Under The Knife 6/7/24

Thinking Way Ahead

A reminder: I’ll have a Monday UTK as normal, but I’m unsure what the schedule will be as I head out to a big conference for NTangible on Tuesday. I have at least one guest piece in the pipeline and will fire up as necessary if there’s a Flash-worthy injury.

If you’ve been anywhere near a TV in the last month and happened across a Universal Station (NBC, USA, etc) you know the Olympics are coming up. Baseball isn’t a part of it and it isn’t official for 2028, leaving the World Baseball Classic as the upcoming key international competition. I think this is as it should be. The World Cup is sacrosanct, even in a world with Premier Leagues, Champions Cups, Saudi Pro Leagues, Euros, Club World Championships, and even Olympic soccer.

Baseball’s creation and promotion of the Classic has been one of the big successes and has seen the Japanese and Koreans assert themselves in the baseball world, up to and including the 2024 off-season where they flat took over. The Latin countries have been great and we’re even seeing competitive teams from Europe, Australia, and more. Imagine getting Venezuela out of their long term political crisis and back to baseball, or the emergence of a Giannis/Victor class talent from Greece or France next time out.

My question is whether the Edwin Diaz injury might push some players to not participate or worse, that the play of guys who missed spring training like Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery might make getting pitchers even harder. That’s been the one issue, especially for the USA team. Japan has seemed to take it more seriously with the whole Samurai mindset, but they also had most of their great pitchers coming from Japanese teams last time around. They could still do that, but not having Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shota Imanaga, and even Roki Sasaki on the roster would take away from it, I think.

MLB could go with just young pitchers. Paul Skenes is already must-see TV, with a huge crowd showing up in Pittsburgh to see him take on Ohtani. Imagine that in country colors. Spencer Strider should be back. But if you look at the top ten of current WAR leaders, I’m not sure any except maybe Tarik Skubal would even be considered. Tyler Anderson? Seth Lugo? Erick Fedde? That hardly sounds like Gerrit Cole, Skenes, Strider, et al, but last time the USA had Merrill Kelly as the titular ace of the team. I’d hope we can do better than end-stage equivalents of Lance Lynn and Adam Wainwright. No offense to them, but ‘23 was not their peak.

It’s hard to look forward when so many pitchers are getting injured. Ohtani might be back in ‘26, but who will drop in ‘25 that will put them out of contention for their country’s team? Let’s get to the injuries:

MANNY MACHADO, 3B SDP (strained hip)

We criticize players who don’t hustle to first, but there’s a cost to doing too much as well. Manny Machado was trying to beat a double play and that hard run* led to a “mild” hip flexor strain. The Padres don’t seem too concerned and Machado is likely to miss the IL and only a couple of games. No one’s counting on Machado for speed, but he needs his legs for fielding and hitting, and this is one more data point on muscular fatigue for hitters in the pitch clock era. Derek Rhoads’ latest piece suggests there’s maybe some changes here, but I’m holding firm on my ideas. Machado pinch-hit on Thursday, which is a positive sign.

Machado’s an interesting case study for injuries. He had two major injuries when he was young, but has become a very durable player (and one of the best in the league) during the decade that follows. At age-31, Machado’s next five to ten years of availability will be the difference between Cooperstown and not. If his tendons and muscles start breaking down more, we may see a quicker decline. Of course, this can be counteracted to some extent by managing systems and workload, which is the modern way of saying “takes care of himself properly.”

*This is a new knowable. What’s the top speed a player can run, and what happens if he exceeds it? You ever have one of those coaches or teachers that loved to say give 110%? That’s actually a thing, especially if you’ve ever dealt with engines or propulsion systems. “Rated power” is a real thing there and likely exists in humans. Machado’s run was probably north of that for him and there are often consequences, at least to energy systems.

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