Under The Knife 6/3/24
Pretty Much Just Pitchers
No big intro today because (Lebron waving hands dot gif) look at this. The bulk of today’s injuries are to pitchers and while this isn’t new, isn’t surprising, it certainly isn’t getting any better. For all the talk about moving the mound or changing the rules to even things up for hitters, the fact is that baseball might take care of it by just breaking the best pitchers. We’re basically in a 1960’s run environment, but instead of hitters facing Gibson, Koufax, Drysdale, and Ford, hitters today haven’t seen Gerrit Cole, Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, and barely saw Spencer Strider. It’s a great environment for pitching without some of the best pitchers.
More is coming, with scouts telling me about ridiculous stuff in A-ball. Guys like Ettore Giulianelli (Cards), Alejandro Rosario (11k yesterday for Rangers affiliate), and Tugboat Wilkinson (Cleveland, just called up to High-A) are doing things that I can’t even explain. Seriously, how does something have 58 inches of drop unless drop means something very different than what I think? Everyone has ideas and theories, no one has answers or is doing the work to fix this. Which means I’ll have plenty to write about until AI takes my job.
So let’s get to the injuries:
CLARKE SCHMIDT, SP NYY (strained lat)
The latissimus dorsi is a big muscle, one of the biggest in the body. Because of that, just saying “strain” doesn’t tell us much but location helps. You’ll sometimes hear a lat strain described as a shoulder injury, sometimes as a back injury, and this isn’t misinformation, but good information. For Clarke Schmidt, his is high and is functionally similar to the increased teres major injuries we’re seeing over the past couple years. You can see in this link how close they are anatomically.
Of note, Schmidt has made a big leap this season by mixing in more cutters and sliders. Could that be putting more stress on that particular muscle? The answer is largely “we don’t know.” Two team biomechanists and a pitching coach say that our lack of individual muscular knowledge is huge. We can’t just go running needle EMGs on players and even studies are limited.
There is a new tool that I saw for the first time at the MLB Tech Expo called Springbok. I won’t go too deep into it, but their tool could help answer a question like what we have here with Schmidt. I don’t know how many teams are in on this but the MRI requirement probably limited any spring time rollout for any team that did. It’s something I’d love to know more about, but the company has been reluctant to speak to the media too much, which tells me they have at least some uptake.
For Schmidt, he’ll have to deal with this injury healing up the old-fashioned way: time and treatment. The estimate is that he’ll be down for six weeks, but I’m hearing that it’s a four week shutdown and an anticipated two week ramp, if all goes well. That times out near the ASB and that might just factor in some to when and how Schmidt returns.
GERRIT COLE, SP NYY (inflamed elbow)
With Schmidt out, getting Gerrit Cole back is even more important. He’ll take a big step towards that with his first rehab start. It comes a bit off his normal sequence since the minor leagues take Monday off as a travel day, so Tuesday in Somerset will be the start. The question will be what his initial pitch goal is. I say goal rather than limit, because for a couple weeks, there have been some internal discussions about how quickly Cole could make it through. Setting a goal rather than a limit gives him more leeway and the team isn’t worried about his confidence.
If Cole gets anywhere north of 50, that’s big. Cole went a couple more than 30 in his sim game, plus had his warmups, so it’s not impossible that he could get there, especially if he’s efficient. It’s unlikely that the Yankees would push things with Cole and have only one rehab start, even if it’s at 50. For one, Cole is on the edge of a contract decision, though the opt-out/extend a year thing is all but decided by both sides.* But it’s also one thing to say you want to have quicker rehabs and use pitchers for shorter stints in the majors when it’s theory and not your Cy Young winner coming back from an elbow issue.
And while we’re on the elbow issue, more and more are misreporting (or whatever you call social media blathering) that this is a UCL issue. It’s a nerve issue, a common one, and one that can be fixed and managed, as Cole’s has been. There’s nothing to say it can’t be aggravated again, but it also has nothing to do with the ligaments and tendons in the area. With any known issue, the best we can hope for is good maintenance which at some point becomes prevention. With Cole being a Yankee until he’s age-40+ - unless Hal Steinbrenner gets even crazier about payroll - keeping him healthy is the second most important thing to their hopes the rest of the decade.
*Odd thought - if Cole is extended, he’s locked in through 2030. Paul Skenes is a free agent in 2031. There’s a lot of parallels!
Subscribers will get news on John Means’ surgery and then 18 (!!!) more injured pitchers. No one covers injuries like Under The Knife.