer back in the rotation, taking him off his Sunday start and moving to Wednesday. Jose Butto was fine going five decent innings against the A’s, but he’s not Scherzer. The “oblique tightness” is going to be monitored closely ahead of that planned mid-week start, but I’m watching to see how it changes his routine. I don’t know if Scherzer threw as scheduled today, though on a lesser basis, essentially throwing two sides rather than a start, or if that would come Monday. I won’t be surprised if the Wednesday start doesn’t come off.

BRYCE HARPER, DH PHI (sprained elbow/rehab)

A nice article from Scott Lauber gave some more details about how the Phillies and Bryce Harper are using the Trajekt pitching machine to get Harper ready (and to get everyone else ready for pitcher’s they’re facing. Rob Thomson acknowledging that Harper could get ready as well with a machine as he could with a short trip to the IronPigs isn’t surprising to me or anyone that understands what these machines can do, but it’s a bit surprising to hear out loud, so nice get for Lauber.

The star, still working some at first, will meet with Dr. Neal ElAttrache later this month, with some scans coming later this week. If the anchors look solid - and they should - then Harper’s last hurdle of sliding will be cleared and he could be back very quickly. My guess is that meeting comes on Monday the 24th, when the Phillies are off, or later that week as the team heads to LA, where ElAttrache is based. The latter is more likely, which puts Harper’s likely return on May 5th at home against Boston.

BRANDON WOODRUFF, SP MIL (strained shoulder)