It has been a little over a week since a forearm strain sent left-hander Hyun Jin Ryu to the 15-day injured list, and Ryu and the Blue Jays are still determining the next stage of rehab. Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith (Twitter link) writes that Ryu has met with noted specialist Dr. Neal ElAttrache, and is also going to seek out other opinions.
As with any forearm injury, there was immediate speculation that Ryu would require Tommy John surgery, and it isn’t yet known if such a major procedure is necessary. The fact that Ryu wasn’t immediately slated for TJ surgery is perhaps a positive sign that his forearm strain doesn’t involve any serious UCL damage, yet on the flip side, it is possible that a TJ procedure was the initial recommendation, and Ryu and the Jays are trying to find a second opinion that involves an alternative recovery treatment. It certainly seems like Ryu is in for a lengthy absence regardless, and if he does ultimately require Tommy John surgery, his tenure in Toronto could already be over. TJ rehab usually takes 12-15 months, and Ryu is only under contract through the end of the 2023 season.
More from the AL East…
- Chris Sale threw a bullpen session on Friday and is scheduled to throw a live batting practice session on Monday. Red Sox pitching coach Dave Bush told The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey and other reporters that Sale is roughly on the same pace as a pitcher just beginning Spring Training, so Sale would have roughly six weeks of work ahead before he is fully ramped up and ready to rejoin Boston’s rotation. However, Sale could potentially return sooner if he was used as a relief pitcher, and Bush said that “everything is on the table at this point” in terms of Sale’s potential role. “If it suits him and us for him to come back sooner and in fewer innings and we have a bullpen that’s capable of absorbing the extra innings, then maybe that’s an option,” Bush said.
- The Red Sox and Braves were among the teams who had interest in Matt Carpenter after the Rangers released the veteran infielder in May, Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports. The Rangers didn’t have a role for Carpenter at the big league level, but his big numbers at the Triple-A level surely caught the attention of multiple teams wondering if the former All-Star had gotten back on track. Much to Boston’s particular chagrin, Carpenter ended up signing with the Yankees, and he has already delivered four homers and a 1.250 OPS over his first 25 plate appearances in the pinstripes.
I know the list is long with players underwhelming after signing big contracts, but the Sale contract was beyond stupid…. He’s built like a scarecrow and was oft-injured beforehand.
You know what they say about hindsight…Sale was mostly healthy when he joined BOS and remained so until he signed the contract. Yes there were red flags, but so is the case with half of the SP in baseball. Sale is dynamic when healthy, most SP aren’t – that’s the difference.
Sale was already showing signs of wear late in the 2018 season. A lot of people were critical of that extension immediately and they were right
“A lot of people” are always critical of any extension signed by a pitcher, we just don’t hear from “a lot of people” when they do work out.
Why does someone always come along with a meaningless blanket statement? Scouts said for years that Sale would run into injury issues because of his lanky frame and violent delivery and that started in 2018. It’s part of the reason why the White Sox traded him with 3 years of control instead of building around him
about half of the starters in the league “show signs of wear” during any given season.
Ronk325;
1 LOL. You just came up with a blanket statement to put down what you referred to as a blanket statement.
2. When the Red Sox acquired him Sale had never had anything more than some minor injuries that were resolved within a few weeks.
3. The White Sox weren’t going to build around him….they’d been doing that for years. They wanted young cheap players with years of control and upside. He was moved along with other young veterans. That was the point of that rebuild. Why didn’t they build around Adam Eaton? He was the same age as Sale when they were traded.
Players get injured and it affects their careers. It happens. There is no team or multi year GM/Baseball OPS head that hasn’t run into it.
And many of those same people would have been critical of the Sox if they didn’t sign him. Damned if you do…
True that but sadly most long term pitching contracts end badly. David Price anyone?
How often do they work out? Occasionally? Virtually never?
Max Scherzer is one contract that worked out. Captain Cheeseburger took the ball every 5th day for the Yankees. That kind of worked i guess.
As an observer, the trade for Sale was great – gave up a bunch and got an ace and won a WS. I just never understood the need to sign him to a mega-deal after. Like an above poster said, his frame/delivery was going to be an issue as he aged.
Basically, Scherzer is THE example. Just doesn’t seem to work out very often.
Regarding Sale being healthy or not before contract extention.
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He was very injured before he signed his extension. And, many during the 2018 season thought he might need surgery.
In 2018, Sale pitched a combined 17 innings from July 27th on, then added another 15 innings in the playoffs. At MLBTR, that season, people were posting questions about his health a lot. But, they won a WS, suddenly everyone was fine with his pitching/health. He signs a big contract, then doesn’t pitch again until August 2019. It was a Re-Sign, so the medical doctors should have been aware of his arm trouble. That was a terrible Signing.
“Signs of wear” is putting it quite mildly too.
Sale injured himself overthrowing in the ’18 ASG, just like Pedro did in the ’99 ASG.
After extra days of rest he made two more starts that month, realized he wasn’t right physically, and the Sox knew how bad it was so from July 28 thru the end of the regular season he pitched only 17 innings.
He was not good in that postseason, came up with a BS excuse about a “belly button ring”, and pitched only a couple innings during the following spring training before signing a below-market contract.
No way Sale would have signed a 5/$145M contract if he had no worries about his health. I’m not a Dombrowski hater, but that was without question the dumbest thing he did with the Red Sox.
Same reason given by the Dodgers & Expos for trading Pedro — how did that work out. When you have HOF talent its worth the gamble.
Sale injured himself overthrowing in the ’18 ASG
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He threw 9 pitches in ASG. In his next two starts after the ASG, he allowed -0- ERs, with a 19/2 K/W in 12 innings. In fact, he had a 1.55 ERA in the second half of 2018, and only got hit in his last two outings.
Even with shaky ending, he still finished with a career-high bWAR.
But just for discussion purposes, he finished 2018 with a 12-4 record, and a 2.11 ERA. He was:
2nd in WAR
2nd in ERA
2nd in K/W
2nd in hits/9 IPs
1st in K/9
IMHO, there is no way you can allow him to walk away and join the Yankees. It hasn’t worked out, but there is no way I’d allow him to walk away.
Joe – Now I’ll give you information you couldn’t find in Fangraphs.
In that 2018 ASG, Sale’s pitch to get Freeman out was clocked at 100.7 MPH … which was the highest velocity for a Sale pitch since he was a rookie reliever in 2010. He was overthrowing in that game, everyone who watched the game and remembered it would know that.
Why did I know that and you didn’t?
Because you follow Fangraphs, and I follow baseball.
I won’t even address your belief that good results in a limited number of innings automatically indicates good health. I followed the team intensely that year, you obviously didn’t. Sale’s health was a major concern post-ASG that year. Again, not something you’d learn by studying Fangraphs.
coop – Pretty sure the people critical of that contract would have been fine with paying him EVEN MORE if the Sox had waited until at least the AS break and had seen no evidence of injury. It was beyond dumb to not wait and see how Sale looked the first half of that season.
Yes, the injury issues were there enough that Dombrowski never should have extended Sale. In 2 1/2 years about $70,000,000 for 42 innings or about $1,700,000 per inning. One of many reason DD got fired as GM.
Dave Dombrowski accomplished three straight division titles and a World Series win, but he was fired at the right time, and Bloom was hired at the right time. If Sale was not signed Betts might still be in Boston.
The Yankees will play in St Louis in August and I can’t wait for Matt Carpenter to get a standing ovation like he deserves in St Louis. Hopefully by then he is still with the Yankees. He was a great player for many years and one of the best leadoff hitters that we have had. The fan base/ us will be thrilled to see him back and it will be a special moment returning to St Louis for the first time since last year.
he will not be on the roster in august
nyy42- We shall see.
Why not?
Back in the day, Cardinals fans were known for their uncommon sportsmanship and appreciation of good players. More than once I saw them give standing ovations to visiting players who made spectacular plays. If they receive Matt as you predict, it’ll be in line with St. Louis tradition, and that’ll be good to see.
They needed Sale and, having given up Kopech and Moncada, Dombrowski obviously felt pressured to get more mileage out of his investment. As good as Kopech looks, it seems that Moncada has been one brutally overrated prospect.
“brutally overrated prospect”
Based on what? Moncada 12.2 WAR since trade, thats over 2.0 WAR a season. Not great, but “BRUTALLY OVERATED”.
Take it a step further (Since Trade):
Moncada 12.2 + Kopech 3.9 = 16.1 WAR
Vs. Sale = 14.5 WAR
Those 2 players have cost far, far less than Sale, and are a much better investment moving forward.
The side receiving the prospects almost always wins relative to WAR/$$$.
Those two players are NOT a better investment, you have a better chance winning with Sale. You can get the value the others offer somewhere else pretty easily. Sale is harder to come by.
Just a point of clarification– you cannot compare multiple players with a single player merely by adding WAR. That’s a fallacy. The value of a player does not scale linearly with WAR– that’s obvious. Five 1 WAR players are not the equivalent of one 5 WAR player. Obviously the single 5 WAR player is much, much better.
Ryu is delaying the inevitable. They didn’t slate Mize for surgery right away either…
Mize didn’t tear the ligament
Yes, true, stretch beyond its elasticity. But the point remains – because it wasn’t torn, he was a prime candidate *not to go under the knife, yet he’s going under. I don’t think Ryu has any hope in this case, unfortunately.
Didn’t he miss a bunch of seasons with LA and avoid surgery at least one of those times?
I remember the two years Garret Richards missed for Angels because he never fully tore the UCL then when he came back “healthy” he did blow it out and need TJ. He got the rehab for a year contract with SD and bounced around since. He’s never been the same yet keeps getting contracts. Must be nice.
Aaron, how about finding some AB’s for the Carpenter? They found a nice left handed bat, but he needs an occasional AB. If you could find AB’s for Gonzalez and Gallo surely you can find a few AB’s for the Carpenter.
Right? And he actually…ya know, hits. Gallo has half the field left wide open, but in reality, the fielders can play poker when he’s at-bat, because he can’t even hit into the shift! Hicks, same deal. Hicks has hit the ball a bit harder the past couple games, but walking him was the biggest mistake the Cubbies could’ve made last night. He’s a sure fire out most ABs.
If you haven’t watched the MLB video of Stanton’s laser home run, it’s worth a look. The poor pitcher looked scared the way he dropped down. It must’ve sounded like a gunshot.
no defense no AB
I couldn’t agree more. Gallo and Hicks have both been dreadful this season. I call them the “numb nuts”. They are the primary reason the Yankees OF ranks 29th in MLB in DRS.
I’m not worried about the outfield defense, advanced stats notwithstanding. In conventional metrics they’re solid enough, tied with the Mets and Cardinals for the highest FP and fewest errors entering today. If they weren’t producing at the plate, I’d be worried.
Gallo and Hicks have picked it up at the plate lately, too. In the last 15 days they have 16 runs and 12 RBI between them. In the last 7 days, Gallo is second in runs and tied with Judge and Rizzo in the second rank in RBI, and Hicks is batting .316 with a .909 OPS.
It’s easier for me to overlook individual struggles when the team has the best record in baseball.
As usual you are 100% right!
Boy do I feel smart. Another homer for the Carpenter. How about a few more starts?
I’m glad Boone read your comment, Mickey. Good call.
If/When Sale comes back healthy Whitlock needs to resume his former role. They also have 1 single focus at the deadline which is surprisingly rare. I’d rather bank on someone bouncing back offensively vs trading for anyone that isn’t a stud at this point. They could use at least 2 real bullpen arms.
I don’t really think the Sox would have gotten anything better out of Carpenter than they have gotten out of Cordero, and Cordero helps in the OF too
Rsox – I think it’s a little premature to say Franchy and his .211/.285/.376 is a better option than Carpenter.
Keeping it real, Cashman is good at acquiring value from the scrap heap and Bloom is not.
Carpenter
Urshela
Cortes
Those are just a few that immediately come to mind, players that were signed off the scrap heap for pennies and became huge contributors. Would be nice if Bloom could do the same, instead he paid a fortune for Marwin Gonzalez. and thought Danny Santana would be a contributor. There’s plenty more, but I won’t beat a dead horse.
And Bloom picked up Whitlock, Pivetta, and Davis for practically nothing. And he picked up Schwarber, Robles, and Iggy for practically nothing last year, which is the reason the RS advanced to the ALCS instead of Cashman’s Yankees.
But that’s not the important part.
The important part is that, if you only want to cherry-pick the very best or the very worst, 100% of the people in this world will look like geniuses or idiots. Bloom’s done a very good job.
IGNORE fever he is a TROLL!!!
There’s no telling how Carpenter would’ve performed for the Red Sox, but so far with the Yankees he has a 1.592 OPS with 6 HR in 10 games. He’s beloved in the Bronx.
@fink i’m glad to see carp doing well for the nyy, wish his last few years in stl were better but they were not. it dose seam carp figured something out or nyy plays better to his current skill set. either way you got a heck of a player and if he keeps producing he might be one of the unsung heroes that help with a deep run.
Maybe they can, at least short-term, use Sale to close. That is, as long as Cora is willing to sacrifice his friend, Hansel Eidelpfeiffer Robles.
milt – Whatever decision they make about Sale, will be made when he’s rehabbing in the minors. Once they make that decision, they will stick with it for the remainder of the season.
I think his health will be the deciding factor. Even though his return to the rotation would likely mean Whitlock back to the pen, if Sale’s health is still questionable they will pitch him an inning here and there in relief.
milt – Cora indeed blew yet another game by insisting on putting his BFF Robles into another high leverage situation. Davis was on, pitched brilliantly against his three batters, and he has better numbers against RHB than Robles does so what was the point of having Robles face two RHB and a LHB? It was inexcusable to roll the dice with Robles again.
But as usual, it was pre-programmed in Cora’s brain that Robles would pitch the 9th. It’s that sort of robotic thinking that is hurting the Sox more than anything.
insisting on putting his BFF Robles
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I curious how you know that Robles and Cora are best friends. Were they ever on the same team?
Joe – I learned about Robles/Cora the same way I learned about Hernandez/Cora, through interviews. Last year I saw a couple articles about Robles/Cora.
One thing you should understand, familiarity has a LOT to do with some personnel decision-making. Quite often when a player tries to revive their career, they return to teams/coaches/managers who worked with them in the past and know them.
You probably don’t know this, the only reason Ortiz signed with the Red Sox is because Pedro called Theo and insisted he sign Ortiz. Otherwise Theo didn’t know anything about Ortiz, and didn’t have a need for him because the Sox already had three 1B/DH-types in Millar, Hillenbrand and Giambi. So once again, FAMILIARITY was a big reason why a player was acquired.
As someone who dislikes the Red Sox, it pleases me that extensions/signings of guys like David Price, Chris Sale, etc. haven’t really worked out and that Sale has been an absolute disaster. That said–
There was no reason for them to give Sale *that* sizable of a contract. 5 years/$145M should’ve probably been more like let him walk or flip him or maybe sign him to like 3 years/$70M with a pair of opt outs after years 1 and 2 if he bounced back.
It is amazing that he had the year he had in 2019 and they signed him to that $29M AAV extension. Whatever.
They wanted to avoid another Jon Lester situation. Didn’t work out but oh well.
As someone who dislikes the Yankees I cannot wait until they give a 31-yo 6’8″ 300lb OF a 10-year extension at $40/year. That should work out like gangbusters. Enjoy your 3 years of productivity and 7 years of constant IL trips.
This will be Ryu’s third TJ surgery. Had two previously in Korea.