The Mariners announced that right-hander Jackson Kowar has been placed on the 60-day injured list due to a tear in his right UCL. General manager Justin Hollander told reporters (including Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times) that Kowar will undergo Tommy John surgery next week, so the righty will now be out of action until around the midpoint of the 2025 season. The 60-day IL placement for Kowar creates a 40-man roster spot for Ryne Stanek, whose signing is now official.
It’s a brutal setback for Kowar, who went into 2024 looking for a fresh start. The Royals selected Kowar 33rd overall in the 2018 draft, and viewed the righty as one of several young arms that would help spur the organization’s next contention window. Unfortunately, Kowar (and basically all of Kansas City’s pitchers to date) has yet to show much in the big leagues, with only a 9.12 ERA to show for 74 innings over the last three seasons.
Kowar made eight starts in his 2021 debut season but has since worked only as a reliever in the majors. The move to the bullpen upped his fastball velocity but not much else, as batters have continued to tee off on Kowar’s offerings. Shaky control has also been detrimental to Kowar’s cause, with a 13.7% walk rate and a modest 20.1% strikeout rate.
The Royals opted to move on from Kowar in November when he was traded to the Braves for Kyle Wright, and Kowar’s stay in Atlanta lasted just a couple of weeks, as he was flipped to the Mariners as part of the five-player trade that brought Jarred Kelenic to Atlanta. From Seattle’s perspective, the trade moved a good deal of salary off the books at the cost of Kelenic, and the M’s got to pick up a couple of younger arms in Kowar and Cole Phillips, a second-round pick for the 2022 draft. Unfortunately, Phillips was already recovering from a TJ surgery and recently had to undergo a second procedure, while Kowar has now also been sidelined with the same surgery.
News surfaced earlier this week about a possible arm injury for Kowar, adding to a list of reliever injuries Seattle has already had to address this spring. Gregory Santos has been dealing with soreness is his teres major area but is back throwing bullpen sessions, while Hollander also said that Matt Brash is upping his games of catch to throws of 90 feet. Brash was recently given the green light to start throwing again after a bout of elbow inflammation, as it appeared as though he dodged what initially appeared to be a much more serious injury. Given all these health concerns, it isn’t surprising the Mariners felt the need to spend $4MM on Stanek to reinforce the relief corps.
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Really? You wanted to be the first person to post on this so bad that you had to type “F”? Good job. Congratulations. You win nothing.
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He won the “annoy runningwithnailclippers with one letter” award. Ceremony is later today, he will be presented with an exact replica of the Stone Cold Steve Austin “Smoking Skull” edition of the WWF championship belt.
Simple people like you enjoy simple pleasures I guess.
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May ya heal up quick and complete, JK!
That never happens with TJS, especially for pitchers.
Thanks, BB for pointing that out. Just wishing the young man is all.
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GHIJKLMNOP!
Hate to hear this, I think many were expecting him to take a big step forward this year.
I’d say many would be surprised if Kowar took “a big step forward this year.”
He is so nasty when you look up video but the kid can’t stay on the field. He’s one of “those” guys.
So both pieces ATL sent SEA in the Kelenic deal are gone currently for TJS (Cole Phillips being the other). What are the kids sayin’, “sus”?
Magic 8 Ball has not been kind to the Mariners in that trade.
According to any Braves casual, SEA sold the Braves a lemon based his first few fake stats. Hopefully a few more will hop off the bandwagon. Dodgers bandwagon leaving the station.
I think it’s more of a case of Jerry knowing the risk, and wanting the upside. Because both kids do technically have a very high ceiling based on talent. But when they made that trade, I think most Mariner fans like myself kind of saw this coming. We weren’t expecting Kowar or Phillips to turn into anything. This was dumping Marcos contract and giving JK a fresh start. They used JK’s potential to get a couple pieces of damaged goods, that COULD be groomed and revived down the line at some point.
As a Braves fan I find a majority of them to be completely clueless about the team and the game compared to other fanbases.
I think the focus was getting money off the books and those two were (are) a couple of lottery tickets. Phillips’ career hasn’t even started, so it’s not like he was going to help Seattle this year, anyway.
Seattle will just have to wait longer to find out if they got any bonus from that deal.
Absolutely agreed about Phillips. Really stinks for him and still has a lot of upside, just hate that he’s now had 2 TJS before getting going.
Considering the Braves had just recently traded for Kowar (traded a big player too albeit a badly injured one) it’s highly doubtful he had anything wrong they were aware of.
Yeah Kowar likely didnt have anything wrong at trade as he’s been pitching. Phillips was known that a second surgery was needed to clean up the TJ he previously had that apparently was done poorly.
I’m no expert on surgery or tj but you can mess up something if you do something wrong during recovery. I had shoulder surgery and was doing situps about a month after when my shoulder just collapsed behind my head like someone unscrewed something. I probably should have been paying more attention to shoulder during the exercise-nobody had told me I could do other exercises besides rehab ones at the time either. Perhaps it wasn’t done poorly. Moot point tho. Haven’t read about it
I’m going going off what was reported. It was said that a cleanup surgery was needed to cleanup issues from the original surgery. Even saw it described as a botched surgery. Also, several reports have said its not a 2nd TJ surgery as its not a repair but a cleanup so recovery time may be quicker than TJ.. Apparently was known that the surgery was needed prior to the trade.
As much as I wanted Kelenic to succeed with the Mariners, it just wasn’t happening. Kicking the water cooler in the middle of the season when they needed him to stay focused and help the team didn’t do anyone any favors either. A change of scenery was needed for him, and the Mariners were able to shed a couple of bad contracts as well. The fact that they even got Kowar and Phillips back at all, despite them being broken upon arrival, was a semi-pleasant bonus imo
I think the scenery change is good but to say he was never gonna work in Sea is debatable. He already improved last year regardless of whether it was a tale of 2 streaks. To put up 2 WAR at 23 in 400 an or so is impressive. If it weren’t for his prospect pedigree I think nobody would think of him the way they do. The reaction of Seattle is largely responsible it seems to me. They were in a position where they need to win every game possible and some of the fans (comic for instance) exacerbated the situation. Modern MLB has so many playoff spots that so many teams are trying so hard to pull out every game that there is no patience; and players get called up so young. Excuse excuse excuse…I know. Lol. But it’s true. He’s 24. He could be living in his parents basement collecting unemployment. Not to make fun of people living with their parents I’m just putting this in perspective-the age especially.
What’s funny is people say Kelenic is so young and M’s may have rushed him to the bigs because they needed to win now. However, when M’s sent him to AAA at the start of 2021 rather than making the 26 man roster, everyone was saying the M’s were clearly manipulating his service time to get an extra year.
Here we go. Next couple weeks are the nervous time for pitching injuries.
The amount of UCL tears in MLB are through the roof. I wonder if they’ll ever create some sort of artificial tendon support that can be ‘weaved into’ the UCL and make it stronger so it won’t tear.
The other option is to go the RA Dickey route (born without a UCL tendon) and learn to throw knuckleballs instead.
Thats literally what they do with the internal bracing procedure
I’m to the point where to just expect it with every pitcher then it’s not so disheartening. It also creates value for guys who already had the procedure and value for trading for guys currently recovering.
Why did Braves give away Kyle Wright for nothing weird move
May never be healthy before they had to decide whether to pay him based on his one great year in the majors.
Could’ve had him for 2 cheap arbitration years after this year’s injury.
Look up Wright’s injury. It can be pretty devastating
I guess they will need to rename Spring Training to ‘Tommy John season’
So, this is the 6th or so TJ surgery and we’re still in Spring Training. Don’t worry, the pitch clock has nothing to do with it.
Hope he heals well and I hope the players association starts to fight it as they hinted to over the winter.
It’s because pitching now is all about throwing 100+ mph on every pitch. The body isn’t built for that much strain.
I think the consensus has always been that it’s the curve ball that causes the most stress to the elbow. But in 2023, this guy threw mostly 4 seamers up to 97mph, along with changes and sliders. I think the pitch clock makes guys rush delivery and their mechanics suffer causing more elbow injuries. That’s just my opinion, but there has to be a reason for the increased elbow injuries to pitchers since the clock was instituted.
I think it’s just pitching in general. Throwing a ball hard and with so much frequency is not something the human body is designed to do. Tommy John surgery has been a thing since the 70s. Many pitchers before that surgery became a thing had their careers cut short because of the wear and tear on their arms. Imagine how much longer Koufax could’ve pitched if he had the procedure, instead of retiring at 31.
The Athletic has an interesting yet scary article about all the pitching injuries. Doctors, trainers, team execs were looking at a couple pitches in particular that really torque the arm: the snappy hard-thrown changeup at about 88mph-90mph and the sweeper. These two pitches also require you to grip the ball using a lot of pressure, like pressing your fingers into the ball and then when you throw it, it exerts extra tweak on the elbow as you release it. That was one line of thinking anyway.
There is some anecdotal evidence to back it up. Everyone knows the Dodgers and Rays both have two of the most extensive pitching development programs in the game right now. They teach their guys to grip-and-rip-it, get more spin, throw harder, etc., and it seems like every year they lose several key pitchers to elbow and shoulder injuries. On one hand, it’s how pitchers become very successful, and they buy into those philosophies because theres financial incentive to do so (better pitching=make more money). The teams win lots of games too because of it. On the other, it’s essentially cutting careers short. These pitchers end up spending at least 1.5 years of their primes sitting on the IL as they recover from surgeries, take PRP injections and whatever else they have to do to get healthy again.
And an emphasis on spin rates which is additional stress.
Nah he can stay in Japan.
Like a 40 year old window that should have been replaced a couple of years ago, The Mariners should have went all in 2022 and 23… Chapman would have made sense… I don’t get what the FO is thinking. Do you M’s fans?
Yeah, you and Bauer in your circle jerk.
Seattle shed Jarred Kelenic and about $24 million in guaranteed salary obligations.
The Mariners would do that trade again and again even knowing Jackson Kowar and Cole Phillips would undergo Tommy John surgery.
Body languge does not necessarily define a person’s maturity, but Julio Rodriguez has appeared as joyful as Kelenic has been joyless. Seattle fans wish him well but Kelenic came off as the dementor that sucked the happiness out of baseball.
It looks like MLB has passed Bauer by. No one wants that baggage.
Ms still won the trade. lol get ready Atlanta for the Kelenic show! Highlighted by pouting, Ks and then the entire clubhouse will hate him. He’s good for that. Dude got traded and not a single guy make a post about him leaving. Ray, Teo, Marco all got multiple posts wishing them
Well. Ole jk, “don’t let the door hit you on the way out”.
Jarred Kelenic is having a very bad spring. Sometimes that doesn’t mean anything but often times it’s everything.
In previous spring trainings he hit over .300 multiple times only to barely scrape together a .180 average.
AA probably giggles when Jerry walks by him. Check the medicals on those Braves trade offers, they seem to send away pitchers right before they break
If Kowar was broken at the time of the trade, don’t you think the Mariners would’ve caught that then? They certainly would have figured it out a month ago when he was throwing bullpens. He made it halfway through spring training, and pitched in a couple of games before his elbow bit him. These billion dollar franchises aren’t so stupid that they’ll blatantly ignore medical reports on players they trade for or sign.
Trevor, do you watch a lot of Seinfeld that you talk about yourself in the third person the way George Costanza does?