Reviewing Kenta Maeda's Injury History

You can read more about Maeda here. While perhaps not as sexy as signing a top-tier free agent, Maeda is every bit the fulfillment of Derek Falvey and Thad Levine’s promise to acquire “impact pitching” during the off-season. Maeda figures to, at worst, slot in as the Twins’ third starter in the rotation behind Jose Berrios and Jake Odorizzi and ahead of Michael Pineda (when he returns from suspension), and Rich Hill (when he returns from injury).

Maeda has been pitching professionally since 2007 after being drafted out of high school by the Hiroshima Toyo Carp of the Nippon Professional Baseball League in Japan and has been extremely durable over the course of his career. Since signing with the Dodgers prior to the 2016 season, Maeda has only landed on the injured list three times, all for lower body injuries.

Maeda’s three lower extremity injuries were all minor — he never missed more than two weeks of action — and muscular in nature; he sat 14 days while recovering from left hamstring tightness, 14 days with a right hip strain, and nine days with a left adductor contusion that occurred when he fouled a ball off his inner thigh.

Maeda’s hamstring and hip injuries are most consistent with grade 1 strains, which usually heal in a couple of weeks and involve less than 10% of the muscle fibers being disrupted. Rehabilitation focuses on improving the strength of the injured muscle as well as its synergistic — or supporting — muscles while also reducing any pain and swelling.

One thing that may be interesting to note is that the report announcing Maeda’s right hip strain mentioned that, while he was more sore at his inner thigh, an MRI exam revealed “evidence of an earlier hip injury that [he] could not recall”; the precise location of the injury was not disclosed in the report. Despite the raising of the eyebrows this report may initially elicit, this nebulous previous injury shouldn’t be of major concern moving forward as Maeda did not undergo any additional treatments or miss more time as a result of it being discovered. Incidental findings such as Madeda’s hip injury are commonplace with imaging. Is an anatomic variation that is absent pain or dysfunction and does not limit sport participation truly an injury?

Twins fans can take solace in the fact that Maeda has never suffered an injury to his throwing shoulder or elbow. According to Baseball Savant, Maeda primarily relies on three pitches: a four seamer that sits in the low-90s, a slider, and a changeup. Maeda possesses a smooth, low effort delivery which helps to reduce the amount of force placed through his upper extremity, particularly when combined with his pitch mix and their corresponding velocities. This isn’t to say that Maeda is immune to arm injuries — throwing a baseball repeatedly at any velocity places a great amount of stress on the arm, after all — rather his mechanics and repertoire may place him at a reduced risk compared to his harder-throwing, more explosive peers.

All in all, this is another good acquisition for the Twins. Maeda has been the definition of durability throughout his 13-year professional career and, while injuries can strike at any moment, there is little to worry about health-wise headed into spring training and beyond.

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