Under The Knife 9/27/24
22 Down
If the 2020’s are an age of parity in baseball, where you could functionally throw a blanket over 500 and capture most of the teams, the same is true for injuries this season. 26 teams are between 1,000 and 1,500 games missed to injuries and while league wide this is slightly down, it certainly doesn’t feel like it.
With only a weekend to go, injuries are functionally locked at this stage. The Dodgers will have the most games lost, by far, with the Red Sox and Astros just behind. The Rangers are just over 1,500 as well, though it feels like their season and title defense were lost in there. On the other side, the Blue Jays will have the lowest total loss, but there’s certainly injuries in their seasonal story. Detroit and KC certainly feel like they’ve been healthier, but they haven’t been untouched. San Diego is under 1,000, as are the Phillies, and that feels right as well.
I spent years tallying up days and dollars lost and even now, looking at this data, it lacks context. A day is not a day; a dollar is not a dollar. Which is why writing this and explaining injuries and how they fit into the entire picture is still important. It’s not profitable or popular, but important, at least to me and to many of you.
I always get a bit melancholy heading into this. I’ve never gone into an off-season knowing what would happen. In 22 years, coming to a close with this weekend’s games, I’ve never known if there would be a next one. We had almost no real growth here, but good retention, so I’m going to have to make some decisions but I can’t imagine life without looking at baseball through the lens of injuries and I keep thinking there’s enough of you that feel the same to make this sustainable.
As we head into playoff season, I’ll be doing it on the regular until we give out a hunk of metal. I’m already starting up the playoff previews and have some off-season things I think will be worth keeping up your subscription for. I’m hoping to be at the Winter Meetings (though more for NTangible than UTK) and more spring training next year. I want to see what Season 23 looks like (and mine are a lot longer than Hot Ones!) so for now, on to the injuries:
FREDDIE FREEMAN, 1B LAD (sprained ankle)
Seeing Freddie Freeman in a walking boot is not what the Dodgers wanted to see after clinching the NL West, but the bye might help them a lot. Freeman simply rolled his ankle on an awkward play at first base - running, not fielding. While Freeman said he avoided structural damage, he was really saying the x-rays were negative. At best, there’s some mild ligament damage, which is what a sprained ankle is. The hope is that it’s mild, responds to treatment, and that the weekend and the bye gets him ready.
Assuming a low grade ankle sprain, a week is very reasonable. Saying this sprain is “season ending” is both true and uninformative. He won’t play over the weekend, which is simple and smart, as he undergoes some treatments and allows his body to heal. If you see Freeman in the walking boot for the next couple of days, that’s simply protection. It would make no more difference than crutches for how the ankle actually responds. We’ll likely see Freeman hitting when the Dodgers work out over their wild card break and that should be sign that he’ll be ready and very close to normal.
YORDAN ALVAREZ, DH HOU (sprained knee)
CHAS MCCORMICK, OF HOU (fractured hand)
When is injury news not really about injuries? When a team like the Astros has clinched and has two players that could benefit from the rest over any theory of rust. I’ve talked at length about how modern techniques have made a lot of what we used to do to show that players were prepared obsolete, so while the Astros aren’t the analytical force they once were, they’re still winning and they’re still willing to be progressive in some ways.
The team has elected to hold Yordan Alvarez and Chas McCormick out through the regular season, with the wild card round looming. All signs are positive that both will be ready and close to regular, though Alvarez’s knees are complicated even with a low-grade sprain. The maintenance is always a problem and prone to swelling and pain, so this won’t help with that.
My guess is that Alvarez will be the DH as normal, but McCormick might be held back as more of a bench/defensive replacement in the first round. There’s enough outfield depth to make that possible, but the team also doesn’t seem too worried about his hitting. Two sources echoed that using him wouldn’t worry the team and that if he ends up in a key at-bat late, he has a 577 OPS. That’s baseball, Suzyn.
There’s more down there. No hints today, but it’s good stuff. Ok, I’ve got some scoop on Clayton Kershaw.