APRIL 8: Rosenthal underwent thoracic outlet surgery Thursday, Martin Gallegos of MLB.com tweets. He’ll be re-evaluated in eight weeks.
APRIL 7: After opening the season on the injured list due to a shoulder problem, Athletics closer Trevor Rosenthal could now require thoracic outlet surgery to address the injury, manager Bob Melvin announced to reporters Wednesday (Twitter link via Shayna Rubin of the San Jose Mercury News). It’s a sudden and troubling development for a struggling A’s club. The procedure would come with “at least” a 12-week recovery time, Matt Kawahara of the San Francisco Chronicle tweets. The right-hander is weighing his options and is expected to make a decision in the near future.
Rosenthal, 30, spent much of the offseason seeking a lucrative multi-year deal after turning in an absolutely dominant performance between the Royals and the Padres last season. However, when he wasn’t able to find a long-term deal to his liking, the hard-throwing righty opted for a one-year deal at a strong $11MM rate to serve as the closer at the pitcher-friendly O.Co Coliseum.
It was a surprise investment for an A’s club that spent most of the winter idling on the sidelines as teams throughout the league sifted through the free-agent market. Only after the A’s were able to shed a notable portion of Khris Davis’ contract did they enter the free-agent waters, and even then, their initial expenditures were modest, one-year commitments to Yusmeiro Petit, Sergio Romo and Mitch Moreland. Rosenthal was an entirely different type of spend, and it’s now an open question whether they’ll get any real return on what was a major splash by their standards.
Thoracic outlet syndrome is the latest in a series of setbacks for Rosenthal, who broke into the league as one of the game’s most dominant young relievers with the Cardinals but has since struggled to stay healthy. Tommy John surgery wiped out Rosenthal’s entire 2018 season, and when he returned with the Nationals in 2019, he developed a sudden case of the yips. Rosenthal walked 26 of the 85 batters he faced between Washington and Detroit that season. He also hit another four batters and snapped off nine wild pitches in just 15 1/3 innings. He tried to find himself with the Yankees’ Triple-A club but faced just five hitters with Scranton, issuing three walks, hitting a fourth batter and throwing another wild pitch.
Those immense struggles made Rosenthal’s comeback in 2020 all the more remarkable. Not only did he rediscover some big league success, he emerged as one of the most dominant relievers in all of baseball. Through 23 2/3 innings between Kansas City and San Diego, Rosenthal notched a 1.90 ERA with an overpowering 41.8 percent strikeout rate, a strong 8.8 percent walk rate and a fastball that averaged 98.1 mph. It was vintage Rosenthal.
From here, the future is sadly muddied once again. The track record for pitchers coming back from thoracic outlet surgery is generally poor, and few pitchers have undergone both Tommy John surgery and a TOS procedure in such close proximity. Matt Harvey is the most prominent example of a pitcher to undergo both operations in a short time, missing the 2014 season due to Tommy John and then undergoing TOS midway through the 2016 campaign. Obviously, he’s been unable to rediscover the dominant form he displayed early in his career.
There are certainly success stories among pitchers who’ve had surgery to correct thoracic outlet syndrome. Recently retired righty and current Rangers general manager Chris Young credited the procedure with saving his career, and Rosenthal’s former Cardinals teammate, Jaime Garcia, enjoyed a productive three-year stretch upon returning from his own TOS operation.
For the Athletics, the new development on Rosenthal means they’ll be extra reliant on veterans like Romo, Petit and Jake Diekman in the late innings. Right-handers Lou Trivino and J.B. Wendelken have had their share of success in the big leagues as well; Wendelken in particular has been quietly dominant dating back to 2018. The A’s also have a former top 10 overall pick, left-hander A.J. Puk, as an intriguing option in the ’pen this year as he looks to put his own injury woes in the rearview mirror.
1yr deal spread out over 3yrs and gonna get 2 months of pitching maybe ..
Did anyone really expect more? Remember last year was a little more than a third of a season. Never anticipated this but “knew” some type of injury was just one nap away.
Good news is insurance gives about 50% back to team of his contract… bad news is insurance only gives about 50% of his contract back to the team.
Is it a certainty they got insurance on Rosenthal?
insurance is expensive and not something most small market teams do.
If you have a certain budget to keep does it make sense for a small market team to have a million or two tied up in insurance? does it make more sense for small markets to avoid veteran injury prone players in favour of young players make the league minimum? All the Ivy League gms have figured out what’s better.
Has Billy Beane though?
No matter what, this always seemed like a huge gamble for a team that obviously can’t afford to waste 11 million dollars
AFLAC
Years ago, @jgreen2487 I was in a bar in Chicago. I was wearing a Yankees cap. A fella (Cubs hat) casually mentioned that he hated the Yanks.
As I’ve heard this a time or two, I started lightly accusing him of the standard reasons. Wasn’t anything like that.
Turned out, his family business was a company that insured baseball contracts. As this was during the King George era he hated the Yanks because they had all these high salaried, injury prone, veteran players & they could afford the premiums to insure them all.
Meaning: his company paid a *lot* of money to the Yanks. They were literally costing them millions of bucks! Best reason I’ve ever heard for hating us.
Of course I had lots of questions & he was happy to talk about his job. Score. & I work with insurance companies all the time – as a contractor – so I have a fairly decent understanding of insurance policies in general.
Here’s where I’m going.
These policies are far from boiler plate. They are all way more unique than any type of insurance policy we’re likely to have any experience with. What I’m ultimately getting at is “gives about 50% back” is probably wrong. My understanding of it is they cover a very wide range of compensation outcomes.
That all makes sense too.
Right?
These aren’t coverage for Bubba Jones’ 2016 F-250, man. Rather, they deal with really large amounts of money & highly idiosyncratic situations. Perhaps the A’s’ll indeed recoup 50%. They also could be getting back 10% or 75% or basically any other amount.
FYI.
Good thing the A’s haven’t needed a closer.
Nice. Haha
Ouch
A team who never plays well in April getting a full strength, and foaming at the mouth-ready Astros-Dodgers-Astros teams is just a recipe for disaster. It doesn’t matter if its the Mariners or the Dodgers, a lot of teams will beat them badly in the start of the season, its feels like clockwork at this point.
Luckily the A’s always tear through the league in the second half. If they start 0-12, they will also probably go 40-20 at some point in the second half like they seemingly always do.
I agree, I’ve been watching the A’s a lllloooonnnnnggg time. It’s such a long season and it doesn’t help that they are banged up. Some positives in each game..
Billy Bean clubs historically have amongst the best second half seasons. This will be another.
Except for October. Billy Beane clubs historically do not perform in the playoffs because they are not a team built to win games against good teams with their methodology.
That is also true. They are built to win 90+ and nothing else. They can get there by targeting weaker teams in the schedule and also get a lopsided amount of games vs bad teams in their division late in the season. Also September games have a lot of teams tanking and playing prospects. Bob Melvin also has a terrible postseason record of 7-13 with Oakland. He’s overrated and better managers like Maddon will always beat him.
As an A’s fan, it’s been tragic watching Beane get handcuffed by the ownership who refuse to spend money, though. They sure could use Trevor Story at SS this season….
They can’t afford to pay Trevor Story’s meal allowance, let alone the 300MM+ contract someone will give him this off season. Yes, it’s sad.
Its sad to see this kind of set back for a player who was managing a nice comeback after TJS. Sad to see this all around for the A’s and Trevor Rosenthal who looked really good last year. I’m disappointed with the baseball gods about this.
this guy has no luck
Isn’t that $11M guaranteed?
yep. spread out over three years though.
Unlucky ba$tert
100% guaranteed 11mil for a one (1) year contract to be paid in installments LOL: 3mill in 2021, 4mill in 2022, and 4mill in 2023 for a great total of $11mill. Not bad at all as he will be rehabbing this year and next well he will be a free agent again. One only wishes A’s better luck next time though they are way cautious already when about spending their resources.
This surgery is a death kneel for pitchers. So far matt Harvey had it done and how has he looked? Yikes
Julio Urias had it and he’s been pretty darn good.
I had forgotten about Julio.
Urias had surgery for a torn capsule in his shoulder. Also very serious, and kudos to him for his recovery from that, but not the same procedure here. (Unless he had TOS as a minor leaguer and I was unaware, but I didn’t see any indication of that in a quick search on the matter)
Steve, do you know if anyone keeps a running list of pitchers who have had TOS? I’m thinking of something similar to the spreadsheet Jon Roegele keeps for TJS. Seems like it would be a helpful add-on to that one. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gQujXQQGOVNaiuwSN6…
I found this article about TOS that has a list of 27 players.
blogs.fangraphs.com/phil-hughes-and-the-sobering-h…
Thanks Lars, that’s a helpful article.
I was just going to point out Phil Hughes had it and didn’t bode well when he returned. It’s a tough surgery to come back from.
Excellent ! Knew about maybe a dozen of those, but definitely some big names on there most of us not aware of.
Unfortunately, yeah, history and statistics are not on a pitcher’s side in terms of coming back from those.
True, but TOS surgery is relatively new. The same thing was true for TJ when it was starting, now it is pretty routine to come back just as strong. As it starts becoming more common, we will see better recovery processes.
These are really different surgeries arising from very different issues.
TJ ligament replacement is very different from relieving blood vessel and nerve compression issues.
I hope he doesn’t need it altogether, but if he does, best wishes to him and his family. I sincerely hope he comes out and has a full recovery. He’s excellent when healthy.
Trevor Hoffman had this done as well and he came back fine.
Actually Trevor Hoffman had a different surgery. He had the edge of his collarbone shaved.
Jaime Garcia, Pedro Martinez, Johan Santana, Micheal Wacha, Carlos Martinez, Mark Prior, Mark Mulder have all had shoulder problems and for all of these pitchers it was career altering. Michael Wacha, Carlos Martinez and Mark Prior looked like future Cy Young candidates for years as aces of rotations. With Rosenthal’s age this isn’t good news for his future.
Did the A’s get suckered?
For $11mm/1 yr? Nah, all 1 year deals are low risk gambles.
Hard to “sucker” a team when they’re the ones conducting the physical and either approving of their findings or backing out due to concerns.
Steve what happened to your weekly videos?
@badco24 more like @badpost24 – do you really think pro baseball players really want to be injured and get paid to not play? To the point where they are purposely injuring themselves just so they dont have to play, or “tricking” a team into signing them? Say that to their face and see what happens.
As in the words of Michael Jordan “I’m Back”
@tim pls ban him immediately
Innocent till proven guilty maybe I repented from my angry past I deserve a second chance.
Did you repent for your lack of punctuation and horrible grammar?
Don’t be so petty learn to live with ppl
A’s finally decide to do money things and get absolutely burned. Doesn’t bode well for them ever spending in the future.
ten bucks says they signed Rosenthal knowing he was likely to hit the IL to justify not spending.
I would take that bet, although there is no way to prove it either way. Seems like a steep price to make a point.
That stinks. Hopefully he can avoid the surgery but if not, hopefully a speedy recovery.
Anyways, when will we see the first comment blaming Matheney?
Mike matheney literally killed the careers of rosenthal, Shelby Miller, mujica, and Jason motte.
There’s the comment you asked for,
i willed it into being
I’m hoping this is just trolling, but if not, you should probably explain how Matheny killed Shelby Miller’s career in one year, after which he put up great numbers in Atlanta before tanking in Arizona.
Great numbers isn’t losing a league leading 17 games.
The only positive seasons he had were with St. Louis and both of them he started over 30 games.
He pitched 205 innings (more than either year in STL. He had a 3.02 ERA (3.45 FIP) and made the All-Star team. It’s not his fault the Braves sucked that year.
Yeah but let’s say if matheney hadn’t have blown his arm out he most likely would still be a top tier star. Like with , motte, and mujica all set records for saves …because matheney literally had them pitching every night. I was a cardinals fan during the time period and even thought he was playing them way too much
He was really good in Atlanta. 3.02 ERA, 3.45 FIP, 1.427 WHIP, only had a .57 HR/9 rate, 3.7 fWAR. He lost 17 games because the Braves that year were last in the entire MLB in OPS, wOBA, wRC+, home runs and runs scored.
He pitched more innings in Atlanta than any year in St. Louis.
I’m a Cardinals fan, too. I’m not going to defend Matheny as a manager but Shelby Miller’s struggles aren’t his fault. Rosenthal was always headed to TJ as hard as he throws (see also, Jordan Hicks). Mujica had been around for 6 years before getting to St. Louis – the most innings he pitched in STL was 64, while picthing 93, 69, 76 and 65 innings in prior seasons.
Motte was a late bloomer who switched from catcher to pitcher…I don’t think he was ever going to stick around for a decade. Relievers are unpredictable.
Anyone who watched Mike Matheny coach from 2012-2018 knows he was pretty horrible at resting his players mainly his pitchers and Yadier Molina which led to the Cardinals playing without Molina in the playoffs often and playing without Carlos Martinez in 2015 due to injury. Carlos Martinez hasn’t been the same pitcher since. Party the cardinals fault party Martinez fault for not staying state side after conclusion of 2014 season. Mike Matheny is a great leader and is a good baseball guy, just not the best at keeping his players fresh, or keeping them off the injured list.
Alex Reyes, Marco Gonzalez, Trevor Rosenthal, Carlos Martinez all were seriously injured under Mike Matheny with the Cardinals. Allen Craig electing to let his hamet bone injury heal instead of having surgery so he could play in the world series directly effected the rest of his career. There’s a few cases of mishandling to be mentioned.
The only places where Rosenthal has pitched well has been under Matheny’s management, sans a brief stop in San Diego. Miller did fine for ATL. Mujica and Motte were fine relievers but neither were tabbed as can’t miss future closers, and relievers are volatile. I’m not a huge Matheny fan but it’s hard to blame him for anyone you mentioned above specifically.
Rosenthal signed to play for him as a manager last season and had a good bounce back year.
I don’t see how Rosenthal’s injury is a surprise. Though he had a great (short sample) season last year, his history should have made any team a little circumspect about his long-term health. Sad for both Rosenthal and the A’s.
Not really sure how Thoracic Outlet Surgery is predictable.
Dozens and dozens of pitchers have come back from TJ surgery, very few of those needed Thoracic Outlet Surgery.
I hear ya Pete…. I was completely hands off with Trevor this offseason and thought it was kinda low-key crazy the money being theorized to throw at him in here/other mult yrs as well –
As an ex fantasy baseball bullpen scouting/save hunting/young flamethrowers nerd Im well versed with ole Trevor since the day he took the mound for the first time .
He is a guy you’d {like} to have on your team when he isn’t , but a guy your fear having his opportunity cost sunk into when he is
* Didnt think a 1/11 was too shocking but OAK on the other hand inking it ? Bizarre to say the least , they mine for Rps easier than Crypto
I wanted him in Anaheim. It’s a huge loss for Oakland.
Baseball has turned into a battle of the bullpens. I would bet more games are decided from the sixth inning on than before the sixth inning starts.
Whoever owns those innings, plays in October.
yeah I was hoping Philly would get him.
Phillies looked like they did a great job addressing their bullpen issues.
But the season is young.
i mean it would be hard for it not to be. im not ready for it to be great, but if the offense can get going near where it was last year then just an average bullpen should be enough even if battling for a spot in this division will be hard. (and I fully believe it should be in the range of “average” as long as the injury bug doesnt wreck havoc.
Angels were in the same boat. It took them a month to figure out who could pitch and who couldn’t.
Had they known that in Aug/July, Trout would have been in the playoffs.
Anyone surprised?
sadly no. its a shame too, one heck of a RP.
I’m very surprised when a pitcher needs that kind of surgery.
I’m not surprised when ANY pitcher gets hurt.
I believe we’ll be seeing more TOS in the future.
And even more clicks to blindly accept without reading.
I’m just (perhaps) overly optimistic so…yeah, man. I am, @Harris. Happens to me a lot. But I just can’t help myself.
He was a guy I hoped the Yanks might be in on, especially in light of their former interest in him. Blew another one. Yanks fans, be glad I’m not our GM. I’d ruin our club rather quickly, serious.
I’m right there too. I thought he was a potential high-impact relief arm for the Yankees this season. I’m curious as to why they didn’t go after him given he was relatively inexpensive. Nonetheless, he’s great when healthy, hopefully he’s back soon.
Ducky, Judge has “side soreness” again, ugh. Oblique strain? Rib contusion? No more IL for this guy…….. please! These little injuries keep the twin towers out for extended periods of time and we really need Aaron.
Aww, man.
Could’ve gone all day without hearing that, @Clip. He was starting to heat up. I just wanna have nice things, man.
I really hoped the Padres would keep Rosenthal. It looks like a good thing they didn’t. Maybe they saw/suspected something?
I feel terrible for Rosenthal. He had just gotten his career back on track. I really hope he comes back strong.
I wanted the Padres to keep Yates or Rosenthal over signing Melancon. Call it (bad) luck, but maybe Preller knew what he was doing after all.
White Sox got crapped on for Hendriks deal by so many once the “smarter” A’s signed Rosenthal. I think we see here who got played.
Disagree, you can’t compare 1 year vs multi-year deals.
Billy Beane the smartest guy in the room outplayed himself. If they’re gonna spend, hang on to the sure thing in Hendriks
Liam Hendriks is hardly a sure thing. One great year, and then a great third of a season last year, and turning 33 soon.
True that. Closers are a crap shoot. Blake Treinen? Automatic. That ended badly
nobody was more volatile then Fernando Rodney IMO.
When does the season end?
Shoulda just rolled out w Puk day 1
Yes, definitely Puk. Even if his future is as a starter, a great way to transition in similar to how the Sox used Sale in his first few years
Isn’t there something wrong with Diekman too? To be honest, I hate how the A’s have Guduan, Kolarek and Weems ahead of Kaprelian, Holmes and Jefferies on the depth chart. Why are they keeping them SPs when they are all better than a lot of guys in the current pen? Makes no sense. Gotta adapt to the current game, which states SPs only have to go 4-5 innings, then have a bunch of mulit-inning RPs ready – Kap, Holmes and Jefferies could easily be those guys.
Gutted. I really liked Rosie for the Padres last year and was hoping he’d have a good season with the A’s. This surgery doesn’t have a good history for players trying to come back strong, but fingers crossed Trevor can buck the trend!
Sick of the As not spending any money, regardless of their super analytics. They have no one this year are vulnerable..
I feel like I’ve always seen TOS reported w/ a 6-8 month recovery period — “at least 3 months” seems a tad optimistic. Bummer for the A’s, but really unfortunate for Rosenthal; dang.
Career, over.
Nice of him not to disclose this before he signed. He had to know he wasn’t right, and stillsoaked the A’s for millions
You know these deals are pending physicals, right?
What a shame, he finally made it back from Elbow issues and was pitching well. Sure a tough prognosis, return from TOS isn’t a sure thing for sure, hope he recovers and has a strong remainder of his career.
What did Rosenthal know about his injury and when did he know. This crap is happening way too often.
People learn about their injuries from doctors and medical records and physicals… which the A’s had full access too. They probably had more info than he did.
That’s BS. It’s not in the best interest of the people involved to tell the truth. Tampa Bay and Cleveland are horse traders, count the number of traded pitchers and the weeks past before those pitchers hit the IL.
That’s BS. It’s not in the best interest of the people involved to tell the truth. Tampa Bay and Cleveland are horse traders, count the number of traded pitchers and the weeks past before those pitchers hit the IL.
That’s BS. It’s not in the best interest of the people involved to tell the truth. Tampa Bay and Cleveland are horse traders, count the number of traded pitchers and the weeks past before those pitchers hit the IL.
That’s BS. It’s not in the best interest of the people involved to tell the truth. Tampa Bay and Cleveland are horse traders, count the number of traded pitchers and the weeks past before those pitchers hit the IL.
Huh? What was that?
A’s may not win this year
Well-written article… good detail and background stories.
Curious… how long has this been a “thing”. I honestly never heard of this injury until Markelle Fultz’s agent was running out of excuses. Now I feel like I’ve heard more about surgeries for this.
Is it still funny to point out that the wrong Chris Young is linked?
All that hype about Oakland shoring up the bullpen at the end of the offseason….
Now they lose their big acquistion and their pen is sporting a 6.16 ERA, 1..728 WHIP, and hitters have a .860 OPS against them. Only to be outdone by the rotation with a 8.10 ERA, 1.830 WHIP, and hitters sporting a .960 OPS.
That is beyond awful.
He looked great in 2020. Glad we missed out on him now. Along with Yates.
He has pitched in less than fifty games between 2018- 2020
Now this. Most likely the end
Looks like Preller made the right call in not resigning Rosenthal or Yates.
I gotta give Preller credit… obviously there is no way that he could have predicted these injuries, but he must have thought Melancon was a better bet to stay healthy despite his lower ceiling than the other two. The Kela signing is also looking pretty brilliant, so far.
He can’t catch a break. I wish him well.
Well Trevor made more money than he could ever make on stocks , or bitcoin . Who did the physical for the A’s .
Huge bummer for the A’s and especially Rosenthal. He’s proven that he can come back before, so I wouldn’t write him off just yet. But TOS is pretty ominous unfortunately.
Oakland got screwed over Rosenthal and Seattle got screwed over Paxton, and Boras who represents both wins again.
No, he doesn’t “win” because his clients won’t make money coming off injuries, they might have to take minor league deals or “make good” deals now.
Is baseball about making money for you, or winning games? Weird use of the word “wins” here. I personally don’t care too much about salaries, I care about winning and the game itself.
Bad money ball right there. The A’s finally pay someone decent money and he goes down in the first week. No one is going to invest money in pitchers with an injury history going forward. Hate to say it but Betances is probably the next one to go under the knife.
Happened to Eric Chavez and Jermaine Dye too, who damn near won a triple crown the second he got healthy on the White Sox. A’s always give money to guys who get immediately injured. They probably should stop skimping money on scouting and analysts.
They seem to have some deep problems in the training and medical staff.
“Rosenthal, meanwhile, had surgery to remove his first rib, conduct a pec minor release and a scalene release after being diagnosed with severe neurovascular compression. He was placed on the 60-day IL, and a near-term return to the mound is in serious doubt”
Removed a rib? Damn!!