Southpaw Jacob Lindgren will miss the 2018 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, as David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. He had previously had the same procedure in August of 2016.
Lindgren, who recently turned 25, has opened plenty of eyes since he was taken in the second round of the 2014 draft. In 54 minor-league innings, he has racked up 85 strikeouts and allowed just 11 earned runs on 28 hits.
Though he cracked the majors in his second season as a professional, Lindgren’s career has hit the skids with elbow problems since. The Braves signed him to a major-league deal after the Yankees cut him loose, but Lindgren has yet to pitch competitively with his new organization.
Typically a second TJ surgery in close proximity requires a lengthier rehab process. In this case, then, it’s hard to know when the Braves might expect Lindgren to return. He can certainly be shifted onto the 60-day DL, though managing him on the 40-man roster through the 2018-19 offseason could prove difficult.
All these injuries really suck ! Sorry Braves fans! But good luck to you guys
and all other MLB teams this season. Go Cards !
Cards are trash and will be trash again this year. Nothing will change.
Fat MO and MM believe believe Card fans. Pathetic.
So much for the olive branch. Glad baseball is back
You’re quite the heap yourself Ricky…
I know everyone thinks they have they answer in preventing tommy John, but you would think with the billions the baseball industry has invested at all lvls, you would think there would be an exact measurement of workload to age to mechanics that would minimize this risk of tommy John down too a very low %. It’s crazy, across all lvls to many arm injuries
Nah; as Jeff Passan points out in his excellent book “The Arm,” throwing a baseball is an unnatural act. The inceased velocity makes it even harder. The Dodgers are out in front on this; allowing their starters to max out at around 175 innings, but a lot of teams still think the 33 starts/200 innings is a reasonable workload. It just isn’t like that anymore.
That’s garbage. Players threw max velo 50 years ago. Perhaps it wasn’t 104, but players were in the 90’s in the 1960’s and 1970’s regularly. Nolan Ryan and Steve Carlton weren’t the only dudes doing it. “It just isn’t like that anymore” means something changed. The answer is to find the problem and fix it, not throw a bandaid on it.
When Keyshawn decides to take 20% less to be in a 6 man rotation and to throw 160-175 innings a year, we’ll be there together. But the costs of acquiring and owning pitching keep elevating, and reliability and expectations decline. Something has to pretend to reflect a free market and give a little.
Nolan Ryan and Carlton were outliers; they lasted forever and are both in the Hall of Fame. Most pitchers are not. We can’t compare a fringy reliever to Nolan Ryan or Steve Carlton.
The problem is that now they’re throwing max speed and curve balls, sliders since little league. By the time they reach the majors their arms are used up.
The problem is steroids and other enhancers. Way too many guys are throwing 95+ with assistance. All the juice in the world isn’t going to make your elbow ligaments stronger. This is not to say all of these guys are on some kind of enhancer, just most.
Tough break for “the strikeout factory” don’t think that nickname is going to do much good unless he joins a unlimited arc softball team when he retires in a year or two.
My theory is that our mechanics have changed since back in the “good ole days.” We have taught ourselves how to be elite pitchers by using mechanics versus pitching the way our body feels naturally. Basically we’re teaching our bodys to do what it isn’t naturally telling us to throw a ball.
Chris O’Leary has a handful of wonderfully intriguing concepts about the connection between mechanics and arm injury. Some of it is controversial, but he has a sparkling track record of predicting injuries over the last 10 years or so. Worth a look. It’s changed my mind about what to pay attention to when predicting pitcher health.
Stupid draft pick by NY then, even stupider pick now.
You don’t select a 5’11 relief pitcher 55th overall. Pick was doomed from the start, but wish the kid well and hope he rejuvenates his career. It’s just unfortunate it couldn’t be with NYY.
He was considered major league ready at the time of the draft. It was a gamble, but it was an intruiguing pick at the time. Can’t win em all.
That’s the thing though. I’m probably splitting hairs here, but he was expected to be a high riser, and fast mover through the system. This is different from “major league ready”
He started his career with the GCL Yankees, then in five games was promoted to Single A.. and etc.
Nobody, don’t care how short, is considered “Major League Ready” if he starts his career playing for the GCL Yankees. This is the lowest level of the minor league system. I guess credit to him, He managed to go from GCL to AAA in 2 years, before getting promoted.
Starting off in GCL isn’t MLB ready. But Lindgren deserves credit for excelling at all levels of the minors, before earning his promotion to MLB.
Look, he was reported to have “two major league ready pitches” and considered to be “on the fast track” to the majors at the time of his being drafted. That’s all I meant. I do appreciate the refutation though. I’ll leave the link here for ya mlb.com/news/pipeline-perspectives-jacob-lindgren-…
I’d like to comment that the headline to that article is “Jacob Lindgren has fast track to bigs.” Thank ya kindly.
the only reason he was assigned to the GCL team was because he needed tune-up appearances. College season was over for a while and he hadn’t pitched in a competitive game for some weeks. This is a very common procedure too, at least in the Yankees system. Nobody ever doubted that he could pitch in AA right away and even reach MLB in the same year he was drafted.
The rubber arms are gone for good. These days a starter goes 6-7 innings tops. What has. Happened to the game of baseball.
Greg Maddox ruined me I guess
Complete game leaders 1967 – 20…. 1972 – 30…. 1977 – 22…. 1982 – 19…. 1987 – 18…. 1992 – 13…. 1997 – 13…. 2002 – 8…. 2007 – 7…. 2012 – 6…. 2017 – 5
Yep, times have changed
The principles of Kinesiology ought to provide pretty good clues about pitching arms.
Tough break for Lindgren..He’s shown he can be successful when healthy, it’s just unfortunate he can’t get back on track.
He’s only 5’11”, and doesn’t exactly have the most ideal build, so it’ll certainly be an uphill battle for him to ever pitch again effectively for any lengthy period of time…
Shea Simmons has had the same troubles, and another former Braves prospect, that got picked up by the Twins a couple years ago in the Rule V Draft…Can’t remember his name, off the top of my head…But a shorter stature, smaller frame, and throwing 96-99 apparently doesn’t bode well for quite a few pitchers…
It’ll be interesting to see if guys like these continue to be picked around the 3rd rounds…Smaller framed, fire-balling relievers that are supposedly close to being ML ready..
Sean Gilmartin?
I think ur talking about graham
JR Graham. Hadn’t thought about that guy in a couple of years. It’s a fair comparison but you gotta remember, the rules are different for lefties. If you can throw strikes with your left hand, you can be Peter Dinklage size and teams will still give you a look.