Quick Hits: Verlander, Seager, Soroka
Astros manager Dusty Baker told reporters including the Houston Chronicle’s Chandler Rome that ace Justin Verlander is “not progressing as quickly as he’d like” in his recovery from a forearm strain. Of course, Verlander holds himself to extremely lofty standards, so that could mean any number of things. Verlander went to the injured list on July 27th after just one six-inning start. The Astros are as eager as Verlander to have their ace return – they’re in the middle of the pack, record-wise, and awaiting the return of a number of key players, including Yordan Alvarez and Jose Urquidy. In the meantime, they recently shuffled their rotation in the hopes of providing a spark from a new line of starters.
- Corey Seager had a back scan last night, but the results showed nothing to be concerned about, per MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick. The discomfort Seager has been feeling is not related to the back injury that he suffered during the 2017 playoffs, adds J.P. Hoornstra of the Southern California News Group. That’s very encouraging news for the Dodgers. Seager has started hot this season (.340/.389/.600) after a so-so season in 2019 dimmed his star (to some) just a bit. He’s day-to-day for now, with Chris Taylor captaining the infield in his stead.
- Mike Soroka‘s surgery to repair his right Achilles tendon yesterday was successful, the team announced. The first step in a long recovery process is now in the books for the Braves’ ace. There’s no sugarcoating the severity of Soroka’s injury, though a number of people have made a point to say that Soroka has the temperament and work ethic to weather this storm and return to acedom. With a bevy of young pitching candidates in a much-hyped system, Soroka has stood out among the field, quickly becoming the ace of this Braves contender. In 29 starts last year, he went 13-4 with a 2.68 ERA/3.45 FIP, finishing 2nd in Rookie of the Year voting and 6th for Cy Young.
Astros Place Justin Verlander On Injured List, Select Brandon Bielak
The Astros have placed Justin Verlander on 10-day injured list due to a forearm strain and selected the contract of right-hander Brandon Bielak, MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart tweets. Houston has also optioned infielder Taylor Jones to alternate camp and recalled right-hander Nivaldo Rodriguez.
Verlander yesterday publicly denied a report that he’s expected to miss the rest of the 2020 season with the injury, tweeting that he is hopeful rest will heal the current issue and allow him to return. For now, Verlander won’t throw for at least two weeks and will be re-evaluated after that shutdown. In his absence, a once-formidable rotation now looks vulnerable. Lance McCullers Jr. was sharp in his return effort from Tommy John surgery, and veteran Zack Greinke is remains a high-end option. But the options beyond that pair include Framber Valdez, Josh James and several other largely unproven names (Bielak among them).
Bielak, 24, was the Astros’ 11th-round pick back in 2017 and currently ranks in the top half to top third of the team’s 30 best prospects. He split the 2019 season between Double-A and Triple-A, pitching to a combined 4.22 ERA with 8.8 K/9, 3.7 BB/9, 1.0 HR/9 and a 46 percent ground-ball rate. Both MLB.com and FanGraphs label him as a potential fourth/fifth starter in their reports on him, noting that he lacks a true plus pitch but has average across-the-board offerings, a durable frame and history of throwing strikes.
Rodriguez, 23, might not have gotten the call in a normal season, as he’s never pitched above A-ball. However, the Astros are more limited in their choices, so he’ll jump straight to the big leagues on the heels of last year’s 2.40 ERA, 9.8 K/9 and 3.0 BB/9 in 105 frames between Class-A and Class-A Advanced.
Justin Verlander Shut Down With Forearm Strain
Astros ace and reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander has been diagnosed with a forearm strain and has been shut down, reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today. An MRI yesterday revealed the strain. Manager Dusty Baker told reporters that Verlander will be shut down “for a couple of weeks” before he is re-evaluated.
Verlander started the Astros’ season opener on Friday and notched his first win of 2020, throwing six innings of two-run baseball, allowing just three hits and striking out seven. In that start against the Mariners, Verlander’s fastball averaged 94.9 mph and reached as high as 96.7, according to Statcast. Last year, his average fastball velocity was 94.6 mph. He threw 73 pitches, but there weren’t any outward signs that the 37-year-old suffered an injury. Per Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle, Verlander later told the Astros that his right arm was “tender” during Friday’s game.
He was scheduled to make his next start on Wednesday against the Dodgers. As of now, Baker and the Astros haven’t decided who will replace Verlander on the bump.
Verlander had already encountered his fair share of health troubles during the spring, with a lat strain and right groin surgery forcing him to rehab during the season’s coronavirus-necessitated delay, but he recovered well and was a full go in Spring Training 2.0.
Needless to say, any injury to the staff ace is a crippling blow to one of this year’s World Series favorites. Even with Verlander anchoring the staff, there were doubts about the Astros rotation after the departure of co-ace Gerrit Cole in the winter. With Lance McCullers Jr. coming off Tommy John surgery and Josh James and Jose Urquidy yet to prove themselves capable of shouldering a bigger workload, it was no secret that the Astros rotation would be unable to replicate last year’s historic success.
Of course, Baker’s phrasing means there’s hope that Verlander will be back on the field in a matter of weeks, and if that’s the case, the Astros’ depth would likely allow them to patch together a rotation in the meantime. But if the forearm strain necessitates a long-term IL stint, as we know any arm injury can, the Astros will face much greater problems.
In light of Verlander’s injury, the likes of Zack Greinke, McCullers, James, and Jose Urquidy will step into bigger roles in the Houston pitching staff. That’s not a bad unit, and Greinke has the track record of an ace, but Houston’s depth will undoubtedly be challenged by Verlander’s absence, however long it may be.
An earlier version of this story stated that Verlander would miss the remainder of the season, as per this report. As of now, that is not correct; the only timetable given by the Astros is that Verlander’s forearm strain will be re-evaluated in a couple of weeks.
Astros Expect Justin Verlander To Be Full Participant In Spring Training
The Astros should have their ace, Justin Verlander, at 100 percent when spring training resumes. The club expects Verlander, who underwent groin surgery in March, to be a full participant in camp, Jon Morosi of MLB Network reports.
Along with the groin issue, Verlander also dealt with a lat strain in March. It’s, of course, unusual for physical problems to weigh down the 37-year-old Verlander, a longtime workhorse who turned in a whopping 12th 200-inning season in 2019 en route to his second American League Cy Young Award and eighth All-Star nod. In all, he fired 223 frames of 2.58 ERA ball with 12.11 K/9 and 1.7 BB/9 to help the Astros to another AL West title and league pennant.
Verlander formed a near-untouchable trio with righty Gerrit Cole and trade deadline acquisition Zack Greinke last season, but Cole left to join the rival Yankees in free agency on a record-setting contract worth $324MM over nine seasons. Verlander and Greinke are all the more important to the Astros with Cole out of the picture, and the team’s rotation also lost another veteran in lefty Wade Miley over the winter. But the Astros will at least get Lance McCullers Jr. back from Tommy John surgery this year. He’ll help Verlander and Greinke lead a staff that’s otherwise low on proven major league options.
Justin Verlander Throwing From Mound
Astros ace Justin Verlander appears to have made full use of the coronavirus pause of the season. The veteran hurler is back to throwing off of the mound, per his own Instagram feed.
When last we checked in on JV, he was making progress in healing up from a few recent maladies. As of late April, he felt he had mostly healed from a lat strain and was also moving in a positive direction following groin surgery.
It would seem the upward trajectory has continued since that time. Verlander looks to be throwing comfortably in the video he provides.
What remains unclear at this point is just what timeline remains for Verlander to ramp up to full readiness. It isn’t yet known precisely when the 2020 season will launch, but that date is surely approaching.
It would obviously be a huge boon to the Astros to have Verlander available for all of the truncated campaign. He has been outstanding ever since arriving in Houston, producing excellent results while shouldering a heavy workload even as he moves into his late thirties.
Justin Verlander Provides Rehab Update
Reigning AL Cy Young winner Justin Verlander was hampered by a pair of spring health troubles — a lat strain and a groin injury that required surgery — but the Houston ace told reporters Thursday that he’s progressed to playing long toss (Twitter links via Brian McTaggart of MLB.com). The lat strain, per Verlander, is mostly healed up, and he’s made “a big stride” in his rehab from the groin surgery as well.
Both updates are encouraging for the Astros, although there’s still no formal word from the team on a timetable for the right-hander’s return to the mound. At the time of Verlander’s surgery in mid-March, Astros general manager James Click put a rough six-week timetable on his rehab process. We’re a couple days past that point now, although with the 2020 season in limbo, it’s only sensible to be a bit cautious in the rehab process.
Verlander added that the surgery is “already showing some benefit in my mechanics” as he works to make his delivery as efficient as possible (link via the Houston Chronicle’s Chandler Rome). Notably, Verlander revealed that the surgery stemmed from an MRI that revealed his adductor muscle had nearly torn off the bone completely.
Verlander, 37, is signed through the 2021 season at $33MM per year under the terms of the extension he signed with Houston late in Spring Training last year. He responded to that contract with arguably the best season of his Hall of Fame career. Verlander led the league with 223 innings and pitched to a 2.58 ERA with a masterful 300-to-42 K/BB ratio (12.1 K/9, 1.7 BB/9) and narrowly edged now-former teammate Gerrit Cole for Cy Young honors in the AL. He made at least 30 starts for the 13th time in 14 years, and his 179 ERA+ represented a career best.
Quick Hits: Verlander, Draft Scouting, Moore
Justin Verlander is the latest player to contribute towards the COVID-19 relief effort, as the Astros ace and his wife Kate Upton announced (via Twitter) that Verlander’s weekly paycheck will be donated to a different organization every week. “We’ll also be highlighting the organization that we choose so that that everyone can see the amazing work they’re doing right now,” Upton said. As per the terms of the recent agreement between the MLB Players Association and Major League Baseball, Verlander is part of the group of players (who have reached salary arbitration or are on guaranteed contracts) that will receive roughly $5K per day in both April and May. Now, all of the money Verlander receives from those payments will go to a variety of worthy causes.
Some more from around the baseball world…
- Major League scouts will soon be permitted to contact prospects for the 2020 draft and the 2020-21 international signing period (as well as the prospects’ families and advisers) beginning next week, CBS Sports’ R.J. Anderson writes. MLB halted all scouting activities as part of the league-wide shutdown in March, and any sort of in-person workouts or meetings are still banned. ESPN.com’s Kiley McDaniel reports that teams are also not permitted to view any video footage of such workout sessions that took place after March 27. That said, teams can gather data and video on players (from third parties or from the prospects’ representatives) prior to that date, and also contact the prospects’ teams by phone, e-mail, or any other type of indirect method. With some rough plans now in place for a shortened 2020 draft, teams will now have some avenues to gain fresher information on players they might wish to select. The amateur draft will now take place in July, while the next international signing period (originally scheduled to open on July 2) could be pushed back as far as January.
- The 2020 season was already going to be a new experience for Matt Moore after the left-hander signed with Nippon Professional Baseball’s SoftBank Hawks, though the coronavirus pandemic has created an extra layer of unexpected adversity. Moore talks to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal about the differences and similarities between playing and living in Japan as opposed to the majors, his offseason courtship from SoftBank that included a private workout for the team, and how playing for the Hawks marks something of a return. Moore spent four years living in Japan as a child when his father was transferred to a U.S. Air Force base in Okinawa.
Quick Hits: TJ Surgery, Thor, Verlander, Torres
Even with medical facilities reeling from the coronavirus, there are still Tommy John surgeries taking place. Red Sox left-hander Chris Sale and Mets righty Noah Syndergaard have undergone the procedure in the past few days. However, famed orthopedist Dr. James Andrews, who’s known for performing the operation, has put a stop to it for the time being, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe relays. The Andrews Institute for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine is located in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis – as Speier writes – issued an executive order prohibiting “any medically unnecessary, non-urgent or non-emergency procedure or surgery which, if delayed, does not place a patient’s immediate health, safety or wellbeing at risk, or will, if delayed, not contribute to the worsening of a serious or life-threatening medical condition.” Syndergaard underwent TJS in the state last week, though he was not an Andrews patient.
- It’s hard to believe, but Syndergaard could end up as a non-tender candidate next winter, as Buster Olney of ESPN observes. Syndergaard should be in line to make around $9.7MM next season (the same salary he’s slated for in 2020), but he’s going to miss a large portion of 2021 and, as Olney explains, teams may be in cost-cutting mode with revenues sure to decline because of the coronavirus. Those realities could lead to a non-tender or a trade for Syndergaard, so it’s possible he has already thrown his last pitch as a Met. Whether or not Syndergaard becomes a non-tender victim, one executive told Olney that there will likely be an increase in such cases next offseason. “I think you’ll see more non-tenders,” the exec said. “The guys with four-plus or five-plus [years of] service time.”
- Astros ace and reigning AL Cy Young winner Justin Verlander seems to be making progress in his recovery from the right groin surgery he underwent on March 17. General manager James Click told Brian McTaggart of MLB.com: “The last I heard, everything’s going great and he’s ready to get back out there as soon as he possibly can. I haven’t heard anything bad. As far as I know, he’s right on schedule and he’s recovering very well.” That’s reassuring for the Astros, who – if there is a season – will count on Verlander and Zack Greinke to carry a rotation that lost Gerrit Cole and Wade Miley in free agency.
- The Yankees aren’t known for doling out contract extensions, but if they’re going to lock up one of their own for the long haul, shortstop Gleyber Torres is a logical candidate. The 23-year-old enjoyed an especially impressive campaign in 2019, and he’s now entering his final season of pre-arbitration. That said, the Yankees are unlikely to try to extend Torres until they see how he fares as a full-time shortstop, George A. King III of the New York Post writes. While Torres has mostly played second base since his career began in 2018, he spent the majority of last season at short because now-Phillie Didi Gregorius sat out for a couple months while recovering from Tommy John surgery. Torres didn’t garner awful grades there, for what it’s worth, finishing with minus-1 Defensive Runs Saved, a minus-2.1 Ultimate Zone Rating and minus-3 Outs Above Average. Regardless of how adept Torres is in the field, it seems he’s someone the Yankees should want around at set prices for the foreseeable future. Even if that’s the case, though, there’s a leaguewide freeze on extension talks at the moment.
Justin Verlander Undergoes Surgery To Repair Groin Injury
The Astros announced Tuesday that right-hander Justin Verlander underwent a surgical procedure on his right groin. He’d been slowed by a lat strain earlier this month, but Verlander was also scratched from an earlier spring start due to tightness in his groin. That was deemed a precautionary measure at the time, but general manager James Click revealed today that the right-hander had a setback in rehabbing the issue.
“The hope was that physical therapy would be the proper course of action,” Click told reporters (Twitter link via Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle). “However, after a recent setback in his rehab, the medical staff recommended that a surgical procedure was necessary. The early prognosis is that Justin will be out for about six weeks.”
With the season pushed back at least eight weeks — quite likely longer than that — Verlander should have ample time to get back up to speed once players are cleared to resume training and once a firm target date for Opening Day is established.
Verlander’s health is paramount for the Astros more than ever, now that Gerrit Cole and (to a lesser extent) Wade Miley have departed via free agency. Houston’s 2020 roster is pricey enough that they’ll face luxury-tax penalties for the first time, and the front office opted to spend the limited resources afforded by owner Jim Crane to bring back catcher Martin Maldonado and reliever Joe Smith.
The hope is certainly that a returning Lance McCullers Jr. and young righty Jose Urquidy, whose stock soared in 2019, can join Verlander and Greinke in comprising a formidable top four. Offseason acquisition Austin Pruitt and holdovers like Brad Peacock, Josh James and Framber Valdez could all be in the mix for starts in the final rotation slot. Right-hander Rogelio Armenteros could eventually be in the mix, although he recently underwent surgery to have a bone spur removed from his elbow. Unlike Verlander, he’ll be sidelined for around four months, so he wouldn’t be an option to pitch until July at the earliest. Given the uncertainty regarding Opening Day, it’s anyone’s guess as to what point in the season that’ll be — or if the season will have even started.
Quick Hits: Bauer’s Sandlot Game, Yankees, German, Astros, Verlander
The enigmatic Trevor Bauer isn’t letting a state of emergency stop him from playing baseball, per his Twitter account. Bauer is organizing a “sandlot” game for any interested MLB or MiLB players still in Arizona, complete with mandatory mics for all players involved for streaming across his social channels. While the wisdom of such a gathering may be at odds with directives of social distancing, there will no doubt be plenty of interest in watching Bauer spearhead, well, anything, really, but especially a sandlot-style ballgame as the rest of the sporting world is in shut down. More than half of his Reds’ teammates have left camp, per The Athletic’s C. Trent Rosecrans, but many players from the Reds and other organizations remain in Arizona. Let’s check in on how else the virus might be affecting the ramp-up to the 2020 season…
- Yankees’ right-hander Domingo German, currently suspended for violating MLB’s domestic violence policy, will have his own return delayed in step with the MLB season, per Ken Davidoff of the New York Post. Davidoff offers clarification on the terms of German’s suspension, which will keep him on the shelf for the first 81 games of the 2020 season, whenever the season begins. Because the terms of the suspension are classified in games, there’s little wiggle room for German even if the season should be further delayed or truncated due to the spread of COVID-19. German had his best season to date in 2019, going 18-4 with a 4.03 ERA/4.72 FIP across 143 innings of work, striking out 9.6 K/9 versus 2.5 BB/9.
- The Astros might be see the biggest benefit of a delayed season as it gives their ace Justin Verlander time to heal, writes MLB.com’s Ricard Justice. The Astros have a difficult season ahead, and Verlander is arguably the most important player for the defending American League champs. Verlander’s lat strain had put his opening day start in question, but with an extra month (and perhaps more) to heal, the Astros’ will certainly benefit in getting Verlander back earlier, even if he’s not ready whenever the season does actually kick off.