Tuesday’s News & Notes
| Sykora Diagnosed with Nats Elbow, Will Have Surgery Pope Remains Catholic; Sun to Rise in the East; Bear Feces Found in Forest Yesterday, the Nats announced top prospect Travis Sykora will undergo Tommy John surgery, keeping a decades-long tradition going strong. While the Nats are implying the MRI results are recent, the timing of news—three days before the trade deadline—suggests otherwise and/or this may be in preparation for some upcoming (unpopular) moves. |
| Team | Yesterday | Today | Pitching Probables |
| Rochester | OFF DAY | @ Charlotte, 7:04pm | Alvarez (0-7, 4.66) vs. McKendry (3-7, 5.68) |
| Harrisburg | OFF DAY | @ Binghamton, 6:07pm | Bennett (0-1, 13.50) vs. Suarez (5-2, 3.16) |
| Wilmington | OFF DAY | vs. Hudson Valley, 6:05pm | Kent (4-6, 3.84) vs. Landry (0-1, 5.40) |
| Fredericksburg | OFF DAY | @ Columbia, 7:05pm | Polanco (5-7, 3.81) vs. Wyatt (1-4, 4.13) |
| DSL Nationals | Won, 5-0 | vs. DSL Giants Black, 11am |
Rochester Red Wings, 11-16, 7th I.L. East, 10½ GB – 38-61 Overall
The Red Wings didn’t lose two of the six against the RailRiders, but did fall back another two games in the standings. Rochester leaves the Northeast for the first of two 12-game road trips outside of the Northeast, beginning with six against the Charlotte Knights.
Harrisburg Senators, 12-14, 5th E.L. Southwest, 3½ GB – 46-49 Overall
Harrisburg took four of six from Akron, including the last three, but faces a tall task as they visit first-place Binghamton this week for six including tonight’s Ode to Bulldogs and a matinee tomorrow.
Wilmington Blue Rocks, 13-17, T5th Sally Lg. North, 6GB – 43-52 Overall
After dropping four of six to the BlueClaws last week, the last-place Blue Rocks host the second-place Renegades for Games 78-84 (give or take) this week, including a Camp Day tomorrow morning.
Fredericksburg Nationals, 16-11, 2nd C.L. North, 2½ GB – 46-46 Overall
As usual, Fredericksburg is the sole team that’s sniffing either a playoff berth or .500, but “lost” its top two starters. Perhaps the influx of FCL guys will help, though only Angel Roman has been bumped from the rotation thus far. The FredNats hit the road for another two-week road tip, visiting the Columbia this week and Myrtle Beach next week.
DSL Nationals 5 DSL Twins 0 (6 inn.)
• Reyes (W, 4-2) 5IP, 1H, 0R, 0BB, 6K
• Cortesia 1-3, 2B, 2RBI, HBP
• Hurtado 1-3, R, RBI
• Liriano 2-2, R, RBI, HBP, CS
The D-Nats broke out for four in the 2nd and added one in the 5th for a rain-shortened 5-0 shutout of the D-Twins. Juan Reyes gets credit for the win, shutout, and complete game with one hit ], no walks, and six whiffs over five innings. Brayan Cortesia led the five-hit, four-Robles, three-walk offense with a two-run double while Victor Hurtado and and Hector Liriano each had an RBI single. Roster moves: OF Browm Martinez assigned from Washington, placed on the 60-day I.L.
When Sykora left his 2nd AA game after 1 inning, I told my Husband he would have TJ by 8/19. I was pretty close LOL.
I agree with Nick’s comment from yesterday.
Hoping the new GM will take a look at the pitchers training regimen. Something just isn’t working.
I hate to say it but I’m afraid some of our younger pitchers at the major league level may be next.
Thanks Sens Fan – glad someone else is also staring to seeithat we are doing something wrong that needs to be changed as opposed to the general comments I was getting of “ well every team also goes through this”.
It’s been years that I’ve been sounding the alarm bell and now it finally feels that the chickens have come to roost.
It can’t be understated what a blow this. Despite knowing better, earlier this season I let my guard down and actually got my hopes up for with next year thinking Sykora and Susanna and Cavalli would join the rotation alongside a Gore and Gray.
Now Sykora is out, Susanna already has elbow issues and Cavalli looks lost after recovering from his own surgery
It’s sadly gonna be another five year rebuild
The problem is that every team DOES go through this. We just only care when it happens to pitchers who play for the Nats. On the FG podcast Effectively Wild they noted that a study showed that somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of MLB pitchers get TJ surgery.
Sens fan talks about “something isn’t working.” The answer is pretty simple. It’s the relentless quest for velocity and spin. And pitcher eagerly embrace it, knowing the risk, BECAUSE IT WORKS. Trying to convince pitchers to ease off the velo is a hard sell when they are trying to make The Show.
There’s a lot of overlap between the steady drop in baseball offense, the steady increase in average velocity, and the steady increase in TJ surgeries. The human body was never designed to throw overhand, and pitchers have always paid for it. But in the past 20 years we’ve turned that up to 11. Honestly I’m not sure that there IS an answer.
The hope of that died with Dr. Mike Marshall four years ago. I still think he was on to something.
The iron man reliever Dr Mike Marshall .
This is like a typhoon from ( HARP) and the south Chinese seas
Clean house , Lerner family .
Bring in Hoyer from the Dodgers
King and Lovalita exhibit lousy scouting game plan.
Clean house .
Clean house
Get the heavy Lysol bleach out . Non – splash !
Hector Liriano
One less name on the farm chart
Pablo Cruise Aldonis
Step up a level
Another loogie moves up
Rombach to the Delaware Grand Canyon
Best news on Sykora is we don’t burn MLB service time during his recovery, unlike Strasburg.
the night Sykora warmed up, it was strange, not a lot of throwing and he came back to the dugout well before anyone else. You could tell that something was not right, he came out for the first inning, but not the second inning
Rumors going around that the Nats are asking the Cubs for Matt Shaw plus another top prospect for Gore. Matt Shaw was the Cubs first round pick in 2023 and plays second and third. He has been up for the Cubs since May and was an overall top 30 prospect (BA #35; MLB Pipeline #19; Baseball Prospectus #26) heading into this season.
After a slow start, Shaw has been on fire since the All-Star Break (1.245 OBP).
Also, Shaw played at U of Maryland before the Cubs took him.
Shaw from the Shaw( shone ) tribe . Shaw and that OF named OC?
We need arms so we don’t have to dollar general shop for the Soleskys of the minor league suitcase circuit .
Stunning that the idea is floating around here that Sykora’s injury is attributable to the Nats use of him or otherwise related to something the Nats treatment of pitchers. Everyone should have understood that such an injury was a reasonable probability.
The Nats treated Travis Sykora with kid-gloves and took every reasonable step to keep him healthy. Sykora pitched a total of 45 innings this season. He never threw more than six innings or 100 pitches in any game.
In 2024, Sykora threw 85 innings in 20 games. Again, he never threw more than six innings or 100 pitches in any game. Whenever there was a hint of a physical issue, they shut down Sykora.
Unless the claim is that the Nats coddled him and should have pitched him more (there is a theory that the under-use is leading to UCL injuries), there is nothing to indicate that the Nats mis-used or did anything to cause his injury.
Much more likely that when a 21 year-old flirts with a 100 mph and his ridiculous spin rates, the UCL is the victim. High velo and electric stuff results in UCL damage. That is just the way it is.
Was looking at pitching prospects in the Cubs system due to the Gore trade rumors and several of their top pitching prospects have had TJ already (which probably the Nats’ view as a good thing). The Dodgers (who are considered the “model” organization) have had several pitchers resort to TJ surgery. Unless there is a study of all 30 organizations, which finds that the Nat pitchers have a material difference in the number of UCL injuries, ridiculous to anecdotally claim that the Nats caused Sykora’s injury.
The Nats first priority with Sykora was to avoid injury, and he still blew out his UCL. Just the nature of the game these days.
Did Don Wilson and JR Richard ever deal with arm injuries early on .
Different generation compared to the meat grinder system now
Disagree – I am not talking about older guys or guys a few years in the bigs needing TJ.
I am talking about pitchers drafted and needing TJ 1-3 years after their selection.
With the Nats it’s insane how often this has happened.
Go down the list:
Fedde
Denanburg
Henry
Irvin
Bennett
Cavalli
Romero
Detwiler
Purke
Stratsburg
Giolito
Glover
Barrett
Luzardo
Lee
Dyson
I can go on…,I am missing many more
I challenge anyone to find another org. with the same numbers if injuries to pitchers that they drafted within 1-2 years after their selection over the same time period.
It’s not a “well it’s so common now” thing – it’s an organizational incompetence
16 for the Nats? That is a laughably short list of TJ surgeries. Not kidding.
Looks like Stephen Strasburg was the name on the list with the earliest TJ surgery. Strasburg had that surgery on September 3, 2010. That is just less than 15 years ago. Since that date, one thousand-eight hundred-ninety one (1890) professional pitchers have Tommy John. With thirty MLB teams that is an average of SIX HUNDRED THIRTY per team over the last 16 years (granted a few of those may have been position players, but its safe to assume every MLB organization has had 600 players undergo TJ sugery over the last 15 years.
Here is the link a spreadsheet to the list to every professional baseball player to experience TJ surgery since TJ. There are 2,606 names:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gQujXQQGOVNaiuwSN680Hq-FDVsCwvN-3AazykOBON0/edit?gid=0#gid=0
Even big time MLB fans have no idea how prevalent UCL injuries are in this game.
100% agree with your qualitative point, but you’re off by an order of magnitude. 1890 / 30 = 63, not 630.
Amen to this. This is a sport-wide issue, not unique to the Nationals. Went back at random and looked at the top 10 RHP prospects in 2022. Surprise, 7 out of the 10 (all of whom are 27 or younger) have had or will have TJ surgery. And 2 of the 3 have had significant shoulder injuries rather than elbow.
Grayson Rodriguez (likely needs TJ)
Shane Baz (had TJ surgery)
Jack Leiter
Hunter Greene (had TJ surgery)
George Kirby
Edward Cabrera
Max Meyer (had TJ surgery)
Cade Cavalli (had TJ surgery)
Jackson Jobe (had TJ surgery)
Eury Perez (had TJ surgery)
Go back 10 more years to the 2012 prospects, and it’s 8 out of 10, and again, the only two who avoided TJ (Teheran and Bauer) had their careers cut short by other issues.
Basically, the only way to avoid TJ surgery as a major league starting pitcher is to (1) not pitch or (2) injure something else before your elbow.
But the Nats DO seem to have more than their fair share. The next study that says otherwise will be the first I’ve seen. Personally, I think it’s because they do a terrible job of evaluating mechanical risk, hell-bent on taking the chance on guys that other teams shy away from. I’d defer to Todd B. if he can remember someone that scouts said would be an injury candidate, the Nats drafted anyway, and didn’t eventually have surgery. But I can’t think of one.
The Nats do “seem to” have more than their fair share? “Seem to” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. To me, the study that Pilchard creates a rebuttable presumption that this is a league wide problem, not a specific Nats problem. In an article concerning the search for a better TJ surgery it notes that there were more TJ surgeries around MLB in 2023 than there were in the entire 1990s combined. https://drchrisahmad.medium.com/why-is-the-game-of-baseball-demanding-a-better-tommy-john-surgery-a04c98204540.
Certainly MLB is treating it as such; they are currently engaged in studying how to address it because they know that it’s a league wide problem. Based on all of that, it’s pretty hard to accept the “I just knows its true” as a counterargument. Is there a study that shows that the Nats have more than their fare share?
Taking the Robert Frost diverging path
Wilmington has a nice quartet of starters to follow and FRED has some lefties bringing including Beeker who also attended Ball State like me but I was there when Thomas Howard decided to try baseball giving up football ending up a number one pick in MLb draft
A bitter, bitter reminder that There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect.
But the thread here got me thinking, which of our SP prospects and recently graduated HAVEN’T had TJ or some serious shoulder injury?
I’m genuinely blanking. Susana seems to have avoided it. After that… Gore, Gray, Cavalli, Sykora, Irvin, Henry, Herz, Bennett, even Denaburg, Seth Romero, Giolito, Fedde… surely I’m forgetting someone!
The Dodgers have the best-run system in the game and haven’t been able to keep arms healthy at all, for years.
John C. is on point — the pursuit of velo and spin are killing the game. I’ve been saying for the last few years that teams are going to have to start looking for, and developing, crafty guys who don’t throw as hard because there’s no other sustainable path. No one knows how to pitch to contact anymore; it’s K or nothing.
I don’t know if the Nats are any worse at practices that cause arm injuries. I do know that Rizzo and his buddy Kris Kline had quite the history of drafting guys who had already had arm surgery (Fedde, Luzardo, Glover, Andrew Lee, Romero), had dropped in the draft because of some suspicion of arm issues (Purke, Giolito, Denaburg), or had suspect mechanics (Sykora — Law has been writing about his doomed mechanics all the way up to the day he was injured). We were told at the time of the draft that all of those guys were “steals.” But were any of them? (For all the whining about the Nats trading Giolito, his career ERA is 4.40.)
Also, it wasn’t just the great Mike Marshall among the few canaries in the coal mine. Dr. James Andrews has been commenting for years about how much younger and younger his TJ patients are getting. I may be getting the time frame slightly off, but he says that around 15 years ago, he hardly ever saw a high school TJ patient and now they’re basically half of his patients/surgeries. He loves the game and once owned a minor-league team.
Presuming my pivot table skills are right, the Dodgers have indeed had the most pitchers with TJ at 108, the fewest is Colorado (52). The fewest among the non-expansion teams (1977, 1993, 1998) is Baltimore (62). The Nats/Expos are at 75, 57 of which have come since 2009 — that’s only 21st. So I stand corrected.
I’m sure folks with better Excel skills can slice it further based on the level (MLB vs. Minors) but to Pilchard’s point… my arbitrary slice of 2009 (i.e., when the Nats came under Rizzo’s direction, which eliminates most of the MLB-Montreal era) had 1872 pitchers out of the 2382 listed. That’s almost 80% in the last 16 years.
I have to agree. If you can get a guy to hit the ball at 70mph, you’re not going to get hurt. Sure, every now and then 5 in a row will fall in, but you can also go deeper into games that way.
That’s EXACTLY how they used to go deeper into games, and pitch every third or fourth day. Bob Gibson was always among the league leaders in Ks, and yet his career K/9 was only 7.2. His highest for a season was 8.4. Jim Palmer never even struck out 200 in a season (peaking at 199), which I’ll always remember since it tripped me up on the Immaculate Grid one day.