Right-hander Matt Waldron sustained a mild oblique strain yesterday, Padres manager Mike Shildt told MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell and other reporters. Waldron suffered the injury while warming up in the bullpen for a scheduled relief appearance in the Padres’ Cactus League game.
While Waldron is officially considered day-to-day, Shildt said the knuckleballer is “going to need some rest for some period of time, which will be determined.” Simply given the nature of oblique injuries and the timing, Shildt admitted that Waldron’s chances of making the Opening Day roster “would seem like it would be in jeopardy.”
The news would seem to erase any chance Waldron had of winning the fifth spot in San Diego’s rotation. An 8.68 ERA over 9 1/3 spring innings wasn’t helping his cause, and Waldron’s planned usage out of the pen on Friday might’ve hinted that the Padres were considering a long relief role for the right-hander. Naturally the first order of business will simply be for Waldron to get healthy, giving the team time to decide whether Waldron could be used as a reliever, or as a Triple-A depth starter.
Waldron has worked almost exclusively as a starter in the minors since the Padres acquired him in the 2020-21 offseason, and he has started 32 of his 35 career MLB games, posting a 4.79 ERA over his 188 innings in the Show. Injuries within the Padres’ rotation opened the door for Waldron to get a good amount of playing time, including 146 2/3 frames last season, though a 12.76 ERA over his last four starts suggested that Waldron ran into some fatigue.
Assuming a late trade doesn’t change the equation, Dylan Cease, Michael King, Yu Darvish, and Nick Pivetta are slated to be the Padres’ top four starters. Stephen Kolek, Randy Vasquez, and Kyle Hart are the remaining candidates for the fifth starter’s job now that Waldron has seemingly been removed from the competition.
With Hart having been reported to miss a start due to flu and with Kolek’s impressive work so far, I’d say SK has the lead. I hope Vasquez goes to AAA to work on his continued effort at starter as opposed to long relief at mlb. Hart may take long relief as a build up and just see where things go after 2 SK starts.
I think you’re right that Kolek has a leg up on Hart and if he keeps it up the job will be his. Have to wonder if Waldron had much of chance for #5 anyway with his recent woes. But with Hoeing out there is some competition for a long relief role that could keep one of Hart or Vasquez on ML roster.
I love those knuckleballers though. Hope he gets a starting gig this year.
Yep. I think Hart sticks in LR with maybe even some sort of planned pitch day to keep him built up. A piggyback with Kolek even since probably need to consider innings limit on Kolek. Keep them both on 5th day schedule if you can.
Haven’t heard anything of late on BH status. Hopefully, back soon. He is one that could make others better just by him doing his job well. Take the 6th or 2-3 innings or an opener –
Whatever needed kind of guy. Keeps others in their roles.
Brito might eventually be that guy but not yet.
But Brew, what about that pending Cease trade? 🙂
The Padres are barely scraping by on depth, even if Waldron is healthy. It’s not like any of the contenders for the 5th spot are overwhelming contenders. Kolek has proven a lot this Spring, but how many innings did he pitch last season? I could list all the other potential candidates, but ya get my drift.
The reason I’m asking you, because I’m see the analyst (and probably a few AI written stories), which always indicate maybe one major leaguer that their team would LIKE to part with, and toss in a couple of mid-range prospects, and bang, they got them selves a Cease. All of it’s nuts.
I’m trying to think of what combination of moves AJ Preller might make, where trading Cease this close to the season would make sense. The Padres are contending, and need starting pitching as badly as every one of the mentioned potential trade partners. For certain, in my mind, if he moved Cease there’d be some follow-on trade or signing actions to fill in parts of he roster to balance the weakness that losing Cease in the rotation would cause. I don’t see how it’d be possible, but AJP has been a miracle deal maker in the past. What kind of “ask” do you think would it take, and which team or teams are the likely candidates.
I’m not going to panic of the Padres trade Cease. AJP will have a plan.
I’m not doing it. I’m not. No way I get pulled into another discussion about a Cease trade. Nice try, but uh uh. But yeah, any trade scenario involving Cease couldn’t result in a reduction of the SD SP rotation because the Pads are playoff contenders. A Cease trade would need to bolster the rotation this year and with years of control. Such a trade would have to involve more than one team (since the team trading for Cease would be a contender and offer mostly prospects), and the other team would need to be interested in those prospects. Just speculating. It would probably also need to involve a Padre star player, or Salas or De Vries. AJ is not one to shy away from complicated deals, but their has to be others willing to play the calculus, and AJ would have to sort of not like Cease as much as everyone else seems to like Cease, but that doesn’t seem to be the case despite the daily weekly hourly rumor mill suggesting AJ must be desperately in need of launching Cease out of the Padre orbit.
And now a Waldron trade rumor is surely expected, no?
Boston like knuckleballers right? Maybe Atlanta?
This is why ya stockpile pitching. You can never have too many arms…
Kolek… Hart. Hart… Kolek. Are we looking at the new Finkle & Einhorn?
I must now chew an excessive amount of gum and burn my clothes!
Don’t forget to plunger your grill, Acoss!
Over my head
Christine McVie nods.
“Ace Ventura” references abound, Iggy!
Knuckleballers rely on different mechanics, emphasizing wrist action and minimal spin rather than velocity and raw force. However, they are still forced into the same weight training, bullpen sessions, and workload expectations as traditional pitchers, which increases their injury risk.
Waldron’s oblique strain isn’t just a random event—it suggests that his body is being conditioned incorrectly for the unique demands of his pitch.
Not really, Yorkie. You’re connecting a lot of invisible dots. He could have been non-loose and tried to lift weights. He could have been stretching and felt something twinge. He could have been walking down stairs and slipped. He could have been involved with any number of individual and unique opportunities to further inflame a low-key but existing injury. Who really knows?!?
While it’s true that any individual movement could potentially aggravate an existing injury, the likelihood of an oblique strain being unrelated to Waldron’s specific pitching mechanics is statistically low, especially when viewed through a biomechanical lens.
Knuckleballers like Waldron rely on a very different motion pattern compared to conventional pitchers. This includes a greater reliance on wrist action and a more dynamic upper-body torque. Unlike standard pitchers who generate power through the hips and lower body, knuckleballers depend on subtle and isolated upper-body mechanics. This can place additional strain on the oblique muscles, which play a central role in both generating and stabilizing the rotation of the torso.
Oblique injuries are typically linked to rotational stress, and knuckleball pitchers, by the nature of their throwing motion, engage in unique biomechanical patterns that do not align with the conditioning programs designed for traditional pitchers. A standard pitching program doesn’t fully account for the distinct demands of the knuckleball’s mechanics. As such, Waldron’s body may have been trained for conventional force generation, but not for the low-torque, wrist-centric motion of the knuckleball. This mismatch in conditioning is a key overlooked factor—the body, when unprepared for the specific motion, will likely sustain an injury like an oblique strain, even if the triggering action seems minor.
If we look at history, the oblique strain among knuckleballers is not purely coincidental. Take R.A. Dickey, for instance, whose career was interrupted by frequent injuries, including oblique strains. This pattern emerges because oblique muscles are particularly vulnerable when the body isn’t conditioned to absorb rotational stress efficiently, especially when the force is generated differently from what is expected in traditional mechanics.
Even though knuckleballers throw with less velocity, they still participate in similar workloads to traditional pitchers. The frequency of bullpen sessions, workload management, and training regimens are not fully adapted to the fact that knuckleballers need specific recovery and conditioning protocols. Thus, increased exposure to a training regimen not suited for their mechanics heightens injury risk, and Waldron’s injury is likely the result of this mismatch between mechanics and conditioning, not a random, unexplained event.
I understand the essence of your posts, but again, you’re jumping to conclusions. Too many “coulds, potentiallys and could haves” in your statement to be taken as statistical probability or theoretical likelihood. Enjoy your day brah!
@Gwynning
“You’re saying anything could have happened, right? Like he tripped, or whatever. But here’s the thing: we don’t actually know what’s normal for a knuckleballer’s body. There’s no rulebook for how their bodies work.
So, saying ‘it could be anything’ is like saying ‘it could be magic.’ We need to actually study how knuckleballers move, how their muscles work, and build a system for it. Until then, we’re just guessing in the dark. We need the data, not just guesses.”
Sure, nobody is debating that kinesiology is data driven, statistical and relevant to everything about playing ball… but painting a broad story and trying to have it pinned to the Training Room donkeys is strangely presumptive. I can assure you that every single team knows what you’re saying and they employ people to do it every single day. Injuries are freak instances of human nature, almost every time.
York,
You might also consider that in Waldron’s case, he does not rely upon his knuckleball exclusively. He works in other pitches including FB and curve.
It isn’t one size fits all. Yes, you might have a point for an exclusive guy.
@Gwynning
“Yeah, everyone knows muscles and bones are important. But if teams really knew how to keep knuckleballers healthy, they’d have proof. Like, studies showing they get hurt less.
Instead, we just see knuckleballers getting hurt, and everyone says ‘oh, it’s just bad luck.’ But if they were doing their jobs right, we wouldn’t need luck. We’d have proof. They say they know this stuff, but where’s the proof? It’s like saying you’re a chef but you can’t cook anything.”
You’re on a tangent now, or repeating a trope. I think I explained myself on your other post. Anyway, have a good day brah! Enjoy the Spring games today. 🙂
@Gwynning
Thank you for your post! I wish you the best of days, today. Good luck, against the Mariners, today.
This could also merely be the Padres playing roster management, he’s….possibly not even injured
Wasn’t he hurt warming up for a ST appearance ? Quite the show for some roster manipulation.
wink wink nudge nudge
Whoah Yorky, I need a “TLDR”!!
@Ignorant Son-of-a-b
TLDR: Mariners suck!
Shots fired! Keep your head down, Iggy!!
@Yorky. You should stoop to our level and actually pick a team to root for so we can then make fun of you and say your team sucks like you do to us…fair play, eh? (Instead of being up in the ivory tower pontificating to the reprobates…come join the party!)
WTF with all the oblique injuries. Pitcher or other players.
My suggestion is to get half of all the weights OUT OF the locker rooms. Just toured the Reading Fighting Phils locker room and now that the MLB is involved in the minor leagues, they have dumbbells from 65 to 125 pounds.
These aren’t football players! No wonder everyone is pulling an oblique. For crying out loud, get a yoga instructor in there to get them to stretch out.
Where are all the analytics gurus showing us how much money is being spent on players on the IL compared to 20 years ago, huh?
Where is the cost per inning of each thrown inning PITCHED vs every dollar spent rehabbing (and thus, Not Pitched)?
The Padres have a pretty sophisticated, high end lab at USD, that’s designed in part to do just what you are suggesting, i.e. help pitchers be as effective as they can with their stuff, how to safely make adjustments, what those adjustment results look like digitally in 1001 different directions, and what can be done to improve pitching performance while minimizing
health risks..
Think of MLB players today as super-thoroughbreds. They do things baseball players of earlier generations couldn’t touch. They’re bigger, stronger, quicker, faster, and have better diet, exercise, and sleep habits, than ever before. There’s a trade off in training to the “bleeding edge”. No one yet has developed a formula to be able to definitely say, “this much as no more” as far as their training routines. Heck, the very fact that we now have TJ surgery to revive and extend pitching careers, is miraculous compared treatment options available to earlier generations. Guys would get a sore arm, and that was that. (It happened to me during my college tennis days in the 1970’s.)
So, as long as guys are living on that edge, competing, trying to be or become the very best, injuries are going to happen. Waldron himself said that, though he knew that he could keep throwing and might be able to work through it, the risk was too high at this point in the season. If it were game 3 of the playoffs, you can be he’d be out there trying until his arm fell off. The players aren’t idiots, and neither are their coaches, or training & medical staff. Ballplayers are WAY smarter than earlier generations about health, training, and performance.
Shame to see. Waldron was the ace of the Pads’ pitching staff for a good month and a half stretch last year.
I hope he gets healthy and finds it again.
Lets go goose!