UTK 9/4/20

Free Friday: Poor Alex, Sliding Altuve, and more

Welcome back to Free Friday. It’s been a very full week of injuries and baseball, so I hope everyone is staying healthy as we push through to the kickoff of the NFL as baseball just gets weirder. We’ve seen no real drop-off in the injury numbers, with pitcher injuries up significantly, but continuing to show different types of injuries than expected. It’s a corollary of that old “definition of insanity” saw - doing everything differently causes different reactions, and very unpredictable at that.

My favorite story of the week has to be Alex Rodriguez et al calling the process of bidding to own the Mets “rigged” - and yes, he chose that word very deliberately. Rodriguez was hoping to Make Alex Great Again as he continues to try to be loved by the public. He could never be Jeter in the hearts of Yankees fans, but he could be a better team owner, right? Unfortunately, that dastardly Bobby Axelrod … I mean, Steve Cohen got in the way with his big pile of money. Rodriguez had all his money, all his girlfriend’s money, and all of the money of the rich friends he could find wasn’t close to enough.

Cohen came into this with billions of reasons why he was going to win. Rodriguez came into this with publicity, some friends in the media willing to print what he leaked, and that’s about it. Plans for the Mets? Not really, so in that way, he was trying to be Jeter yet again. Think about this - did you hear who Rodriguez was going to hire as GM? As manager or anything? Did Rodriguez leak out plans to sell off pitching or to go big for a free agent? No, you heard about Rodriguez and Lopez, and only one of those holds much interest for me. “Rigged” Alex? No, the phrase you’re looking for is “big stacked.” You got outbid for something you convinced yourself would get you back in the spotlight. I guess announcing and Instagram isn’t enough.

With that off my chest, let’s get to the injuries:

Jose Altuve 2B HOU (unknown - knee)

The Astros have had a weird season. Like everyone else I guess, but this team seems to have had its personality transplanted somehow. Some of that is that Dusty Baker came in, but as Jeff Luhnow and AJ Hinch left, they seem to have taken something with them. Add in that Dusty hasn’t really been Dusty. He’s been a rote manager with none of the creativity I expected and none of the clubhouse mojo that he’s known for. Baker is at his best when he gets three things - a clubhouse that buys into his “no one believes in you” talk, when he has a player that can be the MVP (which he has, in multiple players), and when he can have set roles for everyone.

It’s that last one that seems most off from the typical Dusty setup. The rotation isn’t what he expected without Justin Verlander at the top. The bullpen has been decimated by injury. All of his MVP candidates have been on the shelf, or will be soon with Jose Altuve expected to head to the IL with a knee issue. Altuve’s headed for an MRI on Friday to see what’s going on inside his knee after a hard slide “stuffed” his previous repaired knee. (The play is visible in this MLB.com article.)

That previous repair was to fix the alignment of the kneecap after an avulsion fracture pulled away part of the bone. It was painful, but he played and played well on that injury through the end and playoffs in ‘18. It’s hard to see how stuffing the knee - a linear motion - would cause any issue for the kneecap or associated structures. This is a motion that worries more for the cushioning and stability, which would be the mensiscuses and to some level the tendons and muscle around. He didn’t “hit and bend”, where the knee reached a point where the energy had to go around the joint and we have to assume that the bones held up; a compression fracture would have been devastating and painful.

The most likely issue is either meniscus or some bone bruising inside the knee. That’s painful, but neither should shelve him long unless the team and doctors think he’ll need immediate surgery and even then, a meniscectomy could have him back before the end of the season. Results of the MRI will be telling, but I expect Altuve back quickly.

Giancarlo Stanton DH NYY (strained hamstring)

Football Outsiders put together a measure called Adjusted Games Lost better than a decade ago. The system makes clear that losing Andrew Luck is more impactful than losing Ryan Fitzpatrick. There’s no system like that for baseball, unfortunately, not for lack of effort on my part. There was something way back in the day, an expected run value per player, but I haven’t seen that collected since the early days of Prospectus.

For the Yankees, they’re living it. Losing a game of Giancarlo Stanton is worse than losing a game of Aaron Hicks, but here they are, three weeks plus out from a Grade II strain and Stanton’s not ready yet and it’s unclear how close. Aaron Boone said he’s running at 75 percent, but “not all the way there.” To translate, Stanton’s not ready for max-load activities and is likely still being treated for a remaining defect in the muscle. He’s slow healing, for whatever reason, and that’s not a knock on him. That’s just looking at the clock and calendar.

That’s not to suggest the Yankees and Stanton are lagging here. They’re reading the situation and putting him back out there just to get reinjured would be worse. The downside here is that re-injury risk is just one factor. Stanton is seemingly as likely to get to his next injury once you put him back there, though again, his reputation for injury exceeds the facts. We’ll see how this plays out, but the next week should show us more activity and some guidance for when and how the slugger will be back.

UPDATE: This injury pushed the Yankees to defend their new performance program. A Post article pushed that injuries go up with changes, which is true, but in this case, the base that the Yankees were working from should be noted. The Yankees made changes because things weren’t working and shifted to a system that they (and I) believe should be better and is at least based in science. While I’ll give them all the credit for making the change, results do matter. The key here is that the Yankees - including the players - have to buy in to the new system and go all in. There can’t be a “25 players, 25 trainers” mindset.

Charlie Morton SP TBR (strained shoulder)

The Rays have been really good even with a metric ton of injuries to their pitching staff. That’s a lot about depth and a bit more about planning. The team seems to put a pitcher out there each week that doesn’t seem overwhelmed, which tells me they have these guys we’ve seen and some number more well prepared because they expected this kind of churn. You always hope you don’t have it, but the Rays - despite losing a lot of talent in their front office and in development staff - continue to reap the rewards of sticking to the plan.

Morton is the kind of pitcher that the Rays succeed with - talented but fragile, with hidden skills that haven’t been maximized or even used. Get enough of them on the cheap and you can find one that turns into a Cy Young contender, or in this kind of season, you just fire enough of them out there, hoping you can get useful innings until they break and worry about next year, next year.

Morton will come back on Tuesday against the Yankees and while he’s had no issues with the post-start soreness that happens after starts, getting through it won’t be the problem. It will be starting the next one normally and that’s where the Rays medical staff will really earn its keep on Morton. I expect velocity and stuff to be more or less normal, maybe with some rust, but it’s the second start in both date and stuff that I’ll be watching.

Trent Thornton SP JAY (inflamed elbow)

A trip to Dr. James Andrews shouldn’t be seen as an immediate precursor to Tommy John surgery. Whether in Pensacola or Birmingham, it’s a nice spot. However, Dr. Andrews does a lot more than Tommy John surgery and going back a couple decades - Brad Penny is the first one that comes to mind - he’s done a lot of work on bone spurs and their relation to elbow pathology.

Bone spurs are a little like a blister on the bone. Something irritated it - something rubbing, something smacking together - and it builds up slowly and often irregularly. If it snaps off, it becomes a bone chip. The location and size of the spur is key to what it does and there’s some thought that in the elbow, these spurs are a protective reaction, meaning that they shouldn’t be taken off unless they’re causing pain or damage. That’s in part due to a reaction to when they were routinely taken off in the late 90s/early 00s and then athletes had Tommy John surgery. There’s no hard evidence of causation and we were in the midst of an explosion of the surgery, making it seem much worse than the times before.

For Thornton and the Jays, the trip to see the doctor is likely to be about feeling comfortable with the process. Dr. Andrews is often used as a safety blanket by pitchers and agents. Even if he just repeats what other doctors have said, some players seem to feel better about it when one of the best in the world says it. (Penny would come back to him time and again through his career for just that.) There’s still no indication that there’s a significant underlying condition that would necessitate surgery, but what’s happening in Thornton’s elbow does have to be dealt with in other ways.

UPDATE: As I wrote on Tuesday and repeat above, I was almost dead on with Thornton’s situation. Dr. Andrews went in and pulled out some loose bodies, or bone chips, and Thornton should be back. Pitchers like Johan Santana have come back from this type of surgery in weeks, not months, but the compressed season might push the Jays to just shut down Thornton and move on to next year.

Bo Bichette SS JAY (sprained knee)

A reminder — the type of straight line running that Bo Bichette did and is presented as “progress” in his rehab is the injury equivalent of magic. It’s not real magic, but the kind that makes you look at one thing while you should be looking at another. Bichette’s kind of sprain is focused on lateral pressure, so until you see him cutting or making the kind of lateral pushes and stops that a shortstop does, any straight line speed is worthless. Take a look at how a hitter swings. Not a lot of straight line there either.

So progress is a relative term and while it’s nice he’s running, at best, that tells us that there’s no setbacks, which is not nothing. Bichette is making progress, but we don’t have any real details about when he’s going to be able to do the things that will stress the knee and the Jays have to be careful to make sure that he doesn’t do any of that before he should.

One interesting thing is that his straight line running didn’t appear to have a brace. He may have had something, but it certainly wasn’t bulky or look very supportive. That’s a good sign, but I’d be surprised if he came back with no additional protection at all. While tape would be essentially invisible unless you’re going with the Dustin May style pants, it’s also unusual in this day and age. It’s something to keep an eye out for.

David Robertson RP PHI (post-Tommy John surgery)

David Robertson had a setback during his already extended Tommy John rehab, which will necessitate at least a six week shutdown, which ends his season. Robertson is headed for more tests which will determine how much longer he’ll be out, but there’s a chance that he might have done something “very bad” in the words of a Phillies source. That could be as much as a graft problem.

Tommy John surgery is successful in at least 80-85 percent of cases and most of the studies we see include younger pitchers, who are more likely to get in the midst of a year long rehab and say “I have better things to do” than a major league pitcher. That success rate is higher, but it’s not 100 percent as many think. The surgery is so accepted, so automatic at this stage that parents do ask if their kid can go ahead and have it. Does that happen in football — do parents ask if their kid needs a shoulder surgery to be the next Drew Brees or ACL surgery to be a better running back?

No, that doesn’t happen nor should it for Tommy John surgery. Robertson is a reminder that it’s not a perfect surgery. There are setbacks and even career enders, rare though they may be.

Quick (New) Cuts:

James Paxton is starting up his throwing program after being shut down with his forearm issue. He’ll need at least a couple weeks, but the Yankees aren’t going to dawdle with his return. He could come back more quickly if he’s used in shorter stints, which is possible … One way you might see Paxton used is what the A’s are doing with AJ Puk. They’re going to put him in the pen as something of a “scheduled reliever”. Puk will know the inning he’s coming in and how many innings, rather than the more normal “as needed” role. Smart … Alex Bregman will come off the DL soon. He took batting practice with no issue and will do more full-go running soon, ahead of getting back in the lineup … Look for Gleyber Torres to come back from his hamstring strain this weekend. It took a couple extra days, which was not a setback, according to sources. Bears watching as the Yankees get at least a little bit healthier … Carlos Martinez may come off the COVID IL and jump right into the rotation this week. He’s been building his workload base at the alt site, but there’s no clarity on how deep that Cards think Martinez can go at this stage or how that program to build him up was set up … The Red Sox are being smart. There’s no reason to push Nathan Eovaldi and when his calf continued to bother him in his latest bullpen, they decided he’d do one more before going back in the rotation. I know it’s tough for Sox fans this year, but behind the scenes, the front office is doing all the right things … The Dodgers think Justin Turner will be back from his mild hamstring strain on Tuesday, the 10 day minimum. No reason to think that’s not the case or that we’ll see any effects … The Astros will get Chris Devenski back in their pen soon. He’ll jump right back into the setup role, but watch to see if he’s able to go back-to-back days without issue … Jakob Junis doesn’t have any luck but bad luck this season. He got smoked on the back of his arm by a 106-mph liner. He should be fine, but that’s going to sting for a while.

Remember, Free Friday is mostly a recap of the week’s injuries. Almost all of this was published earlier in the week. If you want to sit at the cool kid’s table and get the best injury analysis around for both MLB and NFL, it costs five bucks a month. There’s a lot more I want to add as we go forward, including a couple projects I’ll let you know about in the coming weeks. Thanks to all who have subscribed and helped with the rebirth of UTK!