Bailey Ober Update from MLB,com

[Game7-91]

Reported from MLB,com today, for Ober recent MRI shows:

"...aponeurotic plate injury involving the interaction between the tendon and bone in his pelvic area. There is no set timetable for his possible return."

The thought occurs Mr Ober may be out indefinitely, or have chronic issues with this.

This , Dobnak, and tragic news for example of Max Meyer having TJ after one start in MLB......how can teams realistically plan anything long-term on pitching staffs when long term injuries are so ubiquitous? 

Hope it gets better, but dang, Bailey , we hardly knew 'ye...

Does Ober's situation create more pressure on FO to land a front-end SP b4 Tuesday evening?

 

[Danchat]

Can we hire a new medical staff or something?

I'm being sarcastic, but how are we ever going to build a pitching pipeline if our no prospect/young pitcher can stay healthy?

[USAFChief]

I am serious: go back to putting innings on these guys in the minors. Like they used to.

I don't know if it'll keep more guys healthy,  but it certainly can't keep LESS guys healthy. And Maybe they can wash out the guys who just can't handle any kind of workload. 

I mean, the entire injury thing is just to the point of ridiculousness.

Current theory clearly isn't working. 

 

[Mike Sixel]

Good luck to him. Sigh. 

[Linus]

I seriously think part of it is taking guys and adding 3-4 mph to their fastball over and above what they naturally threw. Add in increased slider usage which the Twins are famous for and increased injuries shouldn’t be much of a surprise. 

[jorgenswest]

9 minutes ago, Linus said:

I seriously think part of it is taking guys and adding 3-4 mph to their fastball over and above what they naturally threw. Add in increased slider usage which the Twins are famous for and increased injuries shouldn’t be much of a surprise. 

That makes sense. If they don’t add to the fastball and increase slider usage I wonder if they are a major league talent. Is Bailey Ober a major leaguer with an 88 mph fastball?

[tony&rodney]

Pitching is really stressful on your body. Attention should rightfully be on the health of these athletes. I do wonder when there is a return to an emphasis on leg strength gained from running. Certainly some changes, even mild, should be considered in how pitchers build their bodies to pitch. The number of injuries seem overwhelming. Max effort velocity makes hitting difficult and uncomfortable but is often unproductive and leads to injury. Joe Ryan is a decent pitcher and an example of how a pitcher can have some success pitching to spots as opposed to blowing batters away with uber velocity. I had high hopes for Josh Winder with his solid repertoire of pitches complemented by his excellent control. Hopefully he can recover but two years of shoulder issues are not a positive omen of things to come. I was hoping Ober could avoid injuries too ... very frustrating for them .... and us.

[Irishman]

9 hours ago, Danchat said:

Can we hire a new medical staff or something?

I'm being sarcastic, but how are we ever going to build a pitching pipeline if our no prospect/young pitcher can stay healthy?

Agreed.   Too many injured players.   

[Game7-91]

Attention should rightfully be on the health of these athletes. I do wonder when there is a return to an emphasis on leg strength gained from running

Interesting fact: Nolan Ryan's post-game routine after pitching: 60 minutes of intense stationary bike workout. Every time-every game. Said it was to keep his legs strong for 9 inning games.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

39 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

Pitching is really stressful on your body. Attention should rightfully be on the health of these athletes. I do wonder when there is a return to an emphasis on leg strength gained from running. Certainly some changes, even mild, should be considered in how pitchers build their bodies to pitch. The number of injuries seem overwhelming. Max effort velocity makes hitting difficult and uncomfortable but is often unproductive and leads to injury. Joe Ryan is a decent pitcher and an example of how a pitcher can have some success pitching to spots as opposed to blowing batters away with uber velocity. I had high hopes for Josh Winder with his solid repertoire of pitches complemented by his excellent control. Hopefully he can recover but two years of shoulder issues are not a positive omen of things to come. I was hoping Ober could avoid injuries too ... very frustrating for them .... and us.

agreed on the stress pitching puts on a human body. We just weren’t made to throw a ball 100 mph.

Strengthening makes your muscles strong, not your ligaments and tendons more resilient. Strength without adequate resilience seems to be correlated/causal from my very uneducated perspective.

I’m shocked we don’t hear of more yoga, but maybe it’s widely practiced and it’s just not “news”.

My PT swears by yoga, and it has helped a ton with my own struggle with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome and Cubital Tunnel Syndrome (neither hip/leg injuries, but both common pitcher injuries). My PT also has me doing strengthening, but it’s counterbalancing. The prescription for TOS is to stretch out my pecks and strengthen my serratus and trap, along with manually pushing my ribs further apart. No it’s not pitching related, but being treated the same way. 
 

In all things, balance and moderation.

[Rosterman]

And then they eat up non-productiuve service time in the scheme of things (although Dobnak is on a contract). So when they return at full strength, they could be in a soon-to-depart elsewhere stage.

Training throughout the year, great nutrition. You'd think everyone would be in tip-top shape. But when you make perfect "bodies" they have to be maintained with precision.

Suddenly, after starting the season with pitching depth into 9-11 range, the Twins are now left with five (if Smeltzer is coming back). No Balazovic, or Sands, or Henriquez of note. Rodriguez and one of the Sanchez are about it from AAA. 

And the bullpen is pretty...weak...might be the best word.

But, the Twins are still in first place!

[Doctor Gast]

Yes we most definitely need SPing but we also need a closer and long relief, if they really start using long relief would be a big positive. 

I think it's a good idea to have pitching really work on their legs to increase their endurance.

[Parfigliano]

4 hours ago, jorgenswest said:

That makes sense. If they don’t add to the fastball and increase slider usage I wonder if they are a major league talent. Is Bailey Ober a major leaguer with an 88 mph fastball?

At 88 MPH very few guys are MLB talent in todays game

[jimbo92107]

Pitching involves the entire body working in synchronized motion. I think the Twins should look for young guys with a fairly wide athletic background, especially in sports like gymnastics, swimming and rock climbing, where the whole body is involved. They might even include a small rock climbing facility in their training equipment. Training should be eclectic, possibly including soccer ball dribbling drills, basketball passing drills, as well as the usual baseball stuff. 

[mikelink45]

Ober was one of our hopes to boost the rotation - a trade is even more important now.

[ashbury]

16 hours ago, USAFChief said:

I am serious: go back to putting innings on these guys in the minors. Like they used to.

I don't know if it'll keep more guys healthy,  but it certainly can't keep LESS guys healthy. And Maybe they can wash out the guys who just can't handle any kind of workload. 

I mean, the entire injury thing is just to the point of ridiculousness.

Current theory clearly isn't working. 

 

You know I am comfortable with analytics, and I know it's a bit of waving a red flag for you, but bear with me.  I believe that analytics is worthless unless it is integrated with deep insight in the fundamentals, which you are talking about.

I am convinced that injury-proneness is one of the metrics that teams' baseball analytics staffs study, as some kind of secret sauce that isn't publicized and is treated as trade-secret - and some teams do it manifestly better than others.  The Yankees in 2022 have been deprived of almost no starts (6 out of 101) among the five guys they decided in on spring.  The Twins should be studying them carefully to understand this success.  Talent evaluation and acquisition, and injury avoiding practices adopted by on-field coaches and off-field trainers - these tie together at every step of the roster construction process in the majors, and in player development in the minors. 

Our FO seems to believe there is a market inefficiency they can exploit by accepting a higher degree of risk with arms, and I certainly don't have the inside analytics to suggest where exactly it is they get it wrong.  But acquiring non-workhorse front line pitching like Sonny Gray, and known injury risk Chris Paddack, in return for key trading chips, and counting on past injury risks like Winder and Ober, demonstrate well enough for me where their priorities lie: keep 24 pitchers on the 40-man and go light on position players, then deal with injuries as they arise through roster churn.  Handing the ball twice (!) to a non-entity like Chi Chi Gonzalez demonstrates the failure of this approach, as far as I'm concerned.

Good analytics looks for relationships among pieces that may be treated as independent.  Your suggestion to increase the workload on the young arms might be at odds with the Twins philosophy under Wes Johnson to wring a few extra MPH from arms.  But maybe the Twins have the balance wrong, and should be looking for whatever (few) extra MPH they can extract while keeping the workload higher.  You can't sell out totally to workload, by soft-tossing the entire 7 or 8 or 9 innings - you have to get the maximum number of guys out while giving up the fewest baserunners and runs - but max-effort for 3 or 4 innings isn't getting the job done either.

Send them your resume as a candidate for pitching coach, and list me as a reference because I'll back you up.  And I need to ask around, to find them a new candidate to lead their analytics, because the current team isn't getting it done - they're getting schooled every time they make a significant trade, it seems.

[Linus]

7 hours ago, jorgenswest said:

That makes sense. If they don’t add to the fastball and increase slider usage I wonder if they are a major league talent. Is Bailey Ober a major leaguer with an 88 mph fastball?

Nope. Therein lies the rub. 

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

3 hours ago, jimbo92107 said:

Pitching involves the entire body working in synchronized motion. I think the Twins should look for young guys with a fairly wide athletic background, especially in sports like gymnastics, swimming and rock climbing, where the whole body is involved. They might even include a small rock climbing facility in their training equipment. Training should be eclectic, possibly including soccer ball dribbling drills, basketball passing drills, as well as the usual baseball stuff. 

Joe Ryan is a water polo guy, and I am hoping and thinking that last night was a one-off bad outing.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Regarding general athleticism, here is a comment from the starting pitcher the Twins will be facing tonight, Joe Musgrove:

Quote

Playing football and doing one-on-one pass rush drills, where you're mixing hand-to-hand combat with brute strength and aggression, was one of Musgrove's favorite things. Football also taught Musgrove a lot about endurance and playing through pain.

"I think it helped me toughen up a little bit," Musgrove said.

[snip]

"In baseball, you can get so stuck in sport-specific training, but the more you can get out of that and move around, the better off you'll be," Musgrove said. "You do the same stuff over and over, you start to fall into habits. Your body starts to fall into patterns of doing the same movements. You start to lose athleticism and mobility.

"That’s a big part of my training in the offseason. I do plenty of lifting and running, but we always spend 30 minutes a day doing awkward [stuff] that people don’t really do, ever. I think it really helps."

 

From a 2019 profile. https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/pirates/2019/06/21/pittsburgh-pirates-joe-musgrove-offseason-workouts/stories/201906210024

It should be fun watching him pitch and field his position tonight.

[jorgenswest]

2 hours ago, ashbury said:

The Yankees in 2022 have been deprived of almost no starts (6 out of 101) among the five guys they decided in on spring. 

They did lose a starter in the spring in Domingo German. Even so they have been very healthy and have the depth to manage injuries.

[ashbury]

28 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

They did lose a starter in the spring in Domingo German. Even so they have been very healthy and have the depth to manage injuries.

This is why I want to find someone with real analytic chops in this specific area.  Of course every team suffers injuries.  it's the team that has a handle on what are the variables that improve their chances, who will on average do the best.  I am convinced some analytics staffs have indeed started to get a handle.  As that happens, the remaining pool of talent that those teams don't want become more heavily populated with the riskier arms, and that is where the Twins cast their nets.  Again, I'd like to feel better about the Twins analytic staff, and I know the new (2016) front office said they were making it a priority; I'm just not convinced in 2022 that they really have done it.

[nicksaviking]

This sucks and really has me doing a 180 on the season.

But the starting pitching had been surprisingly healthy under the new front office until last year, and both Ober and Winder sound like this might be a congenital thing. I expect addressing pitcher health the be a top priority this off season, but I'm not ready to say the method is broken. Other teams rely on pitchers throwing harder than ever, I don't know why the Twins aren't able to do the same, it's a copy cat league and this front office tends to follow trends.

I 100% have no interest in watching the Twins backtrack into Terry Ryan's old soft tossing pitch-to-contact clubs.

[DocBauer]

To quote a successful and respected pundit here in the BIG RED state: "things I know and things I think I know".

When you are as tall and long as someone like Ober, your body and mechanics just work differently than someone 4-6 inches shorter than you. Honestly, we might reference basketball and all the 6' 9" to 7'+ athletes that there, despite being a different sport, encounter various foot, back, shoulder, etc, injuries that it at least seems to be more prevelant that "smaller" colleagues. But, moving on, Ober changed his mechanics under Twins tutelage and and found both increased velocity, but just "felt better" after starts, while having complained that he previously just never felt good/right earlier in his career.

I have read and re-read the issue with Ober through "medical speak" a few times now. And I might be off, but it sure appears that one of his muscles/tendons is, in fact, simply rubbing on bone. At least, more than is normal. I suppose that strength conditioning and different forms of exercise and conditioning might alleviate this problem. Think something like Pilates, even though that sounds silly at first for a 6' 9" athlete. But these kinds of changes are a possible solution when you read and hear about other athletes that have changed their routines at points in their career. I'm just educated, well read, and knowledgeable to be dangerous, lol. But I'm wondering if he doesn't need surgery to "shave down" a portion of bone, or, have a muscle/tendon operated similar to TOS. I'm really, really hoping rest and a different exercise practice will result in getting him back 100% for 2023, if not late 2022. I think the guy has a solid future and there's no question in my mind the Twins have really missed him.

As to Winder, who knows? I know it's easy to be frustrated, and I am too, but IIRC, he's never had this shoulder issue until last year. Is this as simple as missing 2020 and his body has encountered some issues to rest and work through while building back velocity and endurance? Or is there something inside his shoulder not quite right after years of throwing a baseball? 

I know it's unpopular to say this, but the Twins DO CARE about their players from the ML level on down. They changed their training staff a couple years ago, and IIRC, they even changed out some team doctors. Just because nobody has figured out yet what "impingement"  Winder has been dealing with certainly doesn't mean they aren't looking to figure it out. It's important for Winder, as well as the Twins.

Just frustrating as hell that we have some really, really good arms like Ober, Winder, Alcala, Canterino and a few others that offer up a really nice pipeline, only to spring a handful of leaks and no immediate answers.

[bean5302]

Ober has always had major injury concerns so it's not surprising they've followed him through the levels and now to MLB. Most fans remember injury concerns and the limited number of innings Ober had thrown prior to last year, and it really looked like he may have turned a corner as he was pretty healthy throughout last year.

In the example given regarding the Yankees, it's a little dicey. While this year, the Yankees rotation has been hit hard by injuries in recent years.
Severino missed virtually 3 full years.
Kluber was plagued with injuries last year as well.
German missed a ton of time this year and last year with a shoulder impingement issue.

This year's Yankees rotation has been pretty solid, but there have been plenty of other injuries across baseball. I'm not sure the Twins starters are far worse than average. Pitching injuries are a valid concern across MLB in general IMHO. The dreaded automatic TJ for every hard thrower seems to have gotten ridiculous.

The Twins are supposedly on the cutting edge of sports medicine and pitching mechanics knowledge designed to improve pitchers' velocity while doing it in a way that is supposed to help avoid injury. I think the truth is kids starting in high school or earlier are throwing with more effort and there's an incentive to throw hard because higher velocity does trend with better performance. There may be problems with the Twins' approach; trying to convert throwing motions and mechanics. I'm way out of my league in knowing, but it does feel like there might be something there.

[DocBauer]

46 minutes ago, ashbury said:

This is why I want to find someone with real analytic chops in this specific area.  Of course every team suffers injuries.  it's the team that has a handle on what are the variables that improve their chances, who will on average do the best.  I am convinced some analytics staffs have indeed started to get a handle.  As that happens, the remaining pool of talent that those teams don't want become more heavily populated with the riskier arms, and that is where the Twins cast their nets.  Again, I'd like to feel better about the Twins analytic staff, and I know the new (2016) front office said they were making it a priority; I'm just not convinced in 2022 that they really have done it.

Ash, I do agree with you, to a point. CRAP happens, and sometimes guys just get hurt. For whatever reason, it's happened to the Twins a lot the last 2yrs. Now, is that bad damn luck, the loss of 2020 just throwing things out of whack for pitchers trying to build back up, or a combination of the two? No clue.

I DO BELIEVE, as you seem to, that in regard to an acquisition of an arm, draft or trade, you might mitigate injury loss by looking at history. Paddack is a perfect example. Maeda is also a similar example. Despite HUNDREDS of IP, successfully thrown, there was a risk with Maeda. But he sure was worth the risk in 2020. His 2021 ST had him looking like the same pitcher before the wheels came off. I don't expect him to be the same pitcher he was in 2020 to begin 2023. But even at 35, I wouldn't be surprised at all, with his re-built arm, if he wasn't very solid to good before the year was done. More and more we're seeing SMART, experienced arms pitch in to their later 30's as at least solid if not good. (Verlander is a pitching god, so we'll leave him out of the discussion). Right or wrong to make the trade for Paddack, a potential implosion waiting to happen, he's on the opposite end of the spectrum. I'm NOT saying it's going to  happen, but there is a real chance he's solid for the 2nd half of 2023. And by the time 2024 comes around, we could be talking about a still young arm that the Twins need to re-sign at still around 28yo-ish.

I think you will agree with me that drafting/signing/trading for an arm coming off injury is not the issue. History has shown high quality arms coming of injury/surgery and being as good or better than before. I think the problem you are alluding to, and I agree, is signing or trading for that arm with a checkmark against them already. The risk isn't worth the reward.

I think our FO is damn smart. But I think they've banked too much on the past 2yrs for the pipeline to deliver, and it's delivered at about 50%, at best, due to injury and WHATVEVER. I mean, how much better and deeper is this staff with a healthy Alcala, Winder, Dobnak or Coulombe at least filling in, if nothing else?

I appreciate building a quality bullpen on the cheap with prospects and under the radar quality arms when you have to manage payroll to some degree. You can do it if you do it smart and can balance young arms and a couple solid veteran arms. And I understand taking fliers to fill out your rotation to deepen it as you want to compete and roll your top arms in. For TWO YEARS IN A ROW, the plan hasn't worked according to THE PLAN.

NOW, you need to trade a bunch of the milb depth you've acquired to keep your "competitive" and first place team IN competition. In the future, FO, don't just EXPECT your pipeline to provide. And don't trade for arms that are potentially ready to implode. Quit trying to outsmart yourself. If you want to make a "find" look for someone coming off injury instead of trading for someone bound for injury. 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

5 hours ago, ashbury said:

Our FO seems to believe there is a market inefficiency they can exploit by accepting a higher degree of risk with arms, and I certainly don't have the inside analytics to suggest where exactly it is they get it wrong.  But acquiring non-workhorse front line pitching like Sonny Gray, and known injury risk Chris Paddack, in return for key trading chips, and counting on past injury risks like Winder and Ober, demonstrate well enough for me where their priorities lie: keep 24 pitchers on the 40-man and go light on position players, then deal with injuries as they arise through roster churn.  Handing the ball twice (!) to a non-entity like Chi Chi Gonzalez demonstrates the failure of this approach, as far as I'm concerned.

Agreed, but I also think that this FO got “Tyson’ed” in December last year, and Bundy, Archer Gray and Paddack were plan F, G, H, and I.

[Linus]

It might be as simple as this: it’s my understanding that ligaments and tendons cannot be strengthened or conditioned like muscles can. Hopefully one of our medical experts can verify. If the exertion is increased muscles can be conditioned to tolerate it. Ligaments and tendons cannot hence all th injuries. 

[jimbo92107]

9 hours ago, Hosken Bombo Disco said:

Joe Ryan is a water polo guy, and I am hoping and thinking that last night was a one-off bad outing.

Ryan's problem is his lack of command of secondary pitches. He either needs to refine his command of his slider, his curve or his change, or develop a cutter that bends glove-side. He can't rely on his fastball to keep getting guys out, because as he tires, the backspin RPM goes down, allowing hitters to square it up. Boom. 

[big dog]

I don't disagree about the effort to add MPH increasing injury risk, but Ober's problem seems totally different, as others have mentioned.

Kiriloff, Larnach, Kepler, Sano yet again, Lewis, almost every starting pitcher- this is getting really ridiculous.

 

[jorgenswest]

My apologies for being off topic in the Ober discussion but this did make me wonder.

7 hours ago, jimbo92107 said:

Ryan's problem is his lack of command of secondary pitches. He either needs to refine his command of his slider, his curve or his change, or develop a cutter that bends glove-side. He can't rely on his fastball to keep getting guys out, because as he tires, the backspin RPM goes down, allowing hitters to square it up. Boom. 

I will acknowledge that he does not quality secondary pitches but I do wonder about the fastball. How would we see the rpm going down in the data? I can see the spin rate remained pretty stable in his last start. His last 4 fastballs were 2234-2276 which was a little higher than the median fastball for that game.