Under The Knife 7/30/25

Under A Trade Deadline Moon

Lots of injuries to get through today so let’s get right to it:

RONALD ACUNA JR, OF ATL (strained Achilles)

Let’s say it out loud: Ronald Acuna’s legs are a problem. He says it happened on a play where he went home to first on Monday. You can watch the play on MLB.com, though I can’t link to it here if you’re not a subscriber. Not many players can make that play, but it seems to have pushed him past a point and his Achilles of all things took the brunt of it. By Tuesday, he’d had some imaging, dealt with the doctors, and headed to the IL. Given his 468 foot homer, it’s easy to imagine what a fully healthy Acuna could do, even after the injuries.

Let’s address a couple things, starting with the context. The Braves know they’re not a playoff team this year. They know that next year, they should be and that for about the next five, if healthy, Acuna will be the center of that effort. This season, the Braves could very reasonably shut him down in a season where the NBA saw an uptick in Achilles injuries, especially during the playoffs, and knowing that not healing this properly could cause a loss of six months to a year more of the career twice derailed by knee reconstructions.

I can’t say how long Acuna will be on the IL because there’s simply not enough information. There will surely be more imaging, more tests, and the trade deadline will give us more information about where the Braves see themselves for the next two months and a bit beyond. Right now, August 2025 doesn’t matter, because the Braves want August 2026 to matter more.

(Acuna says this isn’t the play where it happened, but it’s clear he’s having issues.)

JUAN SOTO, OF NYM (bruised foot)

Juan Soto came out of Tuesday’s game with a foot contusion after a simple foul ball. All indications are that there’s no fracture, but Soto’s importance (and cost) to the team is clear and even once the pain clears, there’s likely to be secondary imaging to re-confirm the diagnosis and avoid any complications. I often say there are team contexts to injuries, but there are also personal ones. While teams often say they treat everyone the same, it’s not true even if they can’t say it out loud.

With someone like Soto, the value and cost are simply different and they have to be treated that way. Even for something simple like a foul ball that bruises the foot, things like this often go an extra day. There have been some internal studies done in baseball and in European football as to whether this is overly cautious and has an on-field cost, but the risk-reward seems about right. There’s an element of “step up/pick up” from teammates when a star is out and if the star is also a vocal team leader, they can often use that moment to assert their personality on then game if not their talents. We’ll see where Soto on the Mets fall on this portion over the week.

JACOB WILSON, SS LVA (fractured arm)

I’ve pointed to Travis Sawchik’s great article on the art of radiology a million times - I should probably set up some sort of library of must read articles I could just refer new readers to - but I will do so once again. The fact that Jacob Wilson had x-rays that didn’t clearly show a fracture really doesn’t change anything now that they found it. It’s still fractured, nothing happened that set him back in the interim, and the process actually worked, if not instantly.

Every stadium has an x-ray and I’m 99% sure that almost all of them have digital x-ray machines, where the result is almost instant and gets transmitted back to team doctors quickly, as well as secondary radiologists when necessary. This is x-rays, not CTs, not MRIs. Those take at least an overnight to get scheduled in all but emergency cases and often wait until they’re home for comfort and cost. Even then, they have to be taken, transmitted, read (often by multiple radiologists and specialists - most teams take a “2 out of 3” approach or even more), and then transmitted to the team, player, and agent in most cases.

For Wilson, he’ll hit the IL and wait for more imaging down the line to show enough healing for him to get back out there. While bones normally heal in about six weeks, a forearm doesn’t need full healing. Wilson can wear protection at bat - which is something I bet he wishes he’d done previously - while in the field isn’t much of a risk beyond simple falls, where “enough” healing is enough. He could be back in a month, though there’s not much reason to rush beyond Wilson’s numbers and experience.

There’s a lot more below. I hope Tigers, Dodgers, Royals, Dodgers again, Nationals, D-Backs (or trade targets), and everyone else thinks it might be worth it to pay five bucks and see what’s behind the curtain in Injury Oz for a month.