Of note, there’s been no significant arm injury in the first week of Summer Camp. Yet. This speaks to the accuracy of the information I had on what was going on and the hard work of pitching staffs (and medical staffs) over the pause. Teams seem to have done well with keeping pitchers on the right track and they haven’t gotten outside the plan as they pulled everyone back into the same spot. The secondary site training camps have been a bit of a blind spot, with less reports for obvious reasons, but MLB will report roster moves there the same as always so we should at least see some evidence if there’s issues or major injuries necessitating a roster spot. Something minor? No chance, unless a team decides to tell us or if an enterprising beat reporter has a very good source.
Free Woj.
Now, on to the injuries:
Shohei Ohtani SP/DH LAA (strained back)
Shohei Ohtani came out of the sim game you can see below with a sore back. It’s not considered serious, though with pitchers in general with the quick Summer Camp, any setback or time off is going to have to be calculated in. That’s something the Angels haven’t done well in the past few years, though there’s some indication there’s been progress over the last few offseasons.
The bigger issue is that lower back and oblique strains appear to be the injury we’re going to see as amplified by the return. There’s a bunch, from Ohtani to Anthony Rizzo, and more. I asked several MLB Athletic Trainers, as well as several baseball personal trainers that work with MLB players why they thought we were seeing this increase. Almost all said it was too early to call it a trend, but the consensus was that it was easier to manage the workload for pitchers.
One well-known person who worked with several players during the pause says the difference is “training intent. You see the pitchers throwing on schedules, long tossing and having a high intent day. Batters don’t really have that. Most would get in against a machine, take their swings, and go on about their day.”
In the ongoing war between batters and pitchers, pitchers have been ahead in terms of tech. While launch angle and exit velocities have given hitters a lot of new data, few have used that to really change how they train. “Pitching has changed completely in the last decade,” said one MLB pitching staffer. “Hitting is basically the same, with stronger guys.”
For Ohtani, he’s both, so that lower back strain is a bit more complicated and necessitates a recovery that can handle both activities, plus his unique schedule. He’s a high effort guy on both sides, which lead to his results, so the Angels simply can’t rush him back. I’m watching this one very closely, because I think there may come a time when for this shortened season, the Angels might have to pull Ohtani from the pitching side. The downside there is that they have so little depth.
Freddie Freeman 1B ATL (infection)
Looks pretty innocuous up there. “Infection.” I had to put something in for the database and make a decision whether COVID-19 got it’s own category in the database or whether to put it in with the other infections that baseball is subject to over the course of a normal season. We’ll have plenty of players over the course of camp and who knows how many once we get into the season, but from an injury standpoint, we know absolutely nothing.
In other sports, we’ve seen the effects of the pause, but almost nothing in the way of effects once a player has tested positive, either symptomatically or asymptomatically. It may be that young, healthy players don’t show any effects or we may not have seen any of the long term consequences yet, so saying anything is speculation in its purest form. Baseball is largely not an aerobic game. It has its bursts, but it is more a game of focus and the ability to do very specific actions at very specific times. This isn’t to diminish these skills, but to show that what a soccer or basketball player does isn’t very instructive to what Freddie Freeman does.
Freeman has had symptoms - the normal severe flu-like symptoms from COVID-19 - and they have lingered. Sources with the team tell me the symptoms have been downplayed slightly and that Freeman has been closely monitored, but is recovering. If we take Freeman as an extreme but certainly not worst-case scenario, and put him into the context of the nearly 100 players that have tested positive either before or after the return, we’re likely to lose a number of players in a similar fashion. Just how many is tougher to say, but it’s going to be tied to exposure. It’s manageable, but if Freeman isn’t the worst case, you know what is and that’s the real risk for these players and those around them.
Aroldis Chapman RP NYY (infection)
As fit as Aroldis Chapman is - and yes, he looks bigger though I’ve asked beat writers who see him every day who insist he’s always been this big - it didn’t help him avoid COVID. He’s asymptomatic, but tested positive. Chapman is one of two players (Cam Gallagher of the Royals is the other) who have tested positive since the entry testing. Players aren’t “bubbled” like they are with the NBA, but they are supposed to be relatively isolated.
That’s not to cast any sort of judgment on Chapman (or Gallagher for that matter.) Chapman is known to be a social creature, posting regularly on the socials. He, like all players, is supposed to be more or less home and work and that’s it, but that’s not how this virus works. Kids get haircuts. Wives go to the store. All sorts of things happen and multiply that by at least 100 for each team, players and staff, at the minimum.
If MLB can keep the number of positives down at this stage, it’s a positive sign, but the key is not that they can stop infections. It’s that they stop outbreaks. We’ll have to watch the Royals and Yankees over the next few days to see if the positive tests can be prevented or at the very least caught early and isolated. Chapman should be back soon enough and with his role, he doesn’t need much time to build up.
Aaron Judge OF NYY (sore neck, post-rib fracture)
“Sore neck” is just one of those things. We all wake up and who knows what position our head was in during the night. I’ve changed pillows more times in the last decade and still get the dreaded wake up ache more than I’d care to count. It’s not always innocuous and given what Aaron Judge has been through over the last year, I’m not ready to say it’s simple either.
Lean your head to either side, as if you’re trying to touch your ear to your shoulder. Feel all those things stretching on the opposite side? Feel where they connect and what they move. Now, remember that Judge has been dealing with a first rib problem. I won’t have you poke and prod, but know that it’s right there, adjacent to the collarbone.
I’m not saying this is anything serious. Judge may have the simplest of sore necks. Given the confusing nature of his injuries, I’m not ready to let anything be considered nothing without noting it.
Dexter Fowler OF STL (back soreness)
Remember what I said about back issues. Here’s another one. Dexter Fowler is dealing with ‘back soreness.’ A source told me it wasn’t a strain, wasn’t a spasm, just ‘soreness.’ There’s no known cause and given Fowler’s athleticism and lack of any history, it’s hard not to think this is related to the pause/restart cycle.
If this is ‘getting back to it’ and the kind of muscular soreness that we all normally feel as we change workloads, then Fowler and the others should have a short adjustment period. It won’t help them get ready for the season, but it shouldn’t set them back significantly either. The key is to manage the workload, manage the symptoms, and keep them doing as much as possible. It means that this should fade rapidly, for Fowler and others, but if it doesn’t, chronic back issues can be career altering for speed players like Fowler.
Nick Senzel CF CIN (hyperextended elbow)
The Reds say it was a hyperextended elbow for Nick Senzel, but with his history of arm problems, this has to be a bit worrisome. Not that he’ll be out long or that it did anything to his surgically repaired shoulder, but just that Senzel can’t seem to stay healthy in the outfield. Ankle. Shoulder. Now elbow. Senzel is a conversion and data tells us that new environs often lead to new stresses and often injuries, but that goes away quickly as a player adjusts and gets comfortable.
With others, they simply can’t handle the position change and have to head down the defensive spectrum. Senzel came up as a third baseman and he may well need to go there sooner rather than later. The Reds are a very deep team, so third isn’t open by a long shot, but CF could be covered by a number of players, including Shogo Akiyama. One thing to watch early is Senzel’s exit velocity. It was low last year - well below average even before the shoulder injury.
Robinson Cano 2B NYM (no injury)
The Mets won’t (or can’t) say why Robinson Cano is away from the team. He showed up, said he was feeling in great shape, and then, he’s gone. The team has a lot of short term options, including the rehabbing Jed Lowrie, but none are as positive as even a decline-phase Cano. If we assume that this is COVID-related and that Cano hasn’t gone from BSOHL to symptomatic, he could be back as quickly as he can have two negative tests. It’s impossible to put any sort of timeframe on the return to the team or the lineup, or how it will affect him, at this stage.
The bigger worry for Cano is that his decline phase looks like the “Iron Man” pattern. Players that are very good and very healthy over the course of their careers - think Cal Ripken or Johnny Damon - often have a bunch of small injuries at the end of their careers. There’s a theory that they never learned how to deal with them or how to handle a rehab. It’s hard to add a pandemic into the run of injuries that Cano has had over the past two seasons, but it is a worrisome pattern.
Quick Cuts:
The news on Kenley Jansen was late breaking so I’ll have more on him soon … Masahiro Tanaka continues to make good progress after his concussion. Sources tell me aside from a headache, he had no symptoms after that scary hit. He is behind the other pitchers, but not by as much as you’d think, given his previous fitness … Carlos Rodon said 90 pitches was his goal for the pre-season. That’s a lot, unless his workload was held pretty high during the pause. The White Sox know what they’re doing so this is an intriguing sign for the whole team. Rodon looked good not great in his intrasquad start on Saturday … Yordan Alvarez has been shifted to the IL with what is assumed to be COVID. The Astros have offered no details or timeline on their COVID cases … Dillon Tate looked to have been the first arm injury of the summer, but an MRI showed ‘no structural damage.’ He was described with forearm pain, so maybe it’s flexor tendon? Worth keeping an eye on … 101 is impressive velocity, but two pitches later, Gerson Bautista was at 94 and heading for an MRI. The Mariners have a bunch of these hard throwing short relievers they collected but haven’t been able to make any of them pay off … Why the Sturgill video? I just like it and the setting can’t be beat.