Young Dodgers southpaw Julio Urias will require anterior capsule surgery on his left shoulder, according to a team announcement. It’s a major operation that clouds the future of the 20-year-old hurler.
Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman says that the expectation is Urias will require an absence of between twelve and fourteen months, as Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register reports (links to Twitter). It’s even possible that Urias could pitch in the majors in 2018, he emphasized.
Though the procedure is a scary one for any pitcher, there are some mitigating factors here. Friedman says that Urias suffered the injury in an acute manner and is not dealing with any other injuries in his shoulder. That makes for a relatively more constrained problem than many prior pitchers have dealt with.
Still, it’s hard not to cringe when looking at the list of pitchers who have gone before Urias — though Friedman did specify that none were truly direct comparables. The most famous case is that of Johan Santana, who never really made it back. This 2012 piece from Adam Rubin of ESPN.com talks about the history (before Santana’s ultimate fate was known). And this deep dive from Jon Shepherd of Camden Depot covers the nuts and bolts.
It’s notable that the injury — so far as is presently known — occurred while Urias was on optional assignment. That would mean he will not accrue MLB service time during his recovery. Service-time considerations were only part of the picture for the Dodgers as they handled Urias with care over the past several seasons. Even as he showed immense aptitude for his age, the team took great care to limit his workload and ease him towards the big leagues.
The Mexican prodigy cracked the majors last year at 19 years of age, turning in 77 impressive innings of 3.39 ERA pitching with 9.8 K/9 and 3.6 BB/9. It seemed he’d be ready for a more-or-less full season of work in 2017, but struggled early and ended up back at Triple-A. While he was seemingly on track to sort things out and make it back up, Urias apparently suffered the injury in his most recent outing for Oklahoma City.
While Los Angeles can do little but wait and hope that Urias responds well, the news does have near-term ramifications. The Dodgers will no longer be able to count on a boost from the lefty down the stretch, making it seem all the more likely that the team will consider adding a starter at the deadline. Though the rotation goes at least six deep, with other options standing by, the Dodgers are facing a steep test in the NL West and are no doubt aware of the injury risks carried by most of the members of the current staff.
Don’t know what it is but NOOOOOOOO!
…ugggghhhhhh…. 🙁
Good news this impacts nothing on 2017. Down the road ouch.
He’s only 20 right now, Los Angeles will be patient and slow with him, it’s okay.
The problem is he just lost two years of development. With 12-14 months of recovery it usually take 18 months for someone to actually get their stuff back if they ever do. Shoulder injuries are the worst things to ever happen to a pitcher.
This is why organizations should be patient with young talent. Two plus years of service time down the drain versus no service time by not pushing him when they have eight starters on their 40-man.
That’s not true at all. He was injured in the minors so essentially they’d be able to go 39 of 40 this year without allowing him service time.
Depends really on how much needs to be fixed and the surgeon and some luck. Shoulder surgery isn’t as catastrophic as even 5 yrs ago, a lot of new techniques. Some guys can be back on a mound with good stuff in 8 months, or like Pineda it took 5 seasons to get his stuff back, or you could never really play again
Man that stinks, the Dodgers did such a great job of limiting his innings to try and prevent injury.
Wonder how he got hurt. They never let him pitch, so that couldn’t be it.
Brought him up wayyyyyyy to soon
You base this on what?
Freidman said it happened on 1 pitch not wear and tear.
I hope this is sarcasm. The dodgers did pretty much everything you could do to limit risk with him, short of just sitting him.
If my quick Google search is correct, it looks like if he is able to return, it will be similar to TJ concerning the rest and rehab (roughly 8-18 months).
Johann Santana had the procedure, but it seems like it is the type of injury that is prone to resurfacing, thus second procedures could become necessary in the future. Seems very serious.
Nah, if you look at the pitchers who have experienced this type of thing…they were never the same again. Santana, as unsuccessful as he was after the surgery, he was one of the better outcomes. Others to experience it…Chien-Ming Wang, Mark Prior, Dallas Braden…No one has come back and pitched well. Such a shame. If Urias comes back anything close to what he was projected to be, it’ll be a miracle.
Ya, after reading more about it I got less enthusiastic. Hopefully he’s the exception. Hate to see a kid that young and that promising have an injury like that.
The problem with that statement was everyone else you mentioned had a rotator cuff tear and the Surgery was sort of newer for Santana, or exploratory, which they botched. The saving grace for Urias was his rotator cuff was not injured.
Not true
A lot don’t come back the same
Some come back just as good
This is the injury that ended my career in 1979. I was an OF, not a pitcher, so not putting the same stresses on my shoulder.
If everything goes right it’s 12-14 months of rehab after this surgery today. That will depend on if the capsular bag is strong enough to hold the inserted anchor or anchors. It is a very uncommon injury and has a 12% success rate among MLB pitchers, meaning that of the 17 guys that have had it, 2 returned to pitch well.
Urias probably won’t return to the majors until 2019 if everything goes well. His career may also be over. Sad to see in a 20-year-old. Best of luck to him.
This sucks.
Yes it does. Even if you are not a Dodgers fan, Urias was an exciting prospect and you never want to see any player go down with what might be a career-ending injury.
So sad he will never be the same again. Guess his baseball card value will look pretty sad too
Damn he’s only 20 and his potential will never show smh
Wow, what a tough break for the guy. I was looking forward to seeing him have a pretty dominant career in the years to come (including many duels with the Padres of course).
AF reports that there is no damage to labrum or rotator cuff. Hoping this can be done arthroscopically. All the best to Julio!
An Anterior Capsule injury is much worse than either a labrum or rotator cuff tear.
I was never suggesting that one was worse then the other. My point, rather, was that most pitchers who have had an anterior capsule injury have also had labrum and rotator cuff issues and this significantly complicates the anterior capsule repair. Urias is facing a very serious (whether it is arthroscopic or an open repair) and no one is suggesting otherwise. The fact that Julio does not have labrum or rotator cuff issues and that no scar tissue has been identified in the MRI does provide some hope, however, that the surgery may be less comnplicated.
Since it probably won’t be mentioned here, for those who are interested in the future of Urias, the word today is the surgery went much better than expected. A lot of confidence is being expressed in his ability to recover.
Thanks for the information. Source?
20 years old and already shoulder troubles? Should have traded him when they had the chance.
I hate to be “that guy” but it bears caution to remember prospects are just prospects until they prove themselves. Unfortunately things like these happen. Just remember when trade rumors start to circulate and guys appear to be untouchable (Urias, Profar, Giolito, etc.) that sometimes it’s better to cash them in for talent that can help you win now.
Giolito got traded? And the other two got injured. What does proving yourself at the ML level have to do with injuries derailing your career? If you can correctly predict which players are going to get injured you should go sell your services to every front office in baseball. Otherwise you are just cherry picking examples with the benefit of hindsight, which serves little to no purpose when considering which players an organization should retain.
Well, staying healthy is a skill. Some guys have it, some guys don’t. Some guys learn it, some guys lose it.
The best predictor of future health is past health, through major league seasons and workloads.
Thus, even uninjured prospects carry additional health-related risks. They’ve never played a full major-league season, never had to keep their bodies healthy through all the wear and tear.
The reason so many prospects fail isn’t just their talent not translating, or an inability to adjust in the major leagues. It’s also health.
In short, there’s a reason they’re called prospects, and not sure things. What’s the old acronym? TINSTAAPP
TINSTAAPP relates to pitching prospects only.
Wait so you think the younger players with less wear and tear on their body have a higher chance of suffering injuries?
And again, “Well, staying healthy is a skill. Some guys have it, some guys don’t. ” Can you identify which ones do and do not have this skill with out using hindsight?
Other than sale who urias alone would not have been enough to get there is no one the dodgers really regret not trading urias for. Hamels , miller and chapman would have been nice but its impossible to forsee this. Fernadez was the guy i think they were willing to trade urias for and unfortunately we know what happened there
The positive here is that he has youth on his side…Hopefully he gets the time he needs to make a full recovery and his body responds well.
Wonder if they’d take DeLeon back for Verdugo and Calhoun?
The probability of that is about the same as the Rays taking Verdugo, Calhoun and Stripling for Archer.
Is it possible that maybe the injury was caused by babying him to pitch? Off the top of my head teams treated Matt Harvey and Stephen Strasburg the same way and kinda ended up the same.
Well that’s an interesting medical theory. Not sure how you can back it up.
In any event, he pitched 122 innings last year, between the minors and majors. This hardly seems like “babying” someone in their age 19 season.
Not sure how I can back it up either. It’s just an out loud thought. It just seems more often than not teams who are (overly?) concerned about workloads of their pitchers end up ruining them because of the exact same thing. I might just be cherry picking examples too. I’m not saying I’m right by any means, just seeing what others think about the possibility.