The Twins are sending starter Pablo López for an MRI after he experienced elbow soreness during a live batting practice session this morning (links via Dan Hayes of The Athletic and Matthew Leach of MLB.com). The righty had thrown two innings in a workout before experiencing the discomfort in what would have been his third frame.
To this point, the Twins are framing the situation as precautionary. There’s certainly no reason for López to pitch through any kind of discomfort in the middle of February. It nevertheless comes as a concern any time a pitcher experiences elbow discomfort. That’s particularly true in López’s case, as he’s coming off a season that was cut short by a pair of arm injuries.
López suffered a Grade 2 teres major strain in his shoulder last June. He missed three months. The veteran was able to get back on the mound in early September, hoping to build positive momentum going into the offseason. That was not to be, as he experienced forearm soreness that shut him down for the year after three September starts. His velocity in those appearances was back to where it had been before the shoulder injury. The forearm soreness could have been a residual effect of the layoff. The Twins didn’t seem especially concerned, announcing in early November that he would not have any restrictions over the offseason.
Minnesota also took López (and essentially all their other veteran players) off the trade market. They’d been very aggressive deadline sellers but are going into the season with expectations to compete for a playoff spot. It remains to be seen if that’s wishful thinking, but new ownership control person Tom Pohlad has said repeatedly over the past few weeks that he believes this roster capable of contending. Any optimism is built largely around the rotation, which could have an excellent one-two punch with López and Joe Ryan. If the former misses any time, an already uphill path to a playoff spot becomes more difficult.
The Twins have a decent amount of upside in the starting staff. Simeon Woods Richardson, Bailey Ober, Taj Bradley, Mick Abel, Zebby Matthews and David Festa are all in the mix for rotation spots. Prospects Kendry Rojas, Connor Prielipp and Andrew Morris probably need more time at Triple-A but are on the 40-man roster. Any of them could factor in at some point this year. There’s reason for optimism with everyone in that group, but all of those pitchers who have logged MLB time have had their share of ups and downs. They’ll also probably need some of these pitchers to factor into a patchwork bullpen if they’re to put together a contending pitching staff.
López has a Tommy John surgery in his history, undergoing the procedure when he was an 18-year-old prospect back in 2014. He’d been very durable for most of his MLB career. A rotator cuff injury cost him a couple months in 2021, but he didn’t miss a start in any of the next three seasons. He was limited to 14 outings last year but was as effective as ever on a rate basis. López turned in a 2.74 ERA with a 23.4% strikeout rate over 75 2/3 innings.
Weeeeeeeeee
Please NOO!
He should be back by June 2027.
If there’s baseball at that time.
Pablo please come to Florida
Honey
not a creep
Is that where Dr. Meister operates out of?
For some reason I keep wanting to call him Pedro.
This seems to happen every year. A guy gets injured in the second half or has a lingering injury. You would think after the season they would medically monitor him. A week before spring training and they have a serious injury. It is amazing how much time is lost.
Safe to assume that they rest the elbow in the offseason…whether his elbow is sore in September or February it doesn’t really make much difference in timing if he ends up needing surgery
Rutt Ro
Oh boy. Hope he’s alright. Happy Mets didn’t swing a trade for him.
RIP
Came here for the “Should have traded him while they could” hate but am quite happy it has yet to show.
Should’ve traded him to the mets
Braves might still trade for him. They like to collect these guys
The dreaded elbow soreness. Good luck Pablo!
I wonder if they still plan on contending this year?
Absolutely. If no Lopez their odds get even better.
As long as we are all on the same page that the only plan moving forward should be total domination.
Why they hired Shelton to manage!
Can the Twins trade their entire farm for an aging star? I think that has to be the next play. Go big or go home.
Trade for Corerra back!
Correa and Altuve! Give up the farm and take on their entire salaries. Heck throw in Walker too.
Flags fly forever boys.
12yrs since first tjs-not a shock. Toronto should watch out for that with Mr. Durable Cease who got his out of HS before drafted. Gallen never had it period and slumping after years of lot of IP (by modern standards).
Sweet spot if there is one might be acquiring a SP 2-2.5yrs removed from first tjs as far as performance on a l-t deal and crossing fingers before a 2nd required.
Or get someone with the right genetics who won’t need one or will be in their 30s when they are no longer on your team.
Glad you figured out how to avoid TJS, Dr. House!
Except didn’t say anything about “avoiding” TJS. Baseball is incentivizing max effort velo and spin rate down to the HS/travel league level where even delusional parents think their kid will be a star pro pitcher or D1 recruit.
It’s in context of imperfectly mapping out who to roll dice on for pricey l-t starter contracts….esp’ly mid to small market clubs who can’t outspend 2 seasons worth of rehab absence/cautious load management after (eg. AZ w/Burnes….unlike your NYY w/Cole who can).
I’m convinced he uses alt accounts to upvote himself, lol. Every post of his instantly has a few thumbs up. Very funny.
I dunno, there are also some people around that may upvote posts like that.
Should have off-loaded him in the off season when they had the chance so they could clear payroll and complete the tear down. Same goes for: Ryan, Jeffers, Larnach, even Buxton. Flavey must have wanted that but got overruled by the new Pohlad in town who in his scant days at the helm along with his wealth of baseball knowledge, concluded that the TWINKIES are contenders just as they are.
To be fair, it doesn’t take much to win the AL Central any given year. If you’re built to play .500 ball, you have a shot in that division.
Redsox are waiting for a call
This is purely speculative by me, but I wonder if players have the contractual rights to time off from the team in the offseason, meaning that if they don’t want to follow offseason programs, they don’t have to. If I were managing the Twins, I would want someone monitoring Lopez all offseason, checking on his arm issue and making sure he is properly resting and then rehabilitating his shoulder on a daily basis. While I know that teams do stay in touch with all of their players in the offseason and offer them options to improve like playing in the AFL, Winter Ball, access to off season training facilities, etc. I do wonder if teams can legally “prescribe’ offseason monitoring (PT) and tailored training to all of their players or if the players have the right to decline it. The Twins should have known about potential shoulder issues long before this if they had someone monitoring Lopez’s offseason PT and throwing programs.
The CBA technically limits how much teams can *force* players what to do. However, most teams have a “exit interview” at the end of the regular season or playoffs season with each one of their players. It’s all hand on deck with organizational personnel during the interview. To oversimplify, they identify common performance drop-offs anecdotallly and with data and will prioritize rehab training for injuries which are prevalent at the season’s end. Player’s offseason assignments are a designed tiered program and collaborative. There’s a lot more to this stuff.
Players also need to do a full physical when they report to camp. It’s amusing to read from some wanting to assign blame to someone for Lopez’ boo-boo. Crap can happens at any time in a high-stakes game.
Twins want to compete. Good luck. I would count the White Sox ahead of ya’ll.
@Astros71,
I believe you’ve misspelled the word ‘yous’.
yous?
🎯
Oh no!
This will mean the difference between 76 and 73 Twins victories.
Makes you realize just how hard it is to get the modern pitcher from draft to FA. The Orioles gave up on their ace of the future for 1 year of a very good outfielder.
Already?
Should’ve embraced the tank when you had the chance
They traded like 48 guys at the deadline, and kept their 2 most valuable chips. They stuck all the dynamite in the garage, and forgot to blow up the house. Then Falvey leaves/was told to leave. They are for sale, they aren’t for sale. No direction of any kind. They seemed like a solid team a few years back. I swear, the whole state of Minnesota is a complete trainwreck.
There’s nothing wrong with the state of Minnesota.
Turns out Lopez has a torn elbow ligament, and the Twins are considering surgery. Eh, wrap his forearm really tight with duct tape, and see how much mileage we can get out of him before complete breakdown.
Ban radar gun readings from the stadium.
See you in 2028. God speed Pablo.
Please say that again this time using Janice’s voice.
You schedule your surgeries when work ramps back up. You don’t schedule that stuff in the offseason which is for beachtime with the kiddos, a few rounds of golf.
Did you not see the part where he noticed it in the 3rd inning? He wouldn’t have been pitching if it was already sore!