Cole Hamels

Triceps tendinitis prevented Cole Hamels from throwing a side session today, Braves manager Brian Snitker told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Gabriel Burns and other reporters.  While Snitker gave no indication that Hamels wouldn’t be ready for the start of the season, the timeline cited by the skipper would seem to leave things cut very close for Hamels to make the initial 30-man roster.

“I think we’re probably a week away from seeing where things are [with Hamels].  He’s day to day now as far as when he gets back on the mound,” Snitker said.  “His shoulder feels great.  He said he’s going through normal things he has before in spring training.  We’re probably a week away from seeing where he’s actually going to be when this thing starts.”

Since Hamels has yet to throw a simulated game or throw to live hitters, he’ll have less than a week before the Braves’ July 24th opener to get properly ramped up, going by Snitker’s “probably a week away” assessment.  Hamels could be pushed back to the fifth starter’s role to give him more time to prepare, and he wouldn’t have to pitch for very long, as the club is planning to use a piggyback strategy with all of its rotation — the starter would throw around three innings before being replaced by a reliever — in the season’s early days.  However, even if Hamels’ workload was limited, the team might also decide that it isn’t worth having him on the mound at all until he is is completely ready, so as to avoid further injury.

Ironically, Hamels was on pace to miss the original Opening Day, as shoulder issues kept him out of Spring Training prior to the league shutdown.  He had recovered from those problems and was expected to be ready to go for the second opener prior to this latest setback.  Hamels signed a one-year, $18MM deal with the Braves over the offseason to add some veteran experience and potential upside to a young Atlanta rotation.  With Sean Newcomb looking like the favorite to win the normal fifth starter spot, Josh Tomlin or Kyle Wright look like the top choices to fill in for Hamels if he does miss time at the start of the season.

Left-hander Cole Hamels, one of the Braves’ key offseason acquisitions, dealt with shoulder irritation during the first version of spring training a few months ago. If not for the coronavirus forcing camp to shut down, and if the regular season would have started on schedule, Hamels would not have been ready to open 2020 in the Braves’ rotation. That’s no longer the case, though. With the season now on track to open in a month, Hamels should be part of Atlanta’s starting staff from the get-go, general manager Alex Anthopoulos said Wednesday (via Gabe Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

The Braves inked Hamels to a one-year, $18MM contract over the winter in the hopes that he’d help fill the voids left by Dallas Keuchel and Julio Teheran, capable innings eaters who departed in free agency. Hamels, 36, does have a long and successful track record as a workhorse in his own right, having tossed at least 200 innings in eight different seasons. However, injuries slowed Hamels last year as a member of the Cubs, with whom he amassed 141 2/3 frames (the second-lowest figure of his career) and logged a 3.81 ERA/4.09 FIP with 9.08 K/9 and 3.56 BB/9.

While Hamels no longer seems to be the front-end starter he was during his prime, there’s nothing to suggest he won’t give the reigning NL East champions respectable production this year. Barring any injuries during spring training 2.0, he’ll join Mike Soroka, Max Fried and Mike Foltynewicz as locks in Atlanta’s staff. The fifth spot’s less certain, though Felix Hernandez, Kyle Wright and Sean Newcomb were all candidates for the role before the game’s abrupt halt.

Regardless of how the Braves’ season-opening rotation looks, Anthopoulos stated that he expects they’ll be conservative with their starters’ workloads for at least a couple turns, per Burns. That could mean appearances ranging from two to four innings at the outset of the campaign.

It has now been nearly three weeks since news emerged that Braves starter Cole Hamels wouldn’t be ready to report to Spring Training on time due to some shoulder irritation. There’s still no timeline in place for him to get back to action, manager Brian Snitker said today, as David O’Brien of The Athletic reports (Twitter links).

There is some evidence of progress, it seems, but the update largely confirms that the Atlanta organization is going to endure a fairly lengthy stretch without the veteran southpaw. A recent medical exam — held, as promised, three weeks after the initial concern arose — revealed that Hamels’s shoulder has improved but that he’s still not ready to resume throwing.

There really isn’t much to go off of here in assessing the situation. The Braves haven’t given much indication of just what Hamels is dealing with, so there’s no context to work with. It isn’t clear when Hamels will go in for another check-up, either. Presumably, he won’t pick up a ball until he receives clearance.

What is clear is that Hamels is certain to miss the start of the season — and not just the minimum 15 days. (Yes, the 15-day IL is back for pitchers.) Even if Hamels is cleared to throw in a week’s time and doesn’t experience further issues, he’d be about a month behind the regular ramp-up schedule and wouldn’t have a chance to tune up in Spring Training competition.

The Braves can certainly weather the loss of Hamels. Sean Newcomb and Felix Hernandez are likely to round out the rotation to open the season, but there are a host of interesting young arms available to call upon depending upon how things progress. Snitker said today that Kyle Wright, Bryse Wilson, and perhaps Touki Toussaint could still challenge for roles. Still, it’s obviously disappointing to lose the team’s major offseason rotation addition — particularly since Hamels was signed in large part to provide reliable innings.

Recently inked Braves lefty Cole Hamels isn’t reporting to camp just yet, the team informed reporters including David O’Brien of The Athletic (Twitter links). He’ll remain at home for a stretch after experiencing shoulder irritation this winter.

The news isn’t drastic just yet, but it’s certainly not what you hope to hear at this stage of the pre-season. Hamels is set to be reevaluated in three weeks’ time, which means he’ll almost certainly miss most or all of Spring Training. While manager Brian Snitker is expressing optimism, it’s hard to imagine that Hamels won’t be delayed at the start of the season.

For the Braves, the hope will be that this is just an early-season blip. The club had inked Hamels to a one-year, $18MM deal with the expectation that the durable veteran would anchor the rotation at a solid value, without any long-term entanglements.

Hamels has been one of the game’s most reliable arms over his 14 seasons in the majors. The 36-year-old missed a handful of outings last year (27 starts) and was sidelined for a bit in 2017 (24 starts), but has otherwise taken the ball more than thirty times in ten of the past dozen campaigns.

At this point, it doesn’t seem there’s reason for the Braves to go scrambling for fill-in options. The newfound concern could help explain why the club just added Josh Tomlin, a potential swingman, to a group of non-roster invitees that already includes Felix Hernandez. There are plenty of younger pitchers who could be candidates to fill in for a few early-season starts as well, though obviously the calculus could change if Hamels doesn’t respond as hoped to rest and treatment.