Under The Knife 7/26/23
Night Comes On
Let’s get right to it because it’s another long one. Lots of injuries, plus Knife Notes for subscribers:
ROCKIES PITCHING STAFF (sprained elbows)
There’s a lot going on in this Thomas Harding tweet. (I wish I could still embed those.) Basically, the Rockies have now not only lost two of their best starters (Anthony Senzatela, German Marquez, who had TJS in May), but much of their top pitching prospect crop. Last year’s first and second rounder (Gabriel Hughes #6, Jackson Cox #12), plus an international prospect (Jordy Vargas, #11), all head for Tommy John surgery. I’m imagining the four of them in a line of gurneys with Dr. Keith Meister waiting in the OR and his accountant ordering some yacht upgrades in the next room.
Add Lucas Gilbreath to the “had it before the rush” and there’s something going on in Colorado, up and down the organization. This isn’t the easy excuse of altitude, which the Rockies regularly trot out when they even bother to try to explain their ongoing failures. Maybe they’re not praying hard enough, but it’s likely something more fundamental, no pun intended. Talking with sources who have seen the Rockies at three different levels, plus during spring training, all agree that the Rockies are simply behind the times in terms of sports science and don’t give their sports medicine much of a voice. It’s curable, but not cheaply, not quickly, and someone in the organization is going to have to care more about it than what can be easily pocketed out of revenue sharing.
It’s not that there’s not good people in the organization, but that the people with control simply don’t have a system in place that works. I spoke to one scout about what he’d seen from Hughes both before and after being drafted last year. He’d seen him both as a high schooler in Idaho and at Gonzaga. “He’d been a two-way [player] and then stopped,” he said, “and he looked a lot less athletic when I saw him in Hartford. He’s got a classic pitcher body and he looked less smooth, less confident, less everything. He might have been broken by the time I saw him in May.” While Hughes dropped the hitting in 2022 while in college, it’s clear that something changed significantly in 2023, resulting in this upcoming elbow surgery.
Yes, young pitchers getting Tommy John is all too common, but four at once? Even if the team was saving up for the Meister discount plan or if they simply held off making a final decision until the minor leaguers would lose most or all of 2024 as well isn’t known. It could be mere coincidence, but losing this many pitchers at once to the same thing should be the kind of issue that shocks a team into action. If this doesn’t for the Rockies, Rob Manfred’s new contract should give him enough safety to take a hard look at showing Charlie Monfort the door.
AARON JUDGE, OF NYY (sprained toe)