Under The Knife 9/7/23
The Concussion Edition, Apparently
No intro because I want to get right into …
ANTHONY RIZZO, 1B NYY (concussion)
The Yankees have no reason to push for Anthony Rizzo to come back this season, but his concussion remains an issue for him, over three months since the original event. He played after, but finally admitted to symptoms and has been shut down since early August with concussion symptoms. How it happened is clear, but what came next remains a question.
Rizzo was making progress through August, getting all the way to batting practice, and there’s no word on what happened at that stage. There’s also no word on whether what the Yankees termed a neck injury at the time was indeed the concussion, though it’s pretty clear that’s what it was. If that’s the case, why did the Yankees miss this, why wasn’t Rizzo in the concussion protocol, and where’s the MLBPA looking out for its players?
The wild card in all this is that concussions are impossible to see. If Rizzo doesn’t say he has a headache or any of the other symptoms, if he wasn’t altered in the moment, and if he passed all the tests, well, good. That’s what’s supposed to happen. A player suffers a POSSIBLE concussion, no matter how, gets tested and either passes or doesn’t pass. I know, it’s not a perfect test, but testing should be the bias and let that be the guidepost after testing.
I’m likely putting most of the blame here on Rizzo. Post-concussion symptoms don’t pop back up in 99 percent of cases. They’re an exacerbation of previous, often low-level symptoms. Again, Rizzo has to self-report these because the medical staff, even the field staff, can’t see them. What caused the symptoms to kick back up is unknown, but once Rizzo reported them, the medical staff again went to testing and he hasn’t been able to clear protocol since, though there was that August progress.
I do worry that Rizzo self-reported only because he was playing so poorly, batting 172 with a 490 OPS in the games after that collision. I don’t know if his playing time was in question - he was playing regularly - but that was certainly noted by many, though putting the two together didn’t happen, that I can find, before Rizzo went to the IL.
This is not a knock on the Yankees, the Yanks’ medical staff, or Rizzo, but in Hal Steinbrenner’s “deep dive”, this is something that has to be looked at. What went wrong here and is there something that needs to be addressed? For MLB and the MLBPA, they also need to look to see if concussion protocols are being followed or if they need to be amplified. How about testing players a couple weeks after a possible concussion to see if they remain symptom free? There’s always room for improvement.
For Rizzo, his season is over, but he’ll need to continue in the protocol before he can play next year or even do normal activities in the off-season. That’s tougher since he’s home, but team ATs do check-ins and Rizzo will need to check in more, and have his own team working with him. He’s signed for next year, so he’ll be back, though concussion symptoms can linger for a lifetime.
SANDY ALCANTARA, SP MIA (strained forearm)
Sandy Alcantara seemed to be immune to the kind of workload restrictions that the hard-throwing modern starter has. He’s not immune. The Marlins have pushed him to the IL with a flexor strain, but they’re awaiting (or were, as of Thursday morning as I write this) more tests. That they put him on the IL before the tests is telling and certainly calls into question whether we’ll see him again in ‘23.