Brett Cecil

Cardinals lefty Brett Cecil suffered a “fairly significant” strain of his right hamstring while covering first base in the Cardinals’ final game before the spring shutdown, manager Mike Shildt told reporters over the weekend (link via Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch). There’s no concrete timeline on his rehab — as is the case with baseball in general — but he’ll require “multiple weeks of treatment to get him back to close to being into baseball activities,” per Shildt.

Shildt did note that Cecil avoided a full tear of the hamstring, although any strain, by definition, involves some partial tearing. He was able to walk off the field under his own power at the time of the injury (video link), although the 33-year-old was in obvious pain and walking with a limp.

Cecil didn’t pitch at all in 2019 after undergoing surgery to alleviate carpal tunnel syndrome in his pitching hand. A year prior, shoulder troubles wiped out roughly six weeks of his season. The lefty actually pitched well upon returning from the injured list in mid-May but tanked in the second half of that season. Cecil pitched 9 2/3 innings after the 2018 All-Star break and surrendered a staggering 16 runs on 17 hits and 10 walks with just seven strikeouts.

Cecil is now 75 percent of the way through a four-year, $30.5MM contract he signed with St. Louis prior to the 2017 campaign, and to date, he’s managed only 100 innings of 4.86 ERA ball with just 7.7 K/9 against 3.7 BB/9. Cecil struck out 31.6 percent of the hitters he faced over his final three seasons with the Blue Jays but has seen that number plummet to 19.6 percent. His fastball, which averaged 92.2 mph in 2016, averaged just 89.8 mph during the aforementioned 2018 season.

Suffice it to say, that’s not really what the Cards hoped when issuing the largest contract to which they’ve ever signed a reliever. Depending on the length of the shutdown with which the league is faced, it’s possible that Cecil could be healthy by the time a “second Spring Training” rolls around. Shildt’s rather vague wording and the broader uncertainty surrounding the timeline to Opening Day make that impossible to ascertain, however.

Cardinals reliever Brett Cecil left Wednesday’s spring training game after injuring his hamstring while covering first base, Anne Rogers of MLB reported on Twitter.

Cecil will go for tests tomorrow to see what caused the “pop” he felt in his leg. The lefty said he was feeling good about how his spring was going before the incident. “That was the best I’ve felt in a long time,” he told Rogers. “Cutter was cutting, sinker was sinking, ball was good. See how it looks tomorrow and go from there.”

Another injury would further dent what has been a disappointing tenure in St. Louis for Cecil. Before the 2017 season, the Cardinals signed the southpaw to a four-year deal that guaranteed him $30.5MM. At the time, Cecil was coming off a four-year run of quality out of the Blue Jays bullpen, with a 2.90 ERA and 11.5 K/9 over that stretch.

However, since swapping one ornithological jersey for another, the results have not been nearly as positive. In 2017, the first season of his deal, Cecil’s stats regressed somewhat, as he mustered a palatable 3.88 ERA but with a paltry 8.8 K/9, by far his lowest since becoming a full-time reliever. 2018 came with shoulder issues and saw Cecil’s effectiveness dip even lower, to an ERA of 6.89 and a 5.2 K/9. And he couldn’t even make it onto a major league mound in 2019, going on the IL on March 28th. Cecil had carpal tunnel surgery in April and never made it back onto the roster. The Cardinals will pay him $7.25MM in 2020, the final year of the deal.

Though St. Louis surely would have welcomed Cecil returning to form, they would not have been relying on him to make significant contributions based on his recent track record. Although with fellow lefty Andrew Miller also currently on the shelf, that leaves the Cardinals with only inexperienced southpaws for their bullpen, such as Tyler Webb and Genesis Cabrera.

Cardinals reliever Brett Cecil says he’s pleased thus far with the results of his carpal tunnel surgery, as Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes. The southpaw is preparing to throw from a mound for the first time since his procedure in early April.

Cecil ended up going under the knife when he experienced a loss of sensation in his fingers this spring. That was only the latest in a line of woes for the veteran hurler, whose tenure in St. Louis has not gone as hoped when the team gave him a rare four-year deal in advance of the 2017 campaign. He’s earning $7.5MM this year and $7MM next, with full no-trade rights.

Last season, Cecil experienced shoulder and foot problems — along with notable declines in velocity, swinging-strike rate, and chase rate (among other things). Simply put, he wasn’t fooling opposing hitters. Cecil walked more of them than he struck out en route to 32 2/3 innings of 6.89 ERA pitching.

It’s anyone’s guess whether Cecil will ever be anything close to the stud setup man the Cards thought they were getting. But they’ll soon get a sense of his post-surgical form. If all goes well, Cecil could launch a rehab assignment not long after his 33rd birthday in early July and perhaps even make it back to the MLB mound by the end of the month.

Cardinals left-hander Brett Cecil underwent surgery this week to alleviate carpal tunnel syndrome in his left wrist and through his forearm, per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Twitter link).

Cecil, 32, wasn’t expected back until at least the end of May after being placed on the 60-day injured list when the club claimed right-hander Merandy Gonzalez off waivers on Opening Day. Whether this injury substantially pushes back his timeline isn’t yet clear. Because the surgery isn’t common among big league pitchers, there’s little in terms of historical precedent to use as a barometer. David Price’s carpal tunnel issues were a storyline last season, but the Red Sox lefty didn’t undergo surgery.

Signed to a four-year contract in the 2016-17 offseason, Cecil logged a respectable 3.88 ERA in 67 1/3 innings in his first season with St. Louis but posted a 6.89 mark over 32 2/3 innings during an injury-shortened 2018 campaign. He began the season on the shelf due to a shoulder sprain and would later miss time due to a foot injury as well.

The Cardinals still owe Cecil the remainder of this year’s $7.5MM salary as well as a $7MM salary for the 2020 season. Cecil’s injury currently leaves Andrew Miller as the only left-hander in manager Mike Shildt’s bullpen, though the Cards also have lefty Tyler Webb in Triple-A and on the 40-man roster should the need for a second southpaw become more pronounced.