The Angels informed reporters that first baseman Jared Walsh underwent surgery to correct thoracic outlet syndrome yesterday (via Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register). The club still anticipates he’ll be ready for Spring Training 2023.
It’s an unsurprising development, as the Halos announced last week that Walsh would be shut down for the year with TOS. It wasn’t clear whether that’d necessitate surgical repair, but he unfortunately had to go under the knife. Thoracic outlet syndrome, a condition in which nerves or blood vessels compress in the rib area, has become a more common injury around the league in recent seasons. It’s more frequently an issue for pitchers, but Walsh joins Rays catcher Mike Zunino as notable position players who’ve undergone TOS surgery in 2022.
The diagnosis perhaps comes as some explanation for Walsh’s dismal season. A breakout performer late in 2020, the lefty-swinging Walsh doubled down with a 29-homer campaign last year. He earned an All-Star nod amidst a .277/.340/.509 showing, looking as if he’d join Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani (and potentially Anthony Rendon, when healthy) as fixtures in the middle of the lineup.
Walsh remained an everyday player this season, but his results plummeted. He finished the year with a .215/.269/.374 line through 454 trips to the plate. His strikeout rate spiked to an unacceptable 30.4% clip, while his walks dipped to a meager 5.9% rate. Walsh’s average exit velocity and hard contact rate didn’t much change relative to last year, but his rate of homers per fly ball and general power production fell off.
Assuming he’s indeed healthy by the start of next season, Walsh figures to get another opportunity to cement himself as the primary first baseman. Since he went down, the club has leaned on journeyman Mike Ford at the position. Ford is off to a nice start through seven games, but it’s unlikely he’d leapfrog Walsh on the depth chart barring an otherworldly showing in September. Walsh will reach arbitration for the first time this offseason; he’s controllable through 2025.
Walsh will get healed up and back to snuff and will be an absolute TERROR! GG 1B to boot…
Might have to kiss next year good bye. Its a long recovery and generally not back too their old selves. Too bad he had an epic 2021
Dude couldn’t hit breaking pitches to save his life this year. He did pretty well against them last year.
Hopefully this is the fix.
Couldn’t hit fastballs either unfortunately
Man, where are all of these TOS cases coming from? You rarely, if ever, heard about this 10 years ago but now it is becoming almost as common as TJS. If this is indeed an injury related to baseball activities, a lot of players in the past must have just played through the pain. The surgery doesn’t seem to have as high of success rates as TJS either. A lot of players who go through TOS never fully recover. Hopefully it will work for Walsh since he’s not a pitcher, but it will be interesting to see if he can bounce back to his former production levels. The Angels are overdue for some good luck.
For pitchers, who account for the vast majority of cases, I think it’s simple. They throw on average 4 mph faster now than they did 20 years ago (something people who long for the days of .300 hitters who rarely strike out tend to not consider.) This has led to increased stress on pitchers’ arms which are already doing something unnatural. So this has led to more injuries.
I think part of it is better diagnostic technologies
Agreed. Science and medicine are always evolving. A few days ago, I was having a discussion with a friend about gluten-allergies and celiac disease. Never heard of it growing up. People just pushed through in the past and usually end up later in life with serious stomach issues and other ailments (aka a shorter life) due a lack of available proper diagnosis and care.
I have a former coworker who had Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. She said every breath she took hurt worse than anything she had experienced. She was limited to lifting no more than five pounds even after a year post surgery, if that gives you an idea how painful TOS can be.
yeah I read it can lead to serious complications, such as weakness of grip, numbness, tingling of fingers, along with neck and shoulder pain. super serious, along with blood clots. smh
Speaking of surgery frequency, I was looking at the year over year list of TJ surgeries, it’s incredible. Some years as many as 30 guys. I had no idea.
Zakis- Did you r friend have pain all over? Just breathing? Asking because I have a friend who has some pain issues and can’t figure out why. Walsh is one my favorite Angels. hope this is a fix for him.