UTK Flash 4/6/24
Bieber, Story, Strider
On Friday, there was an earthquake on the East Coast, centered somewhere in rural New Jersey. Around baseball, there were earthquakes of a different type, shaking the foundations of three teams, as Shane Bieber heads for elbow reconstruction, Trevor Story injured his shoulder on a dive, and Spencer Strider has an elbow issue.
This is a UTK Flash, so I don’t have all the details yet, but let’s go with what we know. The simplest is Bieber. The Guardians ace has a sprained elbow and will undergo surgery. All that’s not known here is what type of surgery - classic or augmented. That will be determined early this week as he selects a surgeon. Bieber had pain in the elbow since last year, reportedly getting worse after his Opening Day start. Imaging was done after his last start that showed the damage and the decision was made. Bieber will miss the rest of the season and into next. Bieber is a free agent after the season, taking him from one of the most sought after pitchers to one that likely won’t be ready on Opening Day.
Trevor Story made a dive and came up in significant pain. We don’t yet know what the injury is, but I’m told it was not a dislocation. Obviously it could be anything from labrum damage, capsule damage, or even an AC sprain. All of those can be minor or severe, or in combination. Add in ligament and tendon issues and any shoulder issue like this can be devastating. Story will have imaging done to discover as much about the damage as possible, but surgery remains an immediate possibility, even likelihood. Expect him to miss significant time.
Finally, Spencer Strider … his last pitch had more drop than any others and now, we wait on imaging to see what that, and the thousands of pitches beforehand, has done to his elbow. The worst case is a damaged UCL and elbow reconstruction, which comes with the normal 14-18 month recovery these days, even with augmented surgery. There’s some hope around Braves sources that this isn’t as significant as that, but the worry is there. The Braves are one of the most progressive and data-driven organizations in baseball, proven out by their win-loss record over the the years of this administration. While some are pointing to changes in Strider’s breaking ball as a stressor, breaking stuff tends to be less stressful and the Braves use multiple systems to monitor biomechanics. They’ll know on a pitch-by-pitch basis, even in spring, what the stresses look like.
The problem is that with Strider, with Bieber, Eury Perez, Gerrit Cole, Sandy Alcantara, Shohei Ohtani, Dustin May, Walker Buehler, Shane McClanahan, Shane Baz, Jacob deGrom and the rest of the pitchers currently on the IL with sprained elbows, Tommy John surgery, and other arm injuries, it’s not enough to just monitor. We’re continuing to lose the best pitchers, the hardest throwers, the aces and billions of dollars burned of the owners money. We’re seeing years of talent wasted, the game hollowed out in ways, so I’m waiting for the industry to sound the alarm and start the Manhattan Arm Project to reduce this.
Then again, I wrote a book 20 years ago called Saving The Pitcher. The problem has been inside the house the whole time.