Under The Knife 8/16/24
Six Inning Stupidity
Jesse Rogers lays out the case MLB will make for a six inning minimum for starters. At this point, I just want you to read it and think about the unintended consequences. Nowhere in here does this address any of the things I said a couple weeks back when I talked about deploying assets. Nowhere in here does it address what this will do to injury numbers. (My quick thought: almost nothing.)
Where starters might have to focus on efficiency, relievers won’t and there will be more of them compressed into a smaller inning space, unless teams reconstruct rosters. Six and seven man rotations will be considered, giving those starters the league wants even less starts. Want to see Paul Skenes pitch? You’ll have five or six less chances a year. Twenty game winners? Less chances, but more decisions might make for some 20-8 pitchers again, but does that excite anyone?
My hope is this is just a trial balloon and that if they go with this, the league and baseball in general realizes that it needs to actually do something to help pitchers stay healthy. They’d better, because they’ll need more of them, they’ll have to pay them significantly more, and the injuries aren’t going down under this plan. So let’s get to the injuries:
JAZZ CHISHOLM, IF NYY (sprained elbow)
“How come Jazz Chisholm can’t play the field with an injury to his non-throwing elbow?” was the question from more than a few readers. The answer is pain and inflammation for now, but that goes away, so the real question is whether it will take ten days on the IL to figure out whether he’ll have a functional glove. Bracing is one distinct possibility, but the hope inside the Yankees is that Chisholm won’t need anything new.
The worry would be that he would dive or fall, landing on the arm and doing more damage. That happens at third and was said to be the big worry with Harper, as well as sliding, which was Chisholm’s issue in the first place. Again, bracing is the likely answer and it shouldn’t be too hard or take too long to figure out if Chisholm can be useful. Sure, he could DH, but do you choose him over Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, or even Anthony Rizzo when he returns? That’s a much tougher call.
In the longer term, even a standard Tommy John has Chisholm back early next season at worst and potentially sooner if the Yankees are aggressive with the rehab. That decision won’t be made for a while as the Yankees expect Chisholm will be able to come back in some role, though as I said above, fit is going to be more important here than if it had happened back in Miami.
JULIO RODRIGUEZ, OF SEA (high ankle sprain)
Julio Rodriguez has learned what happens when you rush back from a high ankle sprain. It will quickly remind you it’s not completely healed and often swells back up, painfully. The thick, strong ligament in the syndesmosis, the joint that goes between the tibia and fibula in the lower leg, doesn’t take to damage well. It’s one of those joints that doesn’t move much, by design, and when overtaxed, needs a lot of time to heal up properly.
The human body evolved to equate pain and swelling with severity. Ugg the Caveman likely had a high ankle sprain when he was chasing down a herd of antelope. He hobbled back to his cave, lit a fire, and hoped he had enough food stored because he wasn’t going to be able to run down anything for a while. He didn’t have ice or modalities, so all he had was rest. Which is the one thing modern athletes don’t want to do. They (and their team) want them to get back on the field, even for something as meaningless as a televised Sunday game.
There will be calls for him to “just DH” and while that could be used, he needs the stable base and running turns are just as likely as anything that’s going to happen in the outfield. While he could DH, it’s not going to offer any significant advantage in reducing the risk for Rodriguez.
There’s little chance here that Rodriguez is going to (or be allowed to) reinjure himself significantly. There’s the chance of recurrence or exacerbation, but it’s reasonable given the reward of having Rodriguez in the lineup. Worst case? He has surgery in the off-season and he’s ready for Opening Day, but that’s very unlikely to be the course here. More likely, he’s just occasionally bothered by it, takes a few more days off here and there, and it completely heals early in the off-season.