Astros outfielder Kyle Tucker hasn’t played in a big league game since fouling a ball off his leg on June 3. The club placed him on the 10-day injured list shortly thereafter, listing his injury as a right shin contusion, and it seemed like a short absence was possible. But weeks gradually turned into months without much progress being made towards a return and now Chandler Rome of The Athletic reports that Tucker suffered a fractured shin, even though it was never framed that way to reporters.
As noted by Rome, the club has described the injury using terms such as a “deep bruise of the bone” or a “shin contusion” but never used the word “fracture”. As recently as Saturday, general manager Dana Brown responded in the negative when asked if Tucker had a fracture, though he seemed to cop to it today.
“After several rounds of medical imaging, we suspect there was some type of small fracture,” Brown said this morning. “As with all injuries of this type, once the fracture heals it takes time for the muscles around the leg to regain strength. Tuck has worked extremely hard to get back on the field and thankfully is ready now to help us in September and in the postseason.”
The news at least provides some clarity on why Tucker’s absence has extended for as long as it has, but it does raise other questions. If it took the club three months to find the fracture, what took so long? If they knew all along, why keep it a secret? Members of the media have often expressed frustration about a lack of information coming from the club about its injured players. When Dusty Baker was still the manager, he would often cite HIPAA laws as a reason for not providing health updates (X links from Rome), despite the fact that other clubs regularly provide such information. Rome has also relayed (X link) that the club doesn’t make its trainer available to the media and says it is against the collective bargaining agreement, which is not true. He’s also relayed that the trainer has, in the past, discouraged players from speaking to the media about their injuries (X link). It seems this Tucker incident could perhaps be the latest and most extreme example of a strange organizational pattern.
Regardless, Tucker is now nearing a return. Pet Matt Kawahara of the Houston Chronicle on X, manager Joe Espada said that Tucker is now running the bases at about 85% intensity and could rejoin the club soon.
Tucker was having an incredible season before the injury, hitting .266/.395/.584 for a 175 wRC+ through 60 games, in spite of a subpar .245 batting average on balls in play. Since the landed on the IL, the Astros have given right field playing time to each of Chas McCormick, Ben Gamel, Jason Heyward, Mauricio Dubón, Trey Cabbage, Pedro León and Joey Loperfido before he was traded to the Blue Jays. Gamel is the only one in that group to have produced above-average offense this year and his output is propped up by a .410 BABIP in his 70 plate appearances, so getting Tucker back will obviously be a boost to the Astros.
I’m not a big W.A.R guy, but 3.6 W.A.R in only 214 ABs is rather impressive.
@mlb fan
WAR can be quite profitable. We need more WAR!
WAR. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
It’s a good general way to tell how good a player is above a just-okay enough to be a big-league player.
@letitbelowenstein
It’s been a part of human culture. Humans need WAR.
Say it again!
Oh yeah? What stat paints a better picture?
“What stat paints a better picture:..Quite honestly I’m an eye test guy who uses analytics(and traditional stats too)mainly for quick reference, comparison and simplification purposes. I’ve been watching MLB since the late 60’s and knew who the best players were long before there was “WAR” in the world.
@mlb fan
Generally, the best players are those who aren’t hyped by the media before they’ve even finished playing little league baseball. The media likes to get these hype stories going so they can get more views but not always about good journalism.
“Get these hype stories going”…Without a doubt. My biggest beef with the media is that everything is always exaggerated with plenty of recency bias. Everything is the “greatest” or the “worst” with little in between.
I recently saw some guy on this site call Juan Soto “generational” and “once in a lifetime”. I thought to myself how can he be “generational” and “once in a lifetime” when several players in his own generation and “life” are likely better all around than him(Mookie, Ohtani, Judge , Acuna, Bobby Witt, Gunnar Henderson)just to mention the obvious ones.
Clearly Soto’s an elite hitter, but certainly not “once in a lifetime”. You can make a solid argument that he’s the 2nd best hitter on his own team.
Don’t tell Drascoo that.
Judge is clearly a better hitter than Soto.
Soto is a great hitter. Both are true
MLBf
“knew who the best players were long before there was “WAR” in the world.”
You say that like that’s the purpose of WAR.
It’s not.
MLB fan, the reason people use terms like “generational” and “once in a lifetime” is for two reasons.
Reason number one is people really don’t know the actual definitions of the words they use.
The second reason is people wildly over exaggerate everything. I’m reminded of the Louis CK skit where he talks about ruining the English language but he’s right, we toss around terms like “amazing” “genius” “G.o.a.t”
As for Uncle Mike, you are quickly turning yourself into one of the more pathetic posters posters on this site with your personal vendettas that are not seeded in reality. I’m semi embarrassed for you.
Change hitter to AB and watch the tone change. We’re comparing potential careers or stats so far?
Drascoo- Vendetta? What Vendetta? All I did was repeat what you’ve been saying about Soto every time that somebody passes him around like a rubber at an Incel party. If he’s so good why doesn’t somebody just pay the guy? Because everybody is scared that when he gets the money he’ll mail it in. And they’ll probably be right. Some fool will pay him. I just hope it’s not the Cubs. You want him, I been saying all along he’s not worth what he’ll get paid. If pointing out things you’ve said in the past and then denied then I guess it’s what a Vendetta is in your mind. You just insulted people who take words out of context and then you did the EXACT same thing with the word Vendetta. I don’t have any thoughts about you one way or the other. But you do that all the time. Insult somebody and then turn around and do the same thing. So if there’s a vendetta it’s all in your mind. If everybody who doesn’t agree with you gets attacked. Look in the mirror big guy. I don’t agree with you a lot. Doesn’t make it hate.
I am a big guy!
I don’t want Soto. Show me a single post where I said I wanted Soto. Not when he was available in trade, not when he becomes a free agent. If we were able to deal Suzuki, then maybe I would want Soto.
Why don’t teams just pay Soto? Uh, have your forgotten that the Nationals were going to give him a record (at the time) contract extension? The Padres wanted to keep him, the Yankees want to keep him. I say kudus for both the Padres and Nationals, realizing they had little hope of extending him, to go get huge prospect hauls.
I haven’t heard of a single organization worrying about Soto “mailing it in”. I cannot speak of his make up, no one who doesn’t know him can but from the outside looking in, he’s played for three organization and all three wanted him/wants him as a building block for their organizations.
Saying Soto “is not worth what he will get paid” seems a bit ridiculous. Dudes rocking a 7 and half WAR this year, worth about 60 million bucks at just 25 years old. He’s got 7 years of prime baseball ahead of him at a minimum. And what is “worth what he’s getting paid” anyway? The only thing in this game that matters is trophies. If he helps earn another title he’s worth every penny of his deal.
Lastly, you threw my name out in a thread I wasn’t even involved in. You felt the need to run your mouth about me for absolutely no reason, what do you call that? I call it being a punk bi tch but settled with vendetta for pc sake
Uncle Mike, you know who runs their mouths behind peoples back? Little B itches, so now when I address you in comments, it will be LB and will remain that way until you earn your man card back. Feel free to mute me LB, that typically what mentally weak online tough guys do.
drasco
“mentally weak online tough guys do.”
They also use misogynist terms like “little B—-” to insult others.
A combination of stats vs one that tries to sum it up in one number
This ^
Ma
WAR is a combination of stats.
Those stats measure the number of runs that a player produces on the field.
Stats like batting average, HR, SLG, ERA, saves, etc do not measure the number of runs that a player produces on the field.
The problem is in that it tries to combine stats i to a single number to reflect value, especially stats w higher degrees of subjectivity than others. I think if we accept WAR as flawed and not an absolute truth, that’s a much better option. Unfortunately i see some who arent willing to acknowledge its one of many pieces of data that can be analyzed.
Ma
“The problem is in that it tries to combine stats i to a single number to reflect value,”
Why is that a problem?
“think if we accept WAR as flawed and not an absolute truth, ”
Correct
But, it’s not very flawed.
“team wins and WAR wins are strongly correlated (R-squared value of 0.86). The line of best fit is y = 1.06 x – 4.61. So, if your team is projected to produce 100 “WAR wins” (47.628 + 52.372 WAR), they would be expected to win about 101 games. While the correlation does create some variance, the line of best fit demonstrates that the ratio of WAR to wins is pretty close to one-to-one, on average.”
beyondtheboxscore.com/2018/12/26/18155292/correlat…
You seem levelheaded about it. I’ve interacted with others that act like it’s an exact science and it’s not (and start to blur correlation and causation). And there are other factors that bring in qualitative data that get somewhat ignored. For example, when the Yankees got Soto, someone implied he’d only add 5-6 wins bc of WAR and I said I’m convinced the team will win many more games. And much of this is due to factors that “analytics” may ignore, like lengthening a lineup, creating more stress on a pitcher, impact on a clubhouse culture, etc.
I also feel WAR inflates value of relatively average players because of the emphasis it places on defense when I don’t believe individual defense has that degree of impact (and the defensive metrics like OAA and DRS are so often misaligned). That’s where much of the subjectivity comes in.
I’m not anti-WAR, I just don’t get behind when people use it as THE measuring stick for player value.
Ma
WAR is THE measuring stick for player value.
If there is something better, show me
“factors that “analytics” may ignore, like lengthening a lineup, creating more stress on a pitcher, impact on a clubhouse culture, etc.”
Show it in the data, and I’ll believe it. Otherwise I won’t.
And here’s the thing. Even if I believe that a good clubhouse culture helps a team win, if we can’t quantify it somehow, then how is it useful? And beyond being able to say that so-and-so brings in 2 wins because of their camaraderie, if we can’t measure it, how can we say who brings the camaraderie? We don’t know the players.
Batting average!
Tucker was the front runner for AL MVP when he went on the IL. It was an absolutely massive blow. The fact they’re in first place with him missing literally half the season is stunning.
Focus on W.A.R. so much, you’ll continue to see teams with all batters hitting .250,.220 and below, the line out, ground out, and flyout kings. An average player getting on base which is important, and often gets overshadowed by the fact that there is nobody to bring him in, then the .260, your best being the two occasional.280 hitters. A leadoff hitter with no speed, which is fine when the leadoff is now about getting hits, but if that bat is needed to bring in other guys, it gets wasted when the 8 & 9 hitter don’t get on, and your hitter can bring 2 guys in, but is wasted batting lead off. Also there’s hardly any importance on speed anymore, and most rosters only have the occasional 1 .300 hitter, And your top hitter getting 70 RBI’s. When 100 RBI’s used to be so common….
Team has had its problems with the league. Rightfully so. Can even say they got off easy. However might be the reason for being tight lipped now.
Astros secretive and sneaky? Who would ever think something like that?
#boomboomboom
We all know in Texas that the Astros are always looking for ways to cheat. 2017 is not a world champion team worse than the Dodgers 2020 champion team. Go Rangers!!!!
I could see someone like Jim crane being paranoid about injuries and media
You are correct, mariners fan.
The problem was the Radiologist that reads the x-ray didn’t have someone banging on a garbage can to tell them there was a fracture.
Ha that hysterical – dude it’s been like 7 years – and Tucker was a 19 year old minor leaguer – let’s move on.
No self-respecting fan of another team is ever going to fully let it go. The Astros cheated to win a World Series – if the league won’t punish them appropriately, it’s entirely appropriate for the fans of opposing teams to hold grudges.
They didn’t cheat to win the Series. They cheated to get to the postseason. They spanked the Dodgers fair and square.
Guys, they cheated to get into the playoffs in 2017, and continued cheating at least for the next few years after that, but they didn’t cheat in the playoffs because uhh…they just didn’t, okay!
Rare
“No self-respecting fan of another team is ever going to fully let it go. ”
I’m a self-respecting fan of, ahem, another team and I’ve let it go
It appears that cheating during that time was not only limited to the Astros and they were just the most egregious offenders and were made an example of.
It was a long time ago. Let it go.
7yrs is a long time ago? What, are you 12?
CO Guard
“7yrs is a long time ago? What, are you 12?”
Your immature attempt at an insult is noted. I hope that fulfills whatever need you were expressing
Reverse roast?!?!
@CO: Be careful CO. DodgersBro is an angry child. He’ll mute you if you keep daring to disagree w/him. He thinks the mute button gives him “special power” over mean people like us.
Eh,who cares, he can mute all he wants. Kid is a chucklehead.
And furthermore @Dodgerbrah it wasn’t meant as an insult. Just pointing out how dumb your comment was.
CO
As Einstein said, people’s perception of time is relative
7 years is neither long nor short.
As a fan of an opposing team, I’ve let it go. Hardly any of the same players are on any of the teams. It’s been a long time in baseball terms.
You don’t have any comment for this dumb comment: No self-respecting fan of another team is ever going to fully let it go
Muted. Too many asinine comments. Lol
After he didn’t come back after the 10 day IL and there was no update I suspected it was a break. It makes no sense why the Astros didn’t just admit what the injury was. No one sits around for longer than a month with a shin bruise.
He will be a met next year
He’s just going to get randomly traded years before he’s a free agent, sure bud
@The frogs: He’s not a FA until after the 2025 season.
2026
@Tigers: Like I said—-AFTER the 2025 season. He’s got one more season under Astro’s control.
Okay my bad, you’re right. I read it wrong
How can someone have a higher BA than Babip?
Never mind. I looked up the definition. They subtract HRs from total hits in the numerator. I never knew that.
I believe HRs are excluded from both the numerator and denominator for BABIP.
Apparently inside-the-park HRs are excluded along with all other HRs, even though they’re in play. They’re not tracked separately in the public databases so there’s no easy way to make that refinement.
That’s really weird, since Statcast separates them out automatically. If it’s not just a data error, I’d like to read whatever their explanation is for excluding inside the park HRs. Seems like a huge oversight.
rare,
A “huge oversight” for something that happens about once every couple of weeks? Seems like you’re making the proverbial mountain out of a mole hill.
Home runs are included in BA but they’re excluded from BABIP.
Wasn’t this the exact same situation with Rendon last year? A shin “bruise” that was a fracture?
Ludicrous. Just recently, Brown was emphatic that it was not a fracture.
I have long since chosen to ignore everything that Brown says. This is just one example of how he lies.
Now, let somebody that has experience with a situation like this enter the chat.
There is a difference between a bruise you get on your skin, and a bone bruise. Your bones are not solid pieces of material. They have little pockets of air in them. When you “bruise” a bone, what you have done is compress those pockets. Bone bruises come in grades based on how severely you have injured it. A grade 3 is the most severe bruise, because the next step beyond that is a fracture.
I know this because I was playing baseball, was playing SS, was running after a pop fly that was heading out towards CF, I was in a full out sprint for it. As soon as I made the catch, I saw my CFer go into a slide out of the corner of my eye and he slammed right into my knee and up ended me. Long story short, I wound up with a grade 2 bone bruise and I was told to stay off of it as much as possible for 8 months.
Now, as I wasn’t a professional baseball player, I didn’t have access to the types of medical treatment they can get.
Ok John Dean.
The Shingate plot thickens….
Not sure why you are making that reference to me. I am providing accurate information. Chances are he might have had the worst grade of bone bruise, which is not a fracture, but is nearly there. They take a long time to heal. There is a chance that the scans did not show a fracture at first, but might have at some point. I have no idea, because I wasn’t there.
I do know that scans are not all that accurate. I was suffering from some severe lower right abdominal pain for months. I kept suggesting to my doctor that it was my appendix. I had numerous CT scans and ultrasounds and they kept coming back negative. After the last time I saw my doctor for the same problem, she got upset with me and raised her voice, “You’ve had all the tests, there’s nothing wrong with you!” Two weeks later I was in the hospital having an appendectomy.
I’ve always known appendixes that need to be removed are inflamed and then need immediate removal before they burst and you’re dead. They don’t remain inflamed for weeks at a time. But I’m not an expert at everything (or anything, really.)
I know I was having pain there for about 8 weeks in total. Brady Anderson had appendicitis for quite some time, played baseball through it, and if I recall correctly, he never needed surgery for it.
And yes, I was probably living in a danger zone. The day I went to the hospital I was lying home in bed, woke up with even more severe pain in my lower right side. I then felt pain around my navel. Because I was concerned I had this all along, I looked up the symptoms of a bad appendix. Those were 2 of the 3 signs. The last one was a fever over 100 degrees. I took my temperature and it was 99.1, waited about ten minutes, 99.5. Another ten minutes, 100.1. So I rushed myself to the hospital.
So chances are it was inflamed, but not yet infected until that day I went to the ER.. How the CT scan and ultrasound never picked up on it, I will never know, because like I said, the last one I had was maybe less than two weeks before I went to the ER to have it removed.
When they burst it is bad news, because you’re dealing with sepsis. If you catch that fast enough you can live through that. But in my case, if I didn’t get myself to the ER and just let it go because my primary care told me nothing was wrong with me, I might not be here right now.
When an appendix bursts it causes a condition known as peritonitis (inflammation of the peritoneum) not sepsis.
That is why I am not a doctor.
Thank you AE86 This is a lesson for all of us. Things to watch out for, etc
Bob Ross. May he rest in peace…..
Who knew the Houston Chronicle had a pet human? Sometimes typos are fun.
I hope he wears an enormous shinguard for the rest of the year. Make out the rest of his career. Brutal.