Under The Knife 4/22/24
Could Always Be Worse
Let’s get right to the injuries today:
FRANCISCO ALVAREZ, C NYM (sprained thumb)
It wasn’t even catching that hurt Francisco Alvarez. The young Mets catcher stumbled at second base, tried to catch himself, and pulled his thumb back just enough to snap the UCL. Now, Alvarez will need surgery and hits the IL, but modern technology makes this injury less bad than most are reading it in the initial reaction.
For about the last decade, led by Dr. Steven Shin of Kerlan-Jobe, UCL (thumb version) reconstruction is done with InternalBrace, allowing a much quicker return. MLB players have come back in under 30 days, with most right around the 30-40 day mark. Mike Trout is probably the most famous , but he’s not a catcher and that might be a complicating factor even if that’s not how Alvarez was injured. While the bone is fine and the bracing would protect against the thumb being overstressed again, it doesn’t help when a foul tip comes off it.
Someone asked about Alvarez taking a bat off his hand a couple days ago. While that looked painful at the time, he played through it and there’s no reason to think the two are related. Both are traumatic and acute, but not clearly interrelated. The other question I got was about whether it matters which hand it is. Baseball folks I spoke with disagreed on this one, with some saying grip is more key on the throw while others saying if he can’t catch, he can’t be a catcher. For me, Alvarez has value with his bat so could go to DH if that were the issue, though he has more value if that bat can also catch.
This one could have been a lot worse. Losing Alvarez for somewhere between 30 and maybe 50 days on the far side would have been six to eight weeks not long ago. Alvarez should come back without complications, shouldn’t have issues with this for the rest of his career, and gives him a bit of rest as he continues to mature into a foundational piece for the Mets. Expect the surgery to happen quickly, with the next key being when Alvarez is able to grip a bat, which should come in a couple weeks.
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