Latest news with #TommyJohnSurgery
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Yankees encouraged to trade for elite White Sox pitcher at the trade deadline
The 2025 season has not been ideal so far for the New York Yankees. The 2025 team has been devastated by injuries for much of the year and now finds itself at 58-49 and clinging to a Wild Card spot. One of the latest health setbacks for this roster has been to reliable starting pitcher Clarke Schmidt, who tore his ulnar collateral ligament and needed Tommy John surgery. While Max Fried and Carlos Rodon are an elite one-two punch in the starting rotation, this unit is painfully thin now. Bleacher Report's Joel Reuter, therefore, is suggesting that the Yankees make a bold deal to become an American League contender again, but it's not going to come without a cost. Reuter believes New York needs to trade one of their top prospects, Everson Pereira, for Chicago White Sox starter Adrian Houser, explaining why the 32-year-old right-hander would be an ideal fit on the Yankees' roster. 'With a 4-8 record in their last 12 games and an injury to superstar Aaron Judge, there have been some rumblings that the Yankees might opt for 'soft buying' rather than aggressively pursuing upgrades beyond the moves they've already made to acquire Ryan McMahon and Amed Rosario. Houser has been a pleasant surprise for the White Sox with a 2.10 ERA and 1.22 WHIP in 68.2 innings over 11 starts, and playing on a one-year deal, he is among the most obvious trade chips in baseball. Adding him would help ease the loss of Clarke Schmidt and shore up the back end of the rotation.' The pushback on adding a player like Houser is that this season has been an outlier for him with the White Sox. It's never easy playing for Major League Baseball's most storied franchise, and plenty of elite pitchers have not been able to handle the pressure in the Bronx. Follow The Sporting News on WhatsApp Still, considering that there really isn't a path for Everson Pereira to play on this roster, a deal like this could be worth it. A playoff rotation of Max Friend, Carlos Rodon, an in-form Luis Gil, and Adrian Houser is on paper intimidating. Combine that unit with one of the best offenses in the league, and the Yankees could be a force to be reckoned with once again in October. More MLB:
New York Times
2 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Nationals top pitching prospect Travis Sykora to have Tommy John surgery
Washington Nationals' right-handed pitching prospect Travis Sykora will undergo Tommy John surgery to repair a torn right UCL, the team announced on Monday. Sykora ranked as the No. 51 prospect in The Athletic's Keith Law's recently released top-60 MLB prospects list and is the team's No. 2 prospect behind 2025 No. 1 pick Eli Willits. Advertisement Sykora, 21, was a third-round pick in 2023 out of Round Rock High School in Texas. The 6-foot-6 right-hander had a 2.33 ERA in 85 innings last season, with 129 strikeouts for Low-A Fredericksburg. He had hip surgery after the season and began this year rehabbing before making his season debut May 3 in the Rookie-level Florida Complex League. After two starts there and two starts with Fredericksburg, he jumped up to High A, where he dominated in 29 2/3 innings, posting a 1.21 ERA, with 47 strikeouts and only eight walks. He was promoted to Double A on June 29 but left his second start with Harrisburg after only one inning with what was initially termed right triceps soreness. Sykora missed the Futures Game and an MRI later revealed the torn UCL. Law talked about Sykora's potential and his injury risk in the top-60 write-up: 'Sykora's stuff rivals the top pitchers on this list, as he's 95-98 with a plus splitter and a solid-average slider already. But his delivery is high-effort and his arm is very late, neither of which is great for durability. He came out of his last start on July 5 with lower right triceps soreness, with the hope that he'll be back fairly soon,' he wrote. 'He'd gotten off to a tremendous start, dominating High A after his return from offseason hip labrum surgery with 32 strikeouts and just two walks in 18 innings in four outings, and then walked 12 in 16 1/3 innings in his next four outings, including the one he left after an inning. It's No. 2 starter stuff, and he showed that kind of command and control earlier this season before the latest injury. I do have doubts about him holding up, given the whole operation.' The injury is a big blow for a Nationals' organization that has a strong core of position players at or near the big leagues but is lacking top-shelf pitching behind ace MacKenzie Gore. It's been a disappointing season for a club that was hoping to take a step forward this year but instead is in last place in the National League East with a 43-62 record. The Nationals recently fired long-time president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez.
New York Times
2 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Cardinals pitching prospect Tekoah Roby undergoes Tommy John, will likely miss 2026 season
ST. LOUIS — St. Louis Cardinals pitching prospect Tekoah Roby underwent Tommy John surgery and will likely not pitch until 2027, multiple team sources told The Athletic on Monday. Roby, 23, was placed on the injured list on July 14 and underewent the procedure on Friday. He entered the season ranked as the Cardinals' seventh-best prospect on the year list assembled by The Athletic's Keith Law. Advertisement Roby was promoted to Triple-A Memphis in June after posting a 2.49 ERA over 10 starts in Double A. He collected 87 strikeouts over 78 1/3 innings overall and was building a strong case for consideration in next year's major-league rotation. But injury befell the right-hander once more. Roby's availability has been limited since the Cardinals acquired him, along with infielder Thomas Saggese, in a 2023 trade that sent Jordan Montgomery and Chris Stratton to the Texas Rangers. He logged 58 1/3 innings in 2023, plus 13 2/3 in the Arizona Fall League, and 38 1/3 in 2024 due to various stints on the IL. RHP Tekoah Roby (AAA) tossed 5.2 scoreless innings in the @memphisredbirds 8-1 win vs. Charlotte last night, striking out 6 batters while only allowing one walk. Over his last 4 starts, Roby is 3-1 with a 0.86 ERA and 1.10 WHIP. — Cardinals Player Development (@CardsPlayerDev) July 11, 2025 The Cardinals overhauled their player development this offseason, and Roby was of the first big beneficiaries. He was in the midst of his best season thanks to a retooled pitch mix. Roby was hurt and/or ineffective all of last year due to elbow trouble — a harbinger of what just happened — but the Cardinals turned him around by giving him a two-seamer, moving him from a straight change to a kick-change, and helping him tweak his slider to make it harder and give it some more horizontal movement. The slider became a real weapon for him to pair with the plus curveball, and the two-seamer helped reduce his hard-contact rates, since the four-seamer does tend to get hit hard despite plus velocity. He was so close to major-league ready with mid-rotation upside that Law considered him for his midseason top 60 ranking until learning he might be about to go under the knife. Advertisement Roby becomes the Cardinals' third pitching prospect to undergo Tommy John surgery this year. Cooper Hjerpe, the organization's first-round draftee in 2022, had it in April and 13th-ranked Sem Robberse in May. Starting pitching depth remains a top concern for the Cardinals, who have struggled to develop arms in their upper minor-league levels. Losing Roby is another significant blow for an organization already lacking viable rotation options. (Photo of Roby in spring training: Rich Storry / Getty Images)
Reuters
21-07-2025
- Sport
- Reuters
Eury Perez looks to continue stellar July as Marlins host Padres
July 21 - Not all elbow operations are created equally. Take, for example, Miami Marlins right-hander Eury Perez, who is set to start on Monday night against the visiting San Diego Padres. The 22-year-old native of the Dominican Republic has made an amazing recovery from Tommy John surgery, posting a 3-2 record with a 3.18 ERA this year. In three July starts, Perez is 3-0 with a 0.50 ERA, meaning he is getting better as the season progresses. Meanwhile, Perez's teammate and fellow Dominican, Sandy Alcantara, has struggled after his elbow surgery. The 2022 National League Cy Young Award winner is 4-9 with a 7.14 ERA this year. Perez had his surgery in April of 2024 and he was activated this year on June 9. That's a 14-month recovery. Alcantara, 29, had his surgery in October of 2023 and returned to the mound this year on March 27. That's a 17-month recovery. So, despite having a recovery time that is three months shorter than that of Alcantara, Perez is having far and away the better results of the two. But that hasn't stopped Alcantara from mentoring Perez, who has never faced the Padres. As for the Marlins overall, they are 21-11 over their past 32 games following Sunday's loss to the Kansas City Royals that snapped Miami's four-game win streak. "Trying to win series," Marlins rookie manager Clayton McCullough said of the Marlins' mindset on Sunday. "That's what we're going to continue to focus on ... and not get too far ahead of ourselves." On the other side on Monday will be the Padres, who have won three straight three-game series. They also split a four-game series during that span. On Sunday, the Padres routed the host Washington Nationals 8-1 as Xander Bogaerts hit a first-inning grand slam. San Diego's Manny Machado also hit a grand slam in Friday's 7-2 win over Washington. "We could be 'Slam Diego' again," Padres manager Mike Shildt joked, referring to the nickname given to the team after they hit a grand slam in a record four straight games in 2020. "I'm fine with it." The Padres, who would be an NL wild-card playoff team if the season ended on Sunday, are expected to pitch right-hander Randy Vasquez (3-4, 3.80 ERA) to open their series in Miami. Vasquez, a 26-year-old native of the Dominican Republic, is 1-0 with a 4.50 ERA in two career games (one start) against the Marlins. He made his major league debut in 2023 with the New York Yankees and was part of the December 2023 trade that sent Juan Soto and Trent Grisham from San Diego to New York. He is 9-13 with a 4.10 ERA in 50 appearances (44 starts) in his career. As for San Diego's key players on offense this year, two of them have ties to Miami. Machado, who has 18 homers, 60 RBIs and an .843 OPS in 99 games this year, is a Miami native. And reigning three-time batting champion Luis Arraez won the second of those titles while playing for the Marlins. He also began 2024 in Miami before a May trade to San Diego. So far this season, however, he is hitting just .284, 34 points below his career average. --Field Level Media
Yahoo
20-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Is there a way to mitigate pitching injuries? The Rays (and Dodgers) may shed some light
Tommy John surgery was never supposed to go this far. It was once a cross-your-fingers-and-pray fix for a career-ending injury. Now, MLB teams cycle through as many as 40-plus pitchers a year, knowing that surgery is a phone call away. Just ask John himself, a left-hander who never threw all that hard, only reaching the mid-80s on his sinking fastball. The soft-throwing lefty was having his best year as a Dodgers starting pitcher in 1974. He didn't have the strikeout acumen of teammate Andy Messersmith, or the ace makeup of future Hall of Famer Don Sutton. But what John did have was consistency. John consistently pitched late into games, and sent opposing hitters back to the dugout without reaching first base. Read more: Pitching injuries continue to be an issue in MLB. How it's impacting pitchers at all levels 'The game of baseball is 27 outs,' said John, now 82. 'It wasn't about throwing hard. It's, how do I get you out?' He was the first to go under the knife. The first to lead pitchers through a dangerous cycle of throwing as hard as possible, knowing the safeguard is surgery. 'I threw one pitch and boom, the ligament exploded,' John said. John's arm injury left a sensation akin to what an amputee feels after losing a limb. In 1978, he told Sports Illustrated, 'It felt as if I had left my arm someplace else.' He didn't feel pain. He felt loss. His left arm was his career. It was the direct cause for his toeing the Dodger Stadium mound in the first place. Then, John went on to pitch another 15 years in MLB. It's the same loss that Hall of Fame Dodgers left-hander Sandy Koufax felt when he retired at age 30 after numerous arm injuries, which could have likely been fixed if current elbow and shoulder surgeries had existed in 1966. It's the same loss that Texas Rangers team physician Keith Meister sees walking daily into his office. Today, Meister can view MRI scans of elbow tears and can tell pitchers where and how they hold the baseball. The tear patterns are emblematic of the pitches being thrown in the first place. The solution — Tommy John surgery, a once-revolutionary elbow operation — replaces a torn or partially damaged ulnar collateral ligament in the elbow with a tendon from somewhere else in the body. The operation is no quick fix. It requires a 13- to 14-month recovery period, although Meister said some pitchers may require just 12 months — and some up to 18. Meister, who is currently tallying data and researching the issue, wants to be part of the change. Midway through an October phone interview, he bluntly stopped in his tracks and asked a question. 'What is the average length of a major-league career for a major-league pitcher?' he said. Meister explained that the average career for an MLB pitcher is just 2.6 years. Along with numerous other interviewees, he compared the epidemic to another sport's longevity problem: the National Football League running back. 'People say to me, 'Well, that sounds like a running back in football,'' Meister said. 'Think about potentially the money that gets saved with not having to even get to arbitration, as long as organizations feel like they can just recycle and, you know, next man up, right?' Financial ramifications play close to home between pitchers and running backs as well. Lower durability and impact have led to decreasing running-back salaries. If pitchers continue to have shorter careers, as Meister puts it, MLB franchises might be happy to cycle through minimum-salary pitchers instead of shelling out large salaries for players who remain on the injured list rather than in the bullpen. The Dodgers and the Tampa Bay Rays have shuffled through pitchers at league extremes over the last five years. In the modern era — since 1901 — only the Rays and Dodgers have used more than 38 pitchers in a season three times each. Tampa used 40-plus pitchers each year from 2021 to 2023. Last year, the Dodgers used 40 pitchers. Only the Miami Marlins tasked more with 45. The Dodgers have already used 35 pitchers this season, second-most in baseball. The Rays tallied just 30 in 2024 and have dispatched just 23 on the mound so far this season. What gives? Meister says the Rays may have changed their pitcher philosophy. Early proponents of sweepers and other high-movement pitches, the Rays now rank near the bottom of the league (29th with just 284 thrown) in sweeper usage entering Saturday's action, according to Baseball Savant. Two years ago, the Rays threw the seventh most. Tampa is rising to the top of MLB in two-seam fastball usage, Meister said, a pitch he says creates potentially much less stress on the elbow. Their starting pitchers are second in baseball in the number of innings, and they've used just six starting pitchers all season. 'It's equated to endurance for their pitchers, because you know why? They're healthy, they're able to pitch, they're able to post and they're able to go deeper into games,' Meister said. 'Maybe teams will see this and they'll be like, 'Wait a minute, look what these guys won with. Look how they won. We don't need to do all this crap anymore.'' The Dodgers, on the other hand, rank ninth in sweeper usage (1,280 thrown through Friday) and have used 16 starting pitchers (14 in traditional starting roles). Meanwhile, their starting pitchers have compiled the fewest innings in MLB. Rob Hill, the Dodgers' director of pitching, began his career at Driveline Baseball. The Dodgers hired him in 2020. Since then, the franchise has churned out top pitching prospect after top pitching prospect, many of whom throw devastating sweepers and change-ups. Read more: Hernández: Secret to Yoshinobu Yamamoto's 2025 success? His hero-like effort in NLDS Game 5 As of Saturday, the Dodgers have 10 pitchers on the injured list, six of whom underwent an elbow or shoulder operation — and since 2021, the team leads MLB in injury list stints for pitchers. 'There are only probably two teams in baseball that can just sit there and say, 'Well, if I get 15 to 20 starts out of my starting pitchers, it doesn't matter, because I'll replace them with somebody else I can buy,'' Meister said. 'That's the Yankees and the Dodgers.' He continued: 'Everybody else, they've got to figure out, wait a minute, this isn't working, and we need to preserve our commodity, our pitchers.' Outside of organizational strategy changes, like the Rays have made, Meister has expressed rule changes to MLB. He's suggested rethinking how the foul ball works or toying with the pitch clock to give a slightly longer break to pitchers. He said pitchers don't get a break on the field the same way hitters do in the batter's box. 'Part of the problem here is that a hitter has an ability to step out of the box and take a timeout,' Meister said. 'He has to go cover a foul ball and run over to first base and run back to the mound. He should have an opportunity take a break and take a blow.' Meister hopes to discuss reintroducing 'tack' — a banned sticky substance that helps a pitcher's grip on the ball — to the rulebook, something that pitchers such as Max Scherzer and Tyler Glasnow have called a factor in injuries. Meister has fellow leading experts on his side too. 'Myself and Dr. [Neal] ElAttrache are very good friends, and we talk at length about this,' said Meister. Meister explained that the lack of stickiness on the baseball causes pitchers to squeeze the ball as hard as possible. The 'death grip on the ball,' Meister said, causes the muscles on the inner side of the elbow to contract in the arm and then extend when the ball is released. The extension of the inner elbow muscles is called an eccentric load, which can create injury patterns. The harder the grip, the more violent the eccentric load becomes when a sweeper pitch, for example, is thrown, he said. 'Just let guys use a little bit of pine tar on their fingertips,' Meister said, adding that the pitchers already have to adjust to an inconsistent baseball, one that changes from season to season. 'Not, put it on the baseball, not glob the baseball with it, but put a little pine tar on their fingertips and give them a little better adherence to the baseball.' According to the New Yorker, MLB is exploring heavier or larger baseballs to slow pitchers' arm movements, potentially reducing strain on the UCL during maximum-effort pitches. Read more: Four major questions the Dodgers face in the second half of the season Meister, however, said there does not seem to be a sense of urgency to fix the game, with a years-long process to make any fixes. In short, Meister is ready to try anything. For a man who has made a career off baseball players nervously sitting in his office waiting room, awaiting news that could alter their careers forever, Meister wants MLB to help him stop players from ever scheduling that first appointment. 'To me, it's not about the surgery any more as much as it is, what can we do to prevent, and what can we do to alter, the approach that the game now takes?' Meister said. 'It's very, very dangerous.' Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
