Under The Knife 5/28/24

Rocking Out

There’s always a problem child in the major leagues, a team that isn’t competing, doesn’t look like it’s trying, and doesn’t seem to have a plan to get out of it. There’s plenty of bad teams, many because being bad is the proven way to get good fast. The draft lottery hasn’t stopped it in the NBA and won’t in baseball. Baltimore is showing how it can be done and even Houston is showing how tanking well can last for better than a decade.

But what about the Rockies? Aside from a fluke World Series based on a hot streak, this franchise hasn’t turned high picks into talent, nor big signings into wins, or anything else. One could argue that the Ezequiel Tovar signing and commitment was a big win, but this was a 2.5 win guy, behind Nolan Jones and Ryan McMahon in value. While young and still cheap, Tovar isn’t pushing for awards or the Rockies to the top.

The draft is the real problem, or the inability to push guys through:

2023: Chase Dollander, RHP, University of Tennessee
2022: Gabriel Hughes, RHP, Gonzaga University
2021: Benny Montgomery, OF, Red Land High School (Lewisberry, Pennsylvania)
2020: Zac Veen, OF, Spruce Creek High School (Port Orange, Florida)
2019: Michael Toglia, 1B, UCLA
2018: Ryan Rolison, LHP, University of Mississippi
2017: Ryan Vilade, SS, Stillwater High School (Stillwater, Oklahoma)
2016: Riley Pint, RHP, St. Thomas Aquinas High School (Overland Park, Kansas)
2015: Brendan Rodgers, SS, Lake Mary High School (Lake Mary, Florida)
2014: Kyle Freeland, LHP, University of Evansville

Going back a decade, only three of these - the longest back - have contributed and while the most recent three are too early to say much about, the middle is a big fat nothing full of cups of coffee and injuries. Missing in the first round is an easy way to build a losing program. Even the successes of the draft haven’t been very valuable. Freeland is a 17 win career pitcher with most of that coming in his first two seasons. He came as a near-ready college pitcher and has gotten actively worse while in Colorado. Rodgers is in his fourth season and injuries have held him back, but even in his healthy seasons, he was a lesser player than Tovar.

Pint and Veen haven’t even been able to establish themselves at the major league level. Once highly thought of high school players, scouts told me both were “fringe” or “Quad-A” guys. A cross-checker that gamed out an expansion draft said neither would be picked up by other teams. “You usually go ceiling and cheap,” he explained, “and pick up some salary dumps. Unless there’s some rule that you had to pick one from every team, there’s just no one that fits that in the Rockies [organization].”

There are some prospects. Dollander has been solid at High-A, but he’s from the same class as Paul Skenes. Ok, bad comp for anyone, but Hurston Waldrep - picked well after Dollander - is already at Double-A for the Braves and Rhett Lowder - picked just ahead of Dollander - is pushing for a promotion to Double-A as well. One could say the same about Dollander, but the Rockies have notoriously been slow with promotions, especially over the past couple seasons.

There’s reasons the Rockies are this bad. It starts with the Monforts and what they value in an organization. Wins aren’t always near the top after profits and “family values.” While the A’s have problematic owners and a move going as poorly as it could, what’s the cure for the Rockies? There’s no sale on the horizon, they remain profitable and increasing in value, so if you’re from Denver or just like purple, that light at the end of the tunnel is a train.

So let’s get to the injuries:

RONALD ACUNA, OF ATL (sprained knee)

Let’s start with this - a player, especially an MVP level athlete like Ronald Acuna should be accountable, but he shouldn’t be so stressed by social media and the boos of the fans to worry about an injury needing an apology. The injury happened because Acuna is frighteningly athletic. He jumps for a ball few others jump for and blows his ACL. He takes a big secondary lead and his knee buckles. (I’d really like to know how much farther he was off the base and where that ranks in terms of safe leads.)

We don’t know why Acuna’s ligament ruptured. It’s a combination of force and wear, perhaps some fatigue, just like everyone else. It’s unfortunate, but it’s not a character flaw. Acuna should be back in six to nine months, as he was before, and he should come back fully, just like he did before. While the stats I have to support this seem off to me, like sprint speed, there are some that show Acuna didn’t lose much physically in ‘22, so I’m well off saying that his ‘25 is pre-baked as a down year. I’m also not saying it won’t be, since the best comp here is Acuna himself.

There’s no word yet on a chosen surgeon or surgery date. It’s really of little matter on the date, since one or two weeks isn’t a big deal in a six to nine month recovery. If he’s not ready by the start of spring training, who cares? By that point, the Braves will have a very solid idea of when he will be back and what he needs to do to get there. The Braves will be getting Acuna and Spencer Strider back early next season, so that team might have a very interesting April.

A FOT had an interesting question for me about the idea that there’s a genetic pre-disposition to these kinds of injuries. This is more interesting in this case because of Ronald’s brother, Luisangel, a top prospect for the Mets. Best known at this point as being the return for Max Scherzer, Luisangel has had few injury issues. Add in that there’s another brother, Bryan, in the Twins organization, and their father played and we have plenty of genetic possibilities, but they’re all individuals. It’s notable, but probably not actionable.

A scout asked me if any players had bilateral reconstructions during their career and I couldn’t come up with one. Frank Gore comes to mind from the NFL and that might not be the worst comp, actually. The fact that I couldn’t come up with one isn’t that big a deal to me because when I think of players that have had them - Acuna himself, Corey Seager, Gavin Lux, Zack Cozart, and Adam Wainwright are top of mine - none had an issue coming back to their previous level.

A longtime reader mentioned on X that he thought Acuna was getting into “Andre Dawson territory.” I think that’s a bad comp as Dawson was more worn down by the Montreal turf (and turf in general of that era) and had multiple operations early in the arthroscope era. Dawson, I don’t believe, ever had a major ligament sprain, though he did have a high school knee injury I couldn’t find specifics on. Amazing how a player like Dawson is similar to Mickey Mantle in that it’s impossible to get good injury info on their careers. The difference is that Dawson is still alive so if someone has his contact info, I’d love to know what that one was.

If there’s a good comp for Acuna, it might be Frank Gore. The NFL running back came out of Miami with two ACL ruptures, but became one of the most durable backs in the NFL, especially during a period where backs were still regularly getting 20-30 carries in a game. Gore made at least 14 starts in all but one of his sixteen NFL seasons and in that one, it was a fractured hip in Week 11 that got him. He played another nine seasons after that. Like Dawson, Gore grew up in Miami, which is an interesting coincidence.

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