Under The Knife 7/2/25

Wins and Expansion and Aweigh

One of my favorite things to ask is “Could this meeting be an email?” or “Should this email be a Slack?” (That used to be tweet, but no.) Bradford Doolittle has a great idea that I can summarize and slightly tweak in just a sentence: give the win to the most effective pitcher who’s team wins. I agree, some form of Game Score is likely the best way, or at least the simplest. Dayn Perry did a modified game score years back, but I couldn’t find the link. (Someone could make a nice career going back and recycling Perry’s ideas that never caught on.)

I’m half-curious about whether something like this could catch on, but more how it would have to change how we think of the past. How many sudden shifts would we have to make in past pitchers? How many 300-game winners would suddenly flood the lists or did the more-completist era negate some of the effect? It would take a ton of work, given someone like Nolan Ryan made 773 starts and had decisions (win or loss) in over 600. At a 50/50 assumed rate for wins or losses, that’s still a potential 75 wins added, wish would push him very close to 400 game score wins. I realize Ryan is an extreme example.

On the other side of the discussion, do we need to do the mirror image for losses? Lowest game score on the losing side would penalize LOOGYs and short men and perhaps not give us the real picture of how the game actually was influenced, especially since we’d have to go back over a century to really make this work. Box scores exist, but the scorers themselves might need to explain why they assigned things aside from the simple “responsible for the winning run” rule in some cases. That’s not happening for games not even that far back! I imagine video could take us a ways, but even 1970’s seasons aren’t complete for many teams.

It’s a thought experiment and likely nothing more, thought Doolittle’s idea is likely to get some weight with changes in how pitchers are deployed. Then again, maybe it’s the latter that’s the problem, not the accounting.

***

There’s two piece of non-baseball news that do have some bearing on MLB’s future expansion. First is the news that the WNBA is going to expand by three teams over the next couple seasons, following the debut of the Golden State Valkyries (San Francisco). Two of the three teams are re-dos in previous WNBA cities - Detroit, Cleveland - and all will be owned by the current NBA owner in that city. (The third will be in Philadelphia.)

The next news, post-draft, is that the NHL is looking at expansion as well, with four cities involved. Here in Indianapolis, one of the named cities, there’s skepticism despite the report coming from reputable reporters. There’s no arena, no interested owner, and a city more focused on an MLS effort. Whether any of the other cities have a more solid base to an expansion possibility remains to be seen.

The knockout for the NHL story was the amount: $2 billion per. The WNBA’s expansion came at $250 million. Both seem … interesting. The WNBA is growing, but has labor issues on the horizon with a possible work stoppage ahead of ‘26. The NHL is, well, the NHL. For someone with $2B, it would seem an existing team would make more sense than trying to be the third failed owner from Atlanta. Forbes’ values aren’t always dead-on, but their estimates are among the best we have. Everything’s up after the recent sales of the Lakers and Celtics, but only four existing NHL teams are worth that $2B fee. A more interesting example might be their estimate of recently expanded Vegas ($1.1B) and Seattle ($1.05B), with the Utah Mammoth at $1.2B in their complicated expansion/buy transaction. (Trust me, don’t ask and the name is dumb.)

So where’s that leave MLB? There’s going to be some owners thinking that if the NHL can get $2B, they could at least cash in as they split the revenue with two new owners going forward. It’s also going to make the existing owners who are looking to exit stand firm on their price, as the Nationals have done for years now. If the Rays are worth $1.7B and the White Sox perhaps that self-same $2B price (with every caveat a deal that complex allows.)

Does the group in Nashville or Salt Lake City have $2B? Yes, probably. $2B plus a stadium? Well, things get a bit murkier there, especially if they’re hoping to make a profit in the near term. No one gets into sports for the near term profit, I know, but all bleeding stops eventually, as the saying went at Corpsman school. There’s groups out there in the shadows, some already negotiating for existing teams, so Rob Manfred is going to have to make some decisions quickly, all while trying to get a TV deal done. I’d pay to watch that.

***

Before we get to the stuff you paid to read, it’s my final reminder that I will be gone from now through the All Star break. There will be no UTKs and it would take a major injury for me to even try to do a UTK Flash from Iceland. There will be several UTK Specials that are set to go out on topics I think you will find interesting and a couple posts about my vacation. Now, on to the injuries:

SEAN MANAEA, SP NYM (strained oblique/inflamed elbow)

Sean Manaea is coming off an injection in his elbow, designed to help with the inflammation caused by a bone chip. The chip is still floating around in there, just waiting to cause problems, but the hope is it doesn’t and the body takes care of itself. He went to Triple-A Binghamton to be a Rumble Pony and see if the elbow held up. Instead, it rained. It wasn’t clear if Manaea will just shift over and be a part of Wednesday’s doubleheader yet.

The assumption from his side sessions is that he’ll be able to throw well, but throwing at full intensity is always the last test and often different. Recreating the adrenaline and competitiveness of games is difficult and why we often see these late setbacks. If Manaea makes it through, the workload becomes an issue, but not a holdback. He was over 60 pitches in his last outing and 50 would be useful. While I’ve been harping on the decreased value of rehab assignments for a while, the mere usage and success of it with Shohei Ohtani is getting more people to think about it.

In theory, Manaea steps in for Griffin Canning, lost to the Achilles rupture, but he’s really the Tylor Megill slot. Kodai Senga should be coming back relatively quickly and those two should be the top of the rotation which solidifies it, even if it doesn’t feel exactly solid. While the Mets are in a bit of a slump, it’s a couple games and they’re still very competitive and have the back nine to play. The team is still a near-lock for the playoffs and a shade off a coin flip for the division. Adding top-line pitchers without trades helps.

JEREMY PENA, SS HOU (fractured rib)
YORDAN ALVAREZ, DH HOU (fractured hand)

The mystery of HBP injuries continues, with Jeremy Pena the latest victim. It’s not velocity - Pena was hit by an 89 mph change with low spin, but a lot of break (no pun intended.) It did have 15 inches of run, which put an inside pitch into his ribs. I’m beginning to think it’s not velocity, not spin, but the deception of the movement. My guess is that players aren’t judging the break and brace late or not at all. Look, many of us have been hit by pitches and it doesn’t feel good at all, but we all know that our body naturally braces for it. If that’s short-circuited by the sheer devilishness of the pitch, that would fit the result.

For Pena, this is painful, but not as bad as it sounds. The bone needs to heal enough to be safe, but not fully heal. He can wear a flak jacket at the plate but if he dives in the field, the rib is a bit exposed (not literally.) We’ve seen rib injuries come back at or near the minimum and with the DH slot a bit of a rotation while Yordan Alvarez is out, putting Pena there is an option. Shay Whitcomb was called up and gives the Astros some options in the short term.

There’s also late word that Yordan Alvarez has had a significant setback with his broken hand. ESPN has details.

Should I paywall my last newsletter before I head on vacation? I don’t know and optimizing this has never been my priority. I want to give free subscribers just enough to keep reading and tempt them to pay the $5 a month that would be a nice tip in Iceland. More on ten more players, with info I think would be important. So please consider it, or just keep reading this. That’s fine too.