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00:00Have the Astros just had bad luck when it comes to pitchers and elbow injuries,
00:03or do they have a systemic problem?
00:047-1-3, 5-7, 2-4, 6-10.
00:07This coming off of the heels of learning that Hayden Wesneski,
00:10a man, one of the three players that you acquired in the trade
00:14that saw Kyle Tucker leave ahead of his final season on his contract.
00:20And, you know, you bring back Isaac Perez,
00:22who at third base has been pretty damn good for you.
00:25Gloves been good.
00:26The bat has been timely in what you need.
00:29Cam Smith, who offered a lot of excitement in spring.
00:32He's been figuring himself out.
00:34Man, defensively, at the very least, it's fun to watch him, you know,
00:36run around in the outfield.
00:39And then Hayden Wesneski, who had been very important being technically the fifth starter,
00:43but if we were going to re-rank the starters, probably what, like fourth,
00:46maybe third at times starter for you.
00:49He is now likely done for the season with Tommy John.
00:54He needed that Tommy John surgery.
00:55In fact, he didn't make his way back down to Houston from Arlington
00:57because Dr. Keith Meister, he plies his trade up there,
01:01and he is pretty much the leading guy on these UCL injuries.
01:06What having there got surgery done, and, I mean,
01:09knowing what we know about Tommy John's, don't expect to see him back.
01:12Yeah.
01:12Unless there is just the craziest miracle, which, sign me up for one of those.
01:16That's cool.
01:16I'll take it.
01:17But this is not a lone incident, right?
01:21I mean, this is to the point where you've seen this enough where you guys,
01:24as soon as I was trying to be on that Hopium, y'all know me.
01:27I'm out here trying to be, you know, Mr. Hopi McGee or what have you.
01:32And when he missed, they pushed the start.
01:35The first sign.
01:36They pushed the start.
01:37You got two days extra.
01:38Yes.
01:39Just give him some rest.
01:40And none of us were speculating, but I did mention on the show,
01:43it seems a little weird.
01:45And that was just on the show.
01:46It seems a little different.
01:46I think in the text message, you were like, oh, okay.
01:49Okay.
01:49In the text message, I was.
01:50You were like, okay.
01:51I was full smartass.
01:53Which, to be fair, that is who you are,
01:55and I want you to be exactly who you are in your fullness.
01:58I get that.
01:58I'd have to go back and look, but it was pretty like, okay, well, he's done.
02:01He's gone.
02:02It was a smarming there.
02:03And so there was that, and then we started getting the inflammation.
02:07It was like, oh, okay.
02:09Because he had a bad go of it once he did, ultimately, get out there
02:12and throw it.
02:12I was like, all right, this doesn't look good.
02:14And then one thing that I had not realized until it was brought up,
02:18I believe it was Chandler Rome that brought this up,
02:19the idea that last season in Chicago he had had some forearm issues,
02:24and typically I think 20% of the time that that happens,
02:27you look up and boom, Tommy John surgery is necessary.
02:29And I was like, ooh, that feels like that fits the trend.
02:31And lo and behold, the trend, but again, this is not an individual instance,
02:36right?
02:37Luis Garcia, Lance McCullers, who's just coming off of a three-year stint
02:41of not pitching, Christian Javier, Justin Verlander.
02:47And it makes you look up and you go, all right,
02:51is this just a thing that's happening in baseball?
02:52Because it absolutely is.
02:53Tommy John surgeries are everywhere.
02:54There's these UCL injuries with particularly the use,
02:58but it seems like it's particular to hear in a different way.
03:00See, now that, I'm glad you brought that up.
03:02Because there's two sort of lanes that are going on here in baseball.
03:07Lane number one is a lot of pitchers are getting hurt.
03:10A lot of pitchers are getting hurt, and there's a reason for that
03:12that is being bandied about, and I think there's a lot to that.
03:16Shout out to the 832.
03:16Just right on time with the text talking about how approximately 38.8 percent,
03:22by the way, press pause.
03:23The idea that you say approximately and then you throw a decimal in there
03:26always bugs me.
03:27Me too.
03:27I'm like, that's not approximate at that point.
03:28That's fairly exact.
03:29We're going to be completely honest.
03:30So he's in lane number one.
03:3338.8 percent of major league pitchers have had Tommy John surgery
03:36at some point in their careers.
03:37Correct.
03:38And there's also in that lane, there's such an emphasis on velocity,
03:42which is putting extra pressure.
03:44Spin rates, which is putting extra pressure.
03:46And can I add the complicating factor on both of those two things
03:49that you added?
03:49Yeah.
03:50The adherence, strict adherence by MLB of getting rid of spider tack.
03:55That is a third one.
03:57Guys are having to death grip these baseballs in order to get.
03:59So you have that, and then you add the amount of torque that you're having
04:02trying to get your velo up, and then also trying to get that spin rate up.
04:06Yeah.
04:06It only seems reasonable that with all of the forces and energy
04:10that you're placing on your arm, that something's going to come dislodge.
04:13And then the fourth thing, you know, it's the velocity, it's spin rate,
04:18there's no more spider tack, and the fourth thing is pitch clock.
04:22To me, those four things are mentioned a lot.
04:27Boy, there sure have been a lot of arm injuries.
04:29Boy, there sure have been a lot of Tommy John surgeries.
04:33And, yes, that's lane number one.
04:36Among the teams that have had a lot of them, this is, I've got to be very clear here,
04:42there is a lot of vagary when it comes to what is reported as a quote-unquote
04:47arm injury or, you know, short of Tommy John surgery, because that becomes obvious,
04:52or out because of elbow problems.
04:55Teams are vague about it.
04:56But from the reporting that has been out there, teams like the Braves, the Orioles, the Dodgers,
05:01they've had a lot of elbow-slash-arm injuries.
05:05But here's where we've got to get to lane number two in a very difficult conversation
05:08that I hope the Astros are having, and we can have a little bit of a taste of that conversation here.
05:14The team that has had the most?
05:16Wait, hold on.
05:18I think I can guess.
05:19Are they in the AL?
05:21Yes, they are.
05:22Are they in the AL West?
05:23Yes, they are.
05:24Do they wear orange jerseys most of the time?
05:26Yes, they do.
05:27All right, I feel like it's going to be the Houston Astros.
05:29So, it is a major league baseball problem.
05:31He is right.
05:32In the other lane, the team that has had the most seven Tommy Johns since 2020 is the Houston Astros.
05:41So, can you just write that off as well?
05:44A lot of teams are having arm problems, because I can't.
05:46If I'm Jim Crane, you know, if I'm Dana Brown, if I'm Joe Espada, hell, if I'm the pitching coach,
05:53there's something about, okay, yes, there are a lot of injuries, but we've had the most.
05:58That cannot be a coincidence.
06:00You can't, well, I'll put it this way.
06:01You can't treat it as a coincidence.
06:02Yeah, I wouldn't even look at it like, oh, everybody, can we prevent this?
06:08Yeah.
06:08How can we slow this down?
06:10Yes, I don't want to hear about everybody else.
06:11Yeah, I don't care about everybody else, man.
06:13Like, nah, this is, we need to keep our guys healthy.
06:16Yeah, and the impression that I've gotten from guys who are, I guess, closer to the game than I am,
06:21is the way that I'll put it, is that they almost feel like major league teams have gotten to a place,
06:26especially the teams that really lean into the analytics of it all and trying to get the, you know,
06:31get the pitching better, which I think the Astros would fit into, at the very least,
06:34in the previous iteration of, you know, of the front office.
06:37Maybe not exactly in the same way in this iteration, but I think you know what I mean.
06:40Like, leaning into spin rate and velo as, you know, indicators and things that you can adjust
06:45to try and make pitching more successful.
06:47I think that they have all kind of come to a place where they look at it and they go,
06:51the number that we talked about, damn near 40% of pitchers will have Tommy John.
06:55Well, this is an inevitability, and so we'll treat this kind of like a running back.
06:58Yeah.
06:58Where you use the yards that you can use until you can't no more.
07:02And it feels like that's kind of the way that teams play it in general,
07:06and to some degree, maybe the Astros play it where it's just like, look,
07:08we know that there's going to be a surgery in this.
07:11This is the cost of doing business.
07:12That's what the money is for, to quote Mad Men.
07:15And so, until that surgery pops up, let's see what we can get at you.
07:18Let's have you, you know, put the, you know, have the velo as high as possible
07:22and, you know, blow by people.
07:23Let's have that spin rate up and get the movement that we're looking on your pitches
07:27and shape them right.
07:28And yeah, you might, we might lose you, but hopefully we're going to play the game
07:31in such a way where we're going to get some really great pitching
07:33until we lose you for a year, and then we'll come back and we'll see if we can do it again.
07:36But I'm with Figgy on this, and I think most Astros fans,
07:38should be here as well.
07:40I get it.
07:41Everybody deals with arm injuries.
07:43Everybody deals with Tommy John surgery.
07:44But why aren't we 20% of Tommy John surgeries and arm problems?
07:51How come we're first?
07:52I think we need to look at our own organization, our own way of doing business
07:56and figure out, you know, because 15th, hell, I'll take 15th most in the last five years.
08:02Yeah.
08:02But we're first.
08:04You know, I think you need to look at philosophies.
08:07I think you need to look at, hell, I think you need to look at the six-man rotation.
08:10Are you doing it too much?
08:11Are you not doing it enough?
08:12Yeah, there's absolutely a question to be asked about, and I need to, I'll probably reach
08:18out to somebody and see, like, what their opinions are because the notion of going from, you
08:24know, that regular rest and moving it around in order to, you know, hey, we're going to
08:27do now six-man and changing up those days.
08:29Yeah.
08:29Like, it's such a repetitive season and such a repetitive nature of things if you're doing
08:36this in a way that I guess is right without, you know, better, without a better word to
08:40use there.
08:41And it seems like the Astros are very willing to shift that up in a way I go, does that
08:45affect what's happening here?
08:47Do we then also factor in non-pitcher injuries?
08:49Because it feels like they're not, they don't really have good luck in that.
08:51And at that point, do we then take this away from luck and look at what are your, what
08:55are your practices medically all the way up and down the organization?
08:58Which would be a damn shame, a cry of shame, considering where we are in Houston, Texas,
09:02a place that is regarded as one of the best healthcare places in the world.
09:06At minimum, I'm asking questions.
09:08At minimum, I'm looking and doing some deep dives and research and data and, you know,
09:12philosophies.
09:14You know, like I said, you can argue six-man rotations are good.
09:16You can damn sure argue they're bad.
09:18You know, guys that are, every four-day, every fifth day, you know, he's out there working
09:22on his arm strength.
09:23It's getting stronger.
09:24The mechanics.
09:25I think you can look at training staff.
09:31Rehab.
09:32Why are we the worst?
09:34Why are the Astros the absolute worst?
09:37In a game in which there's a lot of problems, why are we the worst?
09:41Yeah.
09:41And look, it could be just, it could be a coincidence where, you know, just, you know,
09:47a couple more people had to have Tommy John surgery.
09:49But me, if I'm in that organization, I'm like, look, we need to get off number one.
09:55Yeah.
09:55We need to, let's change up something.
09:58Let's try to look out for these guys because there's a lot.
10:01Otherwise, we need to start investing in more pitching.
10:04Yeah.
10:04If it's going to be like this or if it is what it is and this is how it is, we need to get
10:10more pitching.
10:11We need to get more people.
10:13What?
10:14I like how you threw that.
10:15You didn't even hear it.
10:16Oh, I didn't even, it went right past me.
10:18I was getting your point though.
10:19I got, I got your point.
10:20So you're saying you understand what it means then?
10:23No, because he just threw that in for no reason at all.
10:25No.
10:26It made sense.
10:27No.
10:27Okay.
10:27So this question came in on the text line.
10:29How many of them have happened since Brent Strom left 2021?
10:32Do you have, do you happen to have the timeline on?
10:36Verlander was 2020.
10:39McCullers Jr.
10:39was the whole time.
10:41Pretty much.
10:41That is fair.
10:42That is fair.
10:43I hate to laugh at that, but that is fair.
10:45Since then, Luis Garcia, JP France, we didn't mention him.
10:50Right.
10:50As well.
10:52Urquidy and Wesneski.
10:53All right.
10:54So the question then that comes up, there's two of them, obviously, because this came up
10:57because of Wesneski.
10:58Does this at all impact the way that you view that trade?
11:00Because somebody was talking about, you know, obviously he came from the Cubs.
11:03There's a chance that they traded him with the knowledge that he could get injured.
11:08Risk.
11:08But once, like I mentioned, he had physical, he had that forearm injury.
11:11And that seems to be some level of a precursor, and it kind of played out here.
11:15But then secondly, and I guess you decide where you want to go with this, is it worth
11:19the squeeze here?
11:20And this is the part that I feel real uncomfortable about because I try to be a person of the
11:23people and recognize that we're talking about human beings here.
11:25However, it does seem like teams have kind of made the calculation of the injury is going
11:30to happen and it is worth the squeeze in order to get the pitching results.
11:33Do you believe that to be the case for these Astros?
11:35I mean, I think that's a possibility.
11:37I think that's one of the many things you look at.
11:39It's your own philosophy as an organization.
11:42You know, again, I cut you off for a second, but like I'm talking about everything from
11:46do you send pitchers or players in general, if you want to extend it, to Puerto Rico too
11:52much?
11:52Are they playing year-round too much?
11:54I think you look at that.
11:55I think you look at, you know, the rotation, as I mentioned, training staff, rehab strategies,
12:02mechanics, pitching coach.
12:03All I'm saying is there's too much money on the line.
12:07There's too much on the line to, on the one hand, acknowledge, yes, it's going to happen,
12:12but why the hell are we the worst at it?
12:14Yeah.
12:14Well, I mean, we're sad when it comes to health outcomes, literally, but I think that there's
12:18something to be said for, and again, I find myself in a place where I feel like I'm advocating
12:23for use them and lose them, right?
12:24Which, again, makes me feel real dirty, what have you.
12:27And again, that's what the money's for, I guess, to some degree.
12:29But that is, I imagine that that's part of it, like part of the reason why you have the
12:34so-called car wash, where you can bring in a Yusei Kikuchi and kind of utilize the way
12:38that, you know, make his, make his stuff better, or at least utilize his, his stuff differently.
12:44Yeah.
12:44And then go out there and have him play.
12:47Have some of these other pitchers play maybe above what you would have anticipated them
12:52throwing.
12:53And some of that is being able to dig into these revolutions and dig into this velocity and
12:58these various things and get those at a higher level.
13:01And I do think that there might be a case that is worth making that, you know, the juice
13:05is worth the squeeze.
13:06It is just deeply uncomfortable to get to that place.
13:08And also, I think it shows up more so when you're in this place now that you are compared
13:13to previous years where it felt like you had an abundance of guys that you could turn
13:16to.
13:17And right now, these are all stacking up in a time where you're like, we kind of need
13:20these guys to be the pillars on which we built what this team is.
13:23Yeah.
13:24So I, yeah, I kind of agree with you on that.
13:26I think it's kind of, it seems like it is similar to the running back position too, where, where
13:31it's like, they only giving you a couple years and then they ready to move on or they not
13:36ready to pay you type thing because they feel like, you know, in age that you kind of watched
13:41a little bit.
13:42Maybe that's the case.
13:43I mean, I'm, I'm not sure, but maybe that's the case.
13:45And they did get some good squeeze out of the pictures that are, that did have Tommy
13:50Jones.
13:50Like you got some good Luis Garcia's and all that type of stuff.
13:54So I think that might be part of it in, for some organizations, I'm not saying the Astros,
13:59but necessarily, um, for like replacement level pictures, but when you got some studs out
14:05there, man, you know, that, that you don't want, you want them to last.
14:08But how do you piecemeal that?
14:10That's what I'm saying.
14:10You know, how do you, but it seemed like the studs do last though.
14:13Like, I mean, it's not like you throwing Verlander to the side and that's it.
14:17Like he come back strong, but I don't know if, I don't know if Luis Garcia going to come
14:22back strong.
14:23It seemed like he haven't been the same since he had to change his form or whatever.
14:29Yeah.
14:29So I'm like, I don't know if players like that is going to come back strong, where it's worth
14:34keeping around like that.
14:35All I'm saying is you have to do something.
14:38You can't just say, Oh, well, that's baseball.
14:40Oh, well, that that's the price of doing business.
14:43Oh, well, you know, you're, you, you, you, they're replaceable.
14:46It's the business side and the ugly business side of, of the sport.
14:49I don't think you're in a place when you're worst that you can just do that.
14:53Can I go to the, the consulting firm of Lopez and Gileard right quick, if you don't mind.
14:58So I have a client for you.
15:00It's the Houston Astros.
15:01They're trying to figure out how they handle these circumstances with injuries.
15:06What would you recommend for them?
15:07Would it be like overhaul to do a, do an expansive research into the way that you handle pitching
15:12that at least we'll focus in there and maybe the way that you teach it, the way that you
15:16train it, the way that you develop it or what have you, would it maybe be just maybe don't
15:21invest as much money in that space and understanding that eventually everybody's going to have this
15:25here surgery, it would be something else.
15:27I think you got to start with the internal, you got to look internally, you know,
15:31why, you know, we get it, but why are we not have, why are we having such bad luck?
15:36Yeah.
15:36I would, I would, yeah, I agree.
15:38It can't just be luck.
15:38I would start internally and say, Hey, show me how you showing these pictures, how to pitch
15:44or, you know, go through your rehab.
15:47Let me, let me check the medical record.
15:49Let me, let me see all of this stuff to see, because maybe it could be a coincidence.
15:53It might be a coincidence.
15:54I don't know.
15:55I just don't want to rely on it.
15:56But yeah, I like my eyebrow will raise to look like, damn, like another Tommy John.
16:02Yeah.
16:03Yeah.
16:03I was going to say we could watch, continue with so many pictures on the IL already.
16:10But yeah, that's a fascinating thing that I might want to see if I could do a little
16:14more digging on coming to some of the perspectives around the league, if I can get to that.
16:18But there you go.