Reds right-hander Justin Dunn “will be shut down for a couple of months” in order to recover from inflammation in the right subscapularis muscle of his rotator cuff, MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon writes. The shutdown comes on the recommendation of a specialist, and it doesn’t appear as though surgery will be required.
While that counts as good news for Dunn, it will mark the third straight season that he has missed considerable time due to shoulder problems. The result was only 50 1/3 innings for Dunn with the Mariners in 2021, and then 31 frames in 20222, his first season in Cincinnati. With the injuries obviously playing a factor, Dunn posted an underwhelming 4.65 ERA, 19.7% strikeout rate, and 12.9% walk rate over those 81 1/3 combined innings.
As Dunn is now entering his age-27 season and his fifth MLB campaign, he has yet to really lift off following his selection as the 19th overall pick of the 2016 draft. The Mets were Dunn’s original team, but the righty was included as part of the Robinson Cano/Edwin Diaz blockbuster trade with Seattle in December 2018, and was then part of another prominent deal last March when the Reds sent Eugenio Suarez and Jesse Winker to the Mariners.
Though cutting payroll was the most significant factor in that trade from Cincinnati’s perspective, obtaining a former top-100 prospect and a big league-ready starter in Dunn obviously helped the Reds sign off on that particular swap. More than a year after that deal, Dunn’s future as a potential member of the Reds rotation is still uncertain, which isn’t ideal for either Dunn or a team going through a rebuilding period.
While there’s some fluidity involved in Dunn’s recovery, if he doesn’t get back to baseball activities until May, he might not be fully ramped up and ready to start games until perhaps late June or even into the second half of the season. It is possible Cincinnati could bring Dunn back as a reliever in order to shorten his recovery time, just to get him into action and get some innings under his belt in 2023, before then stretching him back out as a starter next spring. More will be known when Dunn is re-examined down the road, and if there are any setbacks in his recovery, surgery might yet be an option as an answer to his ongoing shoulder injuries.
Called it!
He’s getting to a point that if he can’t get more control and stay healthy, he might need to convert to a bullpen arm.
That was what many scouts expected anyway due to his pitch mix. If he could gain some velocity he might be a good receiver given how nasty his slider has shown at times.
No shock there and of course there was no contingency plan even though they knew it was a real possibility.
TF you even talking about? what contingency plan do you need for a guy who is one of like 8 dudes going out for the the back of the rotation? I swear you just post bc you like seeing your name or something because you write the most illogical things on EVERY Reds related news
If you don’t understand how a baseball team is built, no one can enlighten you.
Considering how you like to use your “eyes” to evaluate players, it’s obvious that YOU don’t know anything about how modern baseball teams are built.
What a dummy
He pitched “31 frames” in the year 20222 ??? Man,time really goes by fast sometimes!!!
Time traveling Dunn
Very impressive that he could log 31 innings tens of thousands of years after his debut
Trash
As a 4th generation Reds fan all I can shout it
“Say it ain’t so !
This is a significant challenge for the Reds to overcome in their Title hopes this season…
Wait, what? We’re talking Justin Dunn and It’s 2023? Got it…. Insignificant development and 95+ losses ahead….
The opportunity for Justin Dunn to become a sp for the Reds has probably passed. By the time he overcomes this shoulder injury (if ever), he will be 8th or 9th in the pecking order. Time to think about 1-2 inning stints as a rp.