Injury Updates: Hamels, Soler, Rays, Ramirez, Yankees
Cole Hamels will throw a live batting practice session on Sunday, as the injury-plagued southpaw might yet still have a chance to factor into the 2020 season. Braves manager Brian Snitker told MLB.com’s Mark Bowman and other reporters that “We’re just looking to get through a couple live BPs and see how he is,” perhaps wisely not setting even a speculative timeline given that Hamels battled shoulder issues during Spring Training and is currently on the 45-day injured list recovering from left triceps tendinitis. Bowman speculates that Hamels likely won’t start pitching in simulated games until next weekend at the earliest, so the left-hander might not be able to join the Braves until roughly the last 7-10 days of the regular season.
It makes Hamels into a total wild card for Atlanta’s playoff drive, though with the club looking to have a good shot at the postseason, it isn’t out of the question that Hamels could be part of a playoff roster. Having a former World Series MVP coming out of the bullpen would be quite an interesting wrinkle for Atlanta, though Hamels has only worked as a reliever twice in his 439 career games in the regular season and postseason.
Some more injury situations from around baseball…
- Jorge Soler left tonight’s game due to what the Royals described as right oblique soreness. This is the second time in four days that Soler has exited a game due to such an injury, and perhaps on a related note, Soler is hitless over his last eight plate appearances. Soler has been a few steps behind his big 2019 numbers this season, though he is still hitting a solid .237/.333/.459 with eight homers over 159 PA.
- The Rays have been plagued by pitching injuries this season, and two more hurlers ran into potential issues on Saturday. Newly-acquired southpaw Cody Reed left tonight’s game during the eighth inning with an injury to his pinkie, though manager Kevin Cash told MLB.com’s Jose Toribio (Twitter links) that the problem doesn’t appear to be serious. The news isn’t as good for left-hander Shane McClanahan, as the prospect will miss around two weeks after suffering a hyper-extended left knee during a fielding play at the Rays’ alternate training site. The 31st overall pick of the 2018 draft, McClanahan got some top-100 prospect attention from Baseball Prospectus and Baseball American prior to the season, and there was some speculation Tampa Bay might give the 23-year-old his first taste of big league action sometime in September.
- Marlins outfielder Harold Ramirez had to be carted off the field tonight after suffering what the club described as a left hamstring strain. Ramirez suffered the injury while trying to beat out a grounder during the fifth inning of Miami’s 7-3 win over Tampa Bay. Playing in just his third game of the season, Ramirez was only activated off the injured list today, as he was one of the many Marlins players sidelined after positive COVID-19 tests.
- Yankees manager Aaron Boone provided reporters (including ESPN’s Marly Rivera) with updates on injured sluggers Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge, saying that Judge will increase his baseball-activity work on Monday. Stanton, who Boone feels is “a little ahead of Judge” in terms of readiness, has already been taking part in baseball activities and is now running at 80 percent as he continues his recovery from a hamstring strain.
Injury Notes: Judge, LeMahieu, Yankees, White, Puk, Bowden
The latest on multiple injury situations throughout the game…
- Aaron Judge‘s most recent calf injury “seems like a recurrence of what he had before,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said during an interview with WFAN (hat tip to MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch). Judge re-injured his calf in his first game back from a minimum 10-day stint on the injured list, and Boone suggested that this latest issue “does seem minor in nature again, but certainly something that could turn into an IL stint again.”
- While Judge is a question mark, the Yankees could potentially have DJ LeMahieu back for this weekend’s series against the Mets. Boone said that LeMahieu took batting practice today at Yankee Stadium and will now report to the club’s alternate training site. Assuming the second baseman is indeed able to return against the Mets, it would represent a slightly early return from the initial 2-to-3 week timeline projected after LeMahieu was initially placed on the injured list with a thumb sprain on August 16. In other Yankees injury news, Boone said Giancarlo Stanton (hamstring) also took on-field batting practice today, and that Gleyber Torres (quad/hamstring) is making good progress.
- Evan White left during the third inning of the Mariners‘ 10-7 loss to the Padres due to what the M’s termed as right shoulder discomfort. After the game, Seattle manager Scott Servais told the Seattle Times’ Ryan Divish and other reporters that White initially suffered the injury while diving for a ball in Tuesday’s game and was trying to play through the pain. The rookie first baseman entered today’s game with only a .168/.238/.379 slash line through his first 105 plate appearances in the big leagues, though White had begun to heat up over the last week.
- The next step in A.J. Puk‘s rehab will take place Friday, as Athletics manager Bob Melvin told the San Francisco Chroncile’s Susan Slusser and other reporters that Puk will throw 30 pitches over two simulated innings against live batters. This will be the second time that Puk has faced actual hitters during his recovery from shoulder woes that have plagued him since Spring Training. There is still no clear timetable on when Puk could make his return to the A’s, though the club has already said that he will be deployed as a reliever in 2020.
- Rockies pitching prospect Ben Bowden isn’t likely to make his MLB debut this season, manager Bud Black told The Athletic’s Nick Groke and other reporters. Bowden suffered another injury he was already recovering from a back problem that sidelined him during Spring Training. A second-round pick out of Vanderbilt in the 2016 draft, Bowden didn’t have a great performance in the hitter-friendly environment of Triple-A Colorado Springs in 2019, though the southpaw has a 3.60 ERA, 13.1 K/9, and 3.15 K/BB over 127 1/3 total minor league innings, all as a reliever.
Latest On Giancarlo Stanton
The Yankees got some promising news on sidelined slugger Giancarlo Stanton. The burly outfielder was diagnosed with a relatively mild grade 1 hamstring strain, per Jon Heyman of MLB Network (Twitter link).
With little reason to push Stanton now, the front-running Yanks already placed him on the injured list. He’ll no doubt be sidelined longer than the requisite ten days. But there’s now at least cause for hope that he can make it back to the roster in time to contribute down the stretch and into the postseason.
Stanton, 30, had turned in a resurgent effort at the plate in the early going. After missing the bulk of 2019, he was turning heads with a .293/.453/.585 batting line through 14 games this year. Better still, he had drawn ten walks to go with 11 strikeouts, a marked turnaround from the strikeout concerns that had cropped up since Stanton arrived in New York.
Now it’s back to the trainer’s room for a player who has been no stranger to it. Stanton has had prior hamstring issues, though that wasn’t among the particular problem areas that kept him off the field in 2020.
Yankees Place Giancarlo Stanton On 10-Day Injured List
The Yankees have placed Giancarlo Stanton on their 10-day injured list due to a left hamstring strain, the team announced. Thairo Estrada has been recalled to take Stanton’s place on the active roster.
Stanton was removed from last night’s 5-3 loss to the Rays, as manager Aaron Boone told reporters (including MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch) that the slugger suffered the injury while running the bases in the fourth inning. Stanton was was able to remain on the field and even advance to both third and home later in the inning to score a run, though Mike Ford replaced Stanton during the next DH at-bat in the sixth inning.
Yet another trip to the IL is ominous news for Stanton and Yankees fans in the wake of the slugger’s oft-injured status over the last two seasons, and several leg-related issues (knee, quad, calf) were among Stanton’s long list of maladies. Stanton was limited to only 18 games in 2019 and he would have missed time at the start of a normally-scheduled 2020 season had the league not been shut down.
Though the first 14 games of the season, Stanton seemed to be in prime form, hitting .293/.453/.585 with three homers over his first 54 plate appearances. Albeit in a small sample size, this performance continues to indicate that Stanton is one of the sport’s most impactful bats when healthy, though remaining on the field is becoming an ever-increasing difficulty.
The Yankees played Stanton exclusively as a designated hitter this season in order to keep him as fresh as possible, and with the position now open, the club could cycle several players through DH duty. Of those on the active roster, Ford and Mike Tauchman are the likeliest candidates for more playing time, plus Miguel Andujar and Clint Frazier loom as potential call-ups from the minor league camp.
Giancarlo Stanton Aiming To Play On Opening Day
After battling injuries for the better part of two years, Giancarlo Stanton feels he is on pace to be in the Yankees’ lineup on Opening Day. Stanton suffered a calf injury back during Spring Training that would have landed him on the injured list had the season opened as scheduled, though “the progress back has been good,” Stanton told MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch and other reporters.
“I’m good again and getting everything I need to be ready….I’ve been [taking fly balls] in batting practice. It’s better to be in a controlled setting right now, especially while pitchers are trying to get their work in.”
That batting practice work has been Stanton’s only action on the grass during Summer Camp, as he hasn’t played in the field during intrasquad games. The Yankees intend to use Stanton only as a DH when the season begins, and then potentially get him back to outfield work depending on his health.
Biceps and knee injuries limited Stanton to just 18 games and 72 plate appearances in 2019, plus 18 more PA over five of New York’s postseason games. While Stanton had been rather notoriously injury-plagued earlier in his career, it seemed like had turned a corner after playing in 317 of a possible 324 games for the Marlins and Yankees in 2017-18. The peak, of course, was Stanton’s 59-homer performance that won him the 2017 NL MVP Award, though his first full season in the Bronx was also very productive, as Stanton slugged 38 homers and slashed .266/.343/.509 over a career-high 705 PA in 2018. Even last year, Stanton was dangerous when he was in the lineup, posting an .894 OPS over his 72 PA.
Cashman: Yankees “Optimistic” Judge Will Be Ready For Opening Day
After months of uncertainty surrounding the status of Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, general manager Brian Cashman said on a conference call today that the team is optimistic he’ll be ready for the rescheduled Opening Day (Twitter links via The Athletic’s Lindsey Adler). The Yankees are also optimistic that Giancarlo Stanton will be ready to open the year in the DH slot. Lefty James Paxton is expected to be ready to go as well, and it’s possible that center fielder Aaron Hicks could be game-ready come Opening Day as well.
Judge’s entire injury saga has been bizarrely vague, but it seems an end is at last in sight. It took the club several weeks early in camp to diagnose a stress fracture in his rib, and only two weeks later did the team reveal that Judge was also found to have a collapsed lung. Near the end of March, Boone revealed that Judge’s injuries may have dated all the way back to last September. Even throughout the shutdown, updates on Judge lacked specific timelines and frequently pointed to additional imaging as the next step.
Stanton sustained a calf injury back in Spring Training, and Cashman indicated today that he’s quite specifically referencing a DH-only role with regard to the former NL MVP’s Opening Day readiness. The YES Network’s Jack Curry tweets that the club wants to evaluate Stanton in camp before making any declaration about his ability to play in the outfield.
Paxton is more than four months removed from back surgery and could be game-ready right now, according to Cashman. There’s a bit less certainty regarding Hicks, who is eight months out from last year’s Tommy John surgery. Hicks has already proclaimed himself ready to go for the season opener, though the organization is understandably taking a bit more reserved approach and will use “Summer Camp” (as the league has now termed it) to make its own evaluation.
Latest On Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton
Had the regular season started when it was supposed to in late March, the Yankees would have had to go without the face of their franchise, right fielder Aaron Judge, for a lengthy period of time. A right rib fracture and a punctured lung slowed Judge during the first version of spring training this year, but the slugger now has a chance to be in the Yankees’ season-opening lineup in a month, Erik Boland of Newsday reports.
Judge, whose injury problems first cropped up in February, has finally returned to hitting off a tee, per Boland. While that doesn’t mean he’ll be ready for Game 1 of the Yankees’ season, it’s still a a positive development for the club, which would have opened a normal season without three of its best outfield options in Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Hicks. Each player was shelved with injuries during the spring, though we now know Hicks expects to return from his October 2019 Tommy John procedure once the season starts.
Like Hicks, Stanton – who dealt with a calf strain during the spring – is a near certainty right now to be part of New York’s opener, according to Boland. Injuries have been a major problem dating back to last season for Stanton, whose second year as a Yankee consisted of a mere 18 games.
Three Teams Who’ve Yet To Win Their Division
It is somewhat amazing that there are three National League teams – one each for the West, East, and Central – that have yet to win their division.
Make no mistake, the American League has its share of heartbreak. The Mariners have yet to return to the playoffs after their 116-win season in 2001. The Rangers are far away as ever from capturing their first World Series after the so-close-you-can-taste-it near-misses of 2010 and 2011. Fans of the Astros and Red Sox have suffered different brands of heartbreak after the legitimacy of their recent winners was called into question.
But in the National League, the Rockies, Marlins, and Pirates have never won their respective divisions.
Granted, the Pirates were crowned champs of the National League East 9 times, including a three-peat for Jim Leyland’s clubs from 1990 to 1992 and a title-winner way back in 1979 – but since they moved to the NL Central in 1994: goose eggs. That’s a 26-year-run without a divisional crown, a mark of futility eclipsed only by the Rockies and Marlins. Colorado and Florida both entered the league in 1993, and neither has landed the top spot in their division in the 27 seasons since.
Back in the junior circuit, every team in the AL East has won since 2010 (Tampa Bay). In the Central, the White Sox have the longest drought (11 seasons), going back to their first-place finish in 2008. Everyone in the AL West has taken their turn at the top since 2012 – except the Mariners, of course, who won the division in 2001 and 1997.
But each division in the National League has its slow-and-steady competitor, so let’s take a quick look at each.
Colorado Rockies
Of these three clubs, the Rockies’ reputation took the fewest hits over the last 27 years. The Blake Street Bombers hold a particular place in baseball lore, and there’s a general sense of “unfortunate circumstances” around the Rox because of the thin air in Colorado. The impossibility of housing a winning pitching staff at Coors Field is baseball cliche now, but that doesn’t make the challenge any less potent.
Here’s what I wrote of Colorado in their Offseason In Review post back in March: “Colorado pitching, after all, has proven one of the more frustrating team-building challenges in the major leagues. The Sisyphean task of constructing even a league-average pitching staff at Coors Field persists year-after-year. Over the course of their 27-season history, the Rockies posted a league-average or better team ERA just three times (2010, 2009, 2007). In 2010, Jim Tracy’s 83-win squad finished with an exactly-league-average ERA, but those other two seasons — 2009, 2007 — happen to be two of the only three seasons in which the Rockies won 90 games in their history.”
Adding to the task at hand for Colorado, there’s at least a possibility that ownership believes this team is better than it is. They lost 91 games last year and have exhibited zero financial flexibility. If they end up losing close to 90 games again (or the equivalent in whatever kind of season is played in 2020), then the Rockies are still probably in the decline phase, not yet having rebooted into a full-blown rebuild. Rebuilds, of course, are time-intensive when done right, and very time-intensive when rushed.
The Rockies have made the postseason a handful of times, and they won the pennant in 2007, but they’re caught in no-man’s-land now. The Dodgers have won the division 7 years running, and Walker Buehler, Cody Bellinger, and company have plenty left in the tank. The Padres’ stable of young arms makes them one of the more intriguing up-and-coming teams in the league, and the Diamondbacks continue to impress with their ability to retool on the fly. After coming within a play-in game of taking the crown from the Dodgers in 2018, the Rockies might have missed their best shot.
Miami Marlins
The Marlins entered the league at a tough time to be a member of the NL East. The Atlanta Braves held a hammerlock on the division, taking the crown every season from 1995 until 2005 (they were in the NL West before that). To their credit, the Marlins made themselves into a competitive squad pretty quick, making the playoffs as a wild card in 1997, just their fifth season of existence. The organization made its name the year after, however, in selling off the pieces of their World Series winner and cratering into a 108-loss squad. After that horrid 1998 season, it took the Marlins five more years to get back to the playoffs again, at which point it was second-verse-same-as-the-first. They didn’t sink quite so fast or quite so far the second time around, but they also haven’t recovered (no playoff appearances since 2003).
That said, the Marlins have begun to see the light from their decade-plus in limbo. MLBTR’s own Mark Polishuk wrapped up the Marlins offseason back in March with this: “It’s a sign of progress, however, that the scorched-earth phase of the rebuild seems to be over. Villar, Kintzler, or other veterans on short-term deals could well end up being moved at the trade deadline, but it doesn’t seem like younger talent is on the move…Miami seems ready to find out if the young players it already has in the fold could end up being part of that next Marlins winner, and it will be intriguing to see which of the pitchers and position players take that next step in 2020.”
The current era of Marlins baseball is best known for shepherding the likes of Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, and Marcell Ozuna out of town prior to the 2018 season. But they’re also a unique entrant on this mini-list because they won not just one, but two World Series titles over this span. Derek Jeter now helms the organization, and though they don’t have that face-of-the-franchise type player soaking up their spotlight, they’ve become increasingly competitive. Heading into whichever season of baseball comes next, they’ll have a decent collection of starting pitchers to keep them in games – with a smaller host of position player prospects nearing the majors. Whether they have that franchise-changing talent in the upper ranks is unclear. Business might not yet be booming in Miami, but it’s better.
Pittsburgh Pirates
As stated above, it’s a bit unfair for the Pirates to be lumped in with the expansion clubs from the nineties, as they do have a history of success in the major leagues. They have 9 division crowns, 7 World Series appearances, and 5 World Series banners. But that’s all ancient history.
Since moving to the NL Central in 1994, the Pirates are a firm contender for the most moribund franchise in the sport. The departure of Barry Bonds after the 1992 season put an unfortunate face on their decline – much in the way that Babe Ruth’s departure doomed Boston baseball for so long – but there has been ample time to rebound from those back-to-back game 7 losses to Atlanta in 1991 and 1992.
In the time since the Pirates’ primary distinction is claiming the title for the longest streak of losing seasons in North American sports history. Forget about division titles. The Pirates weren’t able to finish over .500 one time from 1993 to 2012.
Pittsburgh fans finally had something to cheer for in 2013 when Clint Hurdle’s club broke through with 94 wins and a wild card berth. They even won that first playoff game against the division rival Cincinnati Reds and pushed another rival – the Cardinals – to five games in the NLDS. The club followed its star outfield of Andrew McCutchen, Starling Marte, and Gregory Polanco to two more wild card berths in the following two seasons. Unfortunately, they were unable to get more than one playoff game in either of those years.
After finishing over .500 again in 2018, last season brought on a complete reset. Most of the organizations’ management turned over, and the remaining faces of those competitive clubs – Hurdle, Marte – were also sent packing. The organization is now in the hands of GM Ben Cherington, but they’re facing a complete philosophical overhaul. While they have talent, they’re not an easy club to put a timeline on returning to contention. Not until they put together a pitching staff with a more effective (and less pugilistic) philosophy. The division isn’t dominated by one team like the current AL West, but the Cardinals build a winner year after year, and the Cubs and Brewers aren’t far off in terms of their recent consistency.
Looking ahead, a shortened season in 2020 could open the window for a bizarre sort of division champ. All hope is not lost. On the whole, however, I don’t think there are a lot of pundits who would pick any of the Rockies, Marlins, or Pirates to breakthrough next season. Still, it’s bound to happen one day, right? All three teams will work to end their respective droughts, and in the meantime, thank goodness for the wild card.
(Poll link for app users.)
Which fanbase suffered the most over their teams' division title drought?
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Pirates 67% (3,921)
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Marlins 18% (1,064)
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Rockies 15% (859)
Total votes: 5,844
(Poll link for app users.)
Which team will be the first to break through and win their division?
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Rockies 37% (1,952)
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Marlins 33% (1,702)
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Pirates 30% (1,561)
Total votes: 5,215
Latest On Aaron Judge, Other Injured Yankees
May 6: In light of Boone’s comments yesterday, the New York Post’s Dan Martin reports that the club has privately been expecting a June or July recovery date for Judge. The slugger hasn’t experienced any setbacks along the way, per Martin, but it seems the organization has simply anticipated that his recovery process will be a fairly lengthy one.
May 5: Yankees skipper Aaron Boone provided updates on several injured Yankees in an appearance on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM earlier this morning (Twitter link, with audio).
Center fielder Aaron Hicks, on the mend from 2019 Tommy John surgery, is throwing from 90-plus feet and is taking soft toss from both sides of the plate as he continues his rehab. Hicks went under the knife about six and a half months ago and was initially slated for a timeline of eight to ten months. He’s “trending in a really good direction,” per Boone.
The outlook appears even brighter for lefty James Paxton and slugger Giancarlo Stanton. The former is now three months (to the day) removed from back surgery and is expected to be recovered by “mid-May,” per Boone. Paxton has tossed five bullpen sessions already and pitched a simulated game just yesterday. Stanton, meanwhile, is “doing really well and should be good to go whenever we get ready to go back.”
On Aaron Judge, the projection is a bit murkier. He’s slated to undergo another CT scan in “a couple more weeks,” which suggests that the right fielder’s fractured rib has not yet fully healed. Judge’s entire injury scenario has been shrouded in varying degrees of uncertainty. It took the club several weeks early in camp to diagnose the stress fracture in his rib, and only two weeks later did the team reveal that Judge was also found to have a collapsed lung. Near the end of March, Boone revealed that Judge’s injuries may have dated all the way back to last September. It’s been a frustrating saga for Yankees fans, and it seems there’s still no definitive timetable in place for the 28-year-old’s recovery — or at least not one they’re comfortable sharing publicly just yet.
Latest On Giancarlo Stanton, James Paxton
Had the Major League Baseball season started on time, the Yankees would have had to come out of the gates without three of their most important players. Injured outfielders Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton and left-hander James Paxton all would have missed some portion of the campaign, but if this season does get underway, they should be ready from the outset.
We already know about Judge, who’s progressing in his recovery from a rib stress fracture. His fellow slugger Stanton is also on the road back, manager Aaron Boone told Meredith Marakovits of the YES Network (via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com).
“Giancarlo’s doing well,” Boone said. “He’s still reporting in Tampa and going through his rehab. He’s doing really well. When we get ready to go, he should certainly be ready to be back and part of things.”
Stanton suffered a calf injury in the final week of February, rendering him doubtful for a normal Opening Day. It was especially unwelcome in light of Stanton’s abbreviated 2019, when biceps and knee issues limited him to a meager 18 regular-season games. That was Year 2 in a Yankees uniform for Stanton, whom they acquired from the Marlins on the heels of his 2017 NL MVP-winning season and who produced a .266/.343/.509 line with 38 home runs in 705 plate appearances during his only full season as a Yankee. He’s still signed for a guaranteed $244MM through 2027 (including a $10MM buyout for ’28). While the 30-year-old will have an opportunity to opt out of his contract after this season, it seems extremely unlikely he’ll take advantage of that chance even if he does enjoy a healthy and productive 2020.
There are better odds that Paxton has donned Yankees pinstripes for the last time. He’ll be a free agent next winter, after all, and no one knows whether a season will occur in the meantime. Paxton has consistently performed well for the Mariners and Yankees over the past few years, which would make him an appealing free agent, but injuries have been an all-too-common problem along the way. He underwent back surgery in early February and was set to be sidelined into May. But the 31-year-old’s recovery has gone “pretty smoothly,” according to Boone, who added he’s “really encouraged where James is.”
Paxton’s importance to New York’s staff only increased when righty Luis Severino underwent season-ending Tommy John surgery in February. That procedure left Paxton as arguably the Yankees’ top complement to Gerrit Cole, with Masahiro Tanaka, J.A. Happ and Jordan Montgomery also in the mix. Paxton showed well in his first season as a Yankee, averaging better than 95 mph on his fastball and turning in 150 2/3 innings of 3.82 ERA/3.86 FIP ball with 11.11 K/9 and 3.29 BB/9.