Under The Knife 5/8/24

From The Matrix

Larry Schechter has a new book out on the history of fantasy sports. It’s a story I’ve long said needs to be told and Larry collects a lot of it. He spoke to me a while back and there’s a good section on injuries in there. Full credit to Rick Wilton for being the OG; I had no idea so many of those early guys had 800 and 900 numbers. I never had the money to use them, but they were almost the podcasts of the day. (Wait, could we charge by the minute for podcasts?) Anyway, it’s worth a look and a light summer read that will regularly make you go “wow, I didn’t know that” about an industry you probably thought you knew it all about.

Let’s make some more history and get to the injuries:

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WILLSON CONTRERAS, C STL (fractured arm)

It was about this time last year that the Cardinals - and Cardinals fans - seemed ready to cut bait on their big free agent signing. Willson Contreras wasn’t meshing with the pitching staff, wasn’t hitting like he was expected, and TBFIB weren’t having it. It didn’t help that factions inside the clubhouse were formed and very clear that Contreras was no Yadier Molina and neither was Oliver Marmol and … well, pause.

The thing is, it was never that bad. Yes, Contreras didn’t mesh with the pitching staff or at least that was the narrative, and by the end of the year, his stat line looked like the stat line they expected. The rest of the narratives had faded and while Contreras will never be a Molina, at least he has catcher brothers.

Which is what makes an injury Contreras that bad. A simple broken arm, on a play that’s going to be seriously Zaprudered, puts Contreras down for at least six weeks and possibly longer. There’s questions about which bone is broken - which is known to the team, but not to me just yet - and whether it will need a plate. The plate wouldn’t add time, but adds a bit of complexity. What also adds complexity is the catching. Just the exposure of that arm before it’s fully healed, even plated, is one that’s going to make even baseball doctors wince. (Late word is that it will be plated and quickly, which could indicate there’s some non-union.)

Could Contreras come back and not catch? That’s certainly possible and might come down to what Ivan Herrera and Pedro Pages do in his absence. Alec Burleson shouldn’t be much of a hindrance to that, but carrying “three catchers” might be a roster push. The Cards continue to be a team without an identity and even down, they’re in a very winnable division. How they respond to this, both on the field and in the front office, could determine their season.

There was also a very interesting Twitter exchange, with Tom Tango showing some of his work on how positioning might have contributed to this issue.