6:30pm: Gray told the Washington beat that the strain is muscular (relayed by Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com). Imaging revealed that his UCL is fully intact. Needless to say, it’s a significant plus that there doesn’t appear to be any kind of structural damage that would raise the possibility of surgery.
3:2opm: The Nationals announced that right-hander Josiah Gray has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to a right elbow/forearm flexor strain. The move is retroactive to April 6 and righty Joan Adon has been recalled in a corresponding move.
The Nats have not yet provided any kind of information relating to the severity of Gray’s injury or how long they expect him to be out of action, but it’s the latest in a string of elbow injuries to notable pitchers around the league. The season is less than two weeks old but has already seen pitchers like Shane Bieber and Eury Pérez be sent to the operating table for Tommy John surgery. Spencer Strider could follow them since he has sustained damage to his ulnar collateral ligament, though it’s not yet been determined whether he will have surgery or not. Framber Valdez was scratched from yesterday’s start and sent to meet with doctors after experiencing elbow soreness. Nick Pivetta was placed on the IL earlier today due to a flexor strain, though Boston’s chief baseball officer Craig Breslow characterized it as mild.
All of those injuries are on top of pitchers who were injured last year and are still recovering, a list that includes guys like Shohei Ohtani, Jacob deGrom, Sandy Alcántara, Robbie Ray, Shane McClanahan and many more. The ever-growing list has led to a dispute between MLB and the MLBPA, with the league blaming pitchers chasing high velocity and spin while the players point to the pitch clock.
Gray will now add another notable injury to that pile. He may not have as much big league success as some of those aforementioned pitchers, but he is nonetheless a notable name due to his former status as a top prospect and trade chip. Now 26, Gray was a top 100 prospect during his time with the Dodgers before coming to the Nationals as a key piece of the 2021 deadline deal that sent Max Scherzer and Trea Turner to Los Angeles.
Gray has not yet truly lived up to that hype, with a 4.84 earned run average in 386 2/3 innings in his major league career. He had a 3.91 ERA last year but may have been lucky to have allowed so few runs to score. His 20.5% strikeout rate and 11.5% walk rate were each below league average, but his 80.4% strand rate was on the high side. His 4.93 FIP and 5.08 SIERA were each more than a run higher than his ERA, perhaps suggesting regression was coming. His first two outings in 2024 resulted in 13 earned runs scoring in 8 1/3 innings, though the injury may have also played a role in that.
Nonetheless, Gray has been an important building block for the Nats amid their ongoing rebuild. If he ends up needing to miss significant time, that could be a blow to Gray and the club in what was likely seen as a key development year. He came into 2024 with two years and 75 days of service time, meaning that he will qualify for arbitration for the first time going into 2025 and is slated for free agency after 2027. The Nats have a number of their best prospects nearing the majors and would ideally like to see Gray take a step forward to be a part of their next competitive window but an extended absence would obviously get in the way of that plan.
For now, he’ll be removed from the rotation for at least a couple of turns. For now, Adon will take Gray’s spot next to MacKenzie Gore, Patrick Corbin, Trevor Williams and Jake Irvin. Adon has 121 2/3 innings of major league experience with a 6.66 ERA.
Wow.
Dr. ElAttrache’s office is on line 1.
another attrache case
More like line 17, but the on-hold music is a banger!
they should change the name of this site to MLBTJS
Yup yet another one time dodgers hot pitching prospect joins the TJ Club. May, Buehler, Gonsolin, too many other to recall atm. Though I imagine fans of all clubs are feeling TJs wrath. Maybe the ghost of Tommy John’s denial into the HOF? I kid of course.
Bauer lives in your head rent free. You do know that the woman who accused him made the entire thing up right? She was well know by many MLB players. You probably jumped to Urias’s defense and want the Othani situation to play out. Most people like you share Manfreds leanings. Hopefully no one ever wrongfully accuses you or anyone you care about of things. People celebrate the destruction of other for awful reasons. Next thing you know it’s you facing the same situation that you previously laughed about. I see the Athletic was very quick to hype up sympathy for the Othani situation. Hopefully he doesn’t have a certain political leaning because the narrative will shift fast. They might make up a story about a skull fracture and post highly filtered photos.
The term I’m looking for is useful idiot’s, you’re one of them….
You do realize that A. No scouts gave a crap about his tour of the catus league this year. B. The knowledge about him period is out. Leaked unethically? thats up for debate, but the same thing happened with Donald Sterling, (private conversation where he made a racist remark was leaked, how it got out if irrelevant same as Bauer.) and you know what, the NBA is much better with out him. As is MLB without Bauer. C. NO TEAM wants to deal with the backlash of said info being leaked. D. Find me one MLB player who says he would welcome him back. E. I don’t care one way or another if he plays again. I am sick of seeing fools champion him here like he was wronged. In this day and age someone of his stature and celebrity running off with strangers… he didn’t think. And now he faces the consequences. and F. It’s a screen name. I think people who disagree are delusional, but more power to them,
So to make a long post longer: things can’t be forgotten just because of how they publicly were found out. The court of public opinion has no trial. And I apologize for responding to this on a thread that has nothing to do with this in the first place. and BTW, Why not go throw your love at Julio Urias also? as far as I can recall no charges were ever filed against him. You hypocrites who support Bauer should be whining about JU also. My 2 cents.
oops this was written just before i saw the latest news so I totally take back the comparisons of Bauer to Urias.
What information was leaked about Bauer?
that he has a thing for violent (presumably consensual) sex.
And why does that disqualify him from playing in the MLB?
And another one bites the dust
Wasn’t this guy like the headliner of the then Soto trade. What a disappointment.
No.. He was the Trea-Max deal.. Gray and Ruiz were supposed to be safe 3 WAR bets and it has not worked out so far.
And they still extended Ruiz. Nothing else we’ve tried seems to be working. Let’s see if more money solves the problem.
I’m gonna go out back and learn a knuckleball ASAP.
I was thinking this recently. A knuckleballer would dominate in today’s game and also pitch until they are 44.
I guess I didn’t realize Matt Waldron was dominating today’s game.
I wasn’t aware of any Josiah Gray hype. What did I miss?
There really wasn’t a lot of hype around Gray until after the trade was finalized. The bigger expectations were surrounding Ruiz. Dodgers must not have liked Gray’s projection, and we can kind of see why now.
The definition of hype is exaggerated claims, but the usage now seems to cover even the most modest expectations. Very few prospects pan out at the highest level they might be able to reach, but that doesn’t mean they were being hyped.
Around the deadline I recall him being hyped when he made his debut for the LAD, Clearly he was being showcased, but they had been dangling him at the time. Of course the Dodgers seem to live rent free in peoples heads like the media who hype to some degree pretty much anything they do.
Everything is called hype now. I’m not sure if it’s because hardly anyone knows what the word means anymore or because they believe that nothing is what it seems to be.
oh and add chase silseth to the DL with elbow inflammation
but its NOT the pitch clock
and its NOT the new rules
and its NOT manfreds fault
and its NOT mlb’s fault
its the velocity & spin rate and the ratio of something or other
The players don’t agree with you on it not possibly being a potential cause of the problem (along with the velo/spin rates). There has been filings filed by the MLBPA and recent articles about the pitch clock from actual players, not we idiots on here.
i was being 100% sarcastic you knew that right?
You make some good points. Nobody can agree on which factors play the biggest roles, so we’re just gonna keep doing what we’re doing until MLB runs out of able bodied pitchers, and then the REAL finger pointing can ensue.
Serious question: The main issue with the pitch clock is a lack of recovery time between pitches. Can anyone tell me if ligaments and tendons are actually capable of recovery? Muscles obviously recover with rest. But I don’t actually know if the same applies to ligaments and tendons. The answer to that question would seem to go a long way toward knowing how much impact the pitch clock is having. Please advise or criticize.
Tendons connect muscles to bones. The body works in unison, so overdoing something and straining a muscle would lead to overcompensating with other parts of your body. In 2017 in independent ball, I was part of Guinea pig experiment of using pitch clocks and robo umps. The injuries went up then, and that followed when it was introduced into the Atlantic league as well. No one wanted the clock or robo ump then. But give it up to the mob to disregard the players and only care about if they can get gen z’s to become casuals.
The fact that you’re posting on MLBTR about a medical question suggests that you’re more concerned with confirming your priors than actually learning anything new.
Another pitching injury. At least the Nats might have a shot at winning tonight.
At this rate of self-destruction, MLB will need to start implementing Robo-Pitchers.
MLB: “Nothing to see here…please move along”
Yep, like so many other things happening in the world, all of this is just pure coincidence. We’re now in the age of uncanny coincidences, and that’s that. MLB is considering ramping up the well-wishing for injured pitchers which should help a lot.
Clipper I think you have a sub to The Athletic. If so, check out Eno Sarris article about pitching injuries. It’s one of the best on the subject I’ve seen.
You could also do worse than watch Dr Meister on foul territory today.
I haven’t had time to watch that yet but I plan to later this evening.
Thanks Joe and Foppert, I will read and watch those. This is a very interesting topic because of all the variables that exist in diagnosing sports injuries as complex as the elbow/shoulder with pitching. Obviously, there is no clear answer to this. So much has changed with trends in pitching, trends in youth sports, baseballs, offseason trainings, in-season pitching goals (like Ks v contact), and of course, the rule changes.
I look forward to the read/watch, guys.
Samson gives a great insight into the FO perspective on his Nothing Personal podcast. Starts at the 21min mark. Also offers up what change FO’s can implement to help.
Big props to your man Cole as well. His comment on the MLB/MLBPA relationship was pure gold. Finally some player pushback on the acrimony. Good to see.
Maybe spidertack wasn’t that bad? Gaylord Perry wrote a book on ball doctoring, and he’s still in the hall.
As he should be.
Still don’t understand the reluctance to go to a tacky ball or universal tacky substance (other than the rosin bag). If there’s even a chance it could help, it’s worth it. I’m not sure the fans would ever notice one way or another as it pertains to the ball.
Yeah. That’s Meisters immediate recommendation. Reduce the max grip strength required during pronation and supination. I just wonder if they will. Will they just spin it harder using the same max effort.
The players might when a .230 BA becomes league-average effecting their future pay.
The two powers that be, MLB and (to a lesser extent) MLBPA ought to be out front on a serious effort to see what’s causing (could be several things) this spike in injuries and whether it can be ameliorated. If this is just max effort for speed and spin, it may be that nothing can be done. If there are other, contributing factors, then the owners and the union should consider changes. A reduction in injuries serves both esthetic and economic goals.
It’s gonna require a major adjustment from the majors all the way down to little league in coaches, front offices, scouts, etc who have placed a ridiculously high premium on “eye-popping” velocity and a total disregard for fundamental mechanics.
Good point. We might also add “parents of little league players”.
Do any of you jackals even like the sport!? Every comment section is just cynical, mean-spirited crud. Just keep beating your chests, keep up the negativity. Cesspool. The site never should’ve started the comment section, it’s a huge mess.
Ironically enough this is the most vitriolic comment I have seen on this site today! Go figure!
Idk man, you don’t find all this negativity and hate kinda exhausting?
Not even sure what you’re referring to… I see a lot of people joking around and having fun.
Did you just time travel here from 1980?
Sorry, I guess it’s too much to think a baseball website wouldn’t be steeped in ugliness and hate. My bad.
The good news is that with each of these elbow injuries, we are getting closer and closer to the game going back to pitchers not just trying to throw the ball through a wall with every pitch
You’re always likely to find some unnecessary snark at others’ expense. But you don’t need to read the comments.
I disagree with the primary reason being the pitch clock. In the 70s and 80s, pitchers regularly pitched 200+ innings, pitched a ton of complete games, games were still shorter than they are today, and didn’t get the elbow and arm injuries anywhere near as often as now.
The primary reason is the “art of pitching” has been replaced by just throw as hard as you can and try and put some movement on the ball. Average speed of pitches back in the 80s was in the low/mid 80s. Taking forever to throw a pitch was something that developed as a coping mechanism as this got started, which makes for really boring baseball.
The problem is there aren’t many pitchers today who can succeed practicing “the art”, they make it to the majors on throwing as hard as they can, and they are going to continue to do what got them there and gets them paid. So that won’t change, they’ll only try to throw harder.
Don’t know of a way out of this one other than expanding the roster to 30, having pitchers limited to 3 innings a game, and that still won’t solve it. It is as close to having someone programming a pitching machine as MLB can get in order to reduce the injuries.
Nothing to see here. I was just contacted by an MLB team, my arm still works.
The really big news here that everyone seems to have overlooked is MLB is about to see its first woman player, Joan Adon.
Rob Manfred has harmed the MLB in many ways. The pitch clock rule is one of them. You have people with zero athleticism making rules up. They have John Hopkins University studies to back up their data, John Hopkins says the pitch clock is safe and effective. Where have I heard that before? People have thrown hard for years. The rate at which players are injured has skyrocketed in the past few seasons. Sports in general have grown bloated. Even college athletes are paid insane amounts of money while the average America is bled dry
Watch Urias pitch again before Bauer.
Watching Chris Bassitt pitch tonight and he’s falling off the mound. Guy’s just chucking balls with no control. 50 pitches through 3. innings along with 3 BBs. What a joke pitchers are nowadays.
I’m not following the pitch clock logic. Pitcher’s seem to throw as hard as they can much more than in the past. My theory is that youth are playing year round and throwing non stop instead of giving it a rest and playing another sport or two.