Passan: Pitching injuries are out of control — and it’s time to take action
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Jeff Passan, ESPN
It’s all so ugly. Every day, it seems, another ulnar collateral ligament falls prey to the mere act of throwing a baseball. In a recent 48-hour period, Eury Perez, Shane Bieber and Spencer Strider — the best young pitcher in baseball, the 2020 American League Cy Young winner and the game’s current strikeout king, respectively — all went down with damaged elbows. A game already too thin on starting pitching continues to lose its greatest talent at an alarming rate.
The elbow crisis has been building for decades, from youth levels to the major leagues, and nobody in a position of power has done anything of substance to address it. This is not a bad stretch of luck or an anomaly. It’s an existential problem for baseball.
In addition to the absences facing Perez and Bieber, who will soon undergo Tommy John surgery, and Strider, who might need his second at 25 years old, the list of players already recovering from elbow reconstruction includes an MVP (Shohei Ohtani), Cy Young winners (Jacob deGrom, Sandy Alcantara, Robbie Ray), All-Stars (Shane McClanahan, Walker Buehler, Lucas Giolito, Felix Bautista) and young standouts (Dustin May, Andrew Painter, Shane Baz, Kumar Rocker). Reigning AL Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole is out until at least the end of May with elbow issues.
On and on it goes, this unrelenting train of bad news, and if this isn’t a call to action for everyone with a whit of influence in the baseball universe to pour their energy into confronting it, nothing is. For the sake of the game, the whole of the sport must work together to crack a dilemma with no obvious solution.
Which made the dueling statements from the Major League Baseball Players Association and MLB on Saturday so disappointing. An issue this complex, this difficult to wrangle, demands cooperation from all parties with the ability to affect change. Instead, the public proclamations in the wake of the latest Tommy John surgeries oozed pettiness.
The union’s statement focused on the pitch clock, implemented in 2023, and the two-second reduction with runners on base amended this season. It did not mention the sport’s drastic increase in pitch velocity or the constant maximum-effort approach pitchers take or the extreme emphasis on spin or the proliferation of year-round baseball or any number of other possible contributing factors. It relitigated a single issue — a not-unreasonable one, but one nonetheless — of a multipronged problem, saying: “The league’s unwillingness thus far to acknowledge or study the effects of these profound changes is an unprecedented threat to our game and its most valuable asset — the Players.”
MLB’s response did not help matters. It discussed velocity and spin — and trumpeted the league’s efforts to combat elbow injuries through a research study it’s undertaking. But in trying to defend the pitch clock — one of the defining accomplishments of commissioner Rob Manfred’s tenure — the league cited a study from Johns Hopkins University “that found no evidence to support that the introduction of the pitch clock has increased injuries.”
Without any sense of the exact questions the study sought to answer, the data it combed through and the specificity of its conclusions, it’s difficult to glean anything meaningful from the league’s proclamations. Considering the study remains in peer review, using its unverifiable findings, even as a rejoinder to the union’s statement, speaks to a lack of the transparency that’s imperative in tackling the problem.
Here’s what progress would look like: The voices of current pitchers — the ones who step out onto the mound knowing their elbows are ticking time bombs — factoring heavily in MLB’s decision-making. They are the ones who feel the pain, who internalize the fear that what’s expected of them — throw harder, spin faster — predisposes them to major surgery. They’re the ones who exist in an industry that asks ever more of them — more velo, nastier stuff, full tilt all the time — and leaves behind those who don’t offer it.
Pitchers have always gotten hurt — and will always get hurt — but at the highest levels the causes have morphed from longer-term overuse injuries to shorter-burst, higher-intensity, muscles-and-ligaments-can’t-handle-it ones. Teams incentivize pitchers to throw in a way that many experts believe is the root cause of the game’s injury issues. As much as velocity correlates with injuries, it does so similarly with productivity. Throw harder, perform better. It’s a fact. It’s also bad for the health of pitchers — and the game.
At the same time, it’s not the only factor. The fact that the union wants more information on the pitch clock should matter to MLB. Even if the league did bargain during negotiations with the MLBPA for a far shorter window to implement on-field rules changes, it can’t ignore what players continue to begrudge. This isn’t idle bellyaching. Pitchers want to understand why the extra two seconds shaved off the clock this year were so imperative. And why they aren’t entitled to one or two timeouts a game when they feel discomfort — a nerve sending a shock of pain up their arm, a muscle spasming and in need of a break. And why there still isn’t an accepted grip agent to help with balls they believe remain inconsistently manufactured. All issues of health.
Pitchers know the injury data. They’ve seen the number of Tommy John surgeries ballooning at the big league level. It’s even more pronounced in the minor leagues, and the surge over the past decade aligns with the implementation of the pitch clock at lower levels. But it also coincides with baseball’s pitch-design era, in which the use of technology — Trackman and Rapsodo machines that gauge spin characteristics, and super-slow-motion cameras that capture grips and releases — allows pitchers to fabricate new pitches not based on their comfort or ease throwing them but on detailed movement measurements to which they aspire.
Maybe it’s the clock. Maybe it’s pitch design. Maybe it’s velocity. Maybe it’s all of the above. Regardless of what it is, one truth the baseball universe knows is that the greatest predictor of a future arm injury is a past arm injury. In other words: The litany of pitchers who are hurt now are at far greater risk of getting hurt again.
When a sport has evolved to the point where half of its participants are encouraged to compete in a way deeply detrimental to their short-term — and in many cases, long-term — health, there is no room for politicking, bickering, blaming. With a sound process and commitment from both sides to it, all of the important questions would be asked and, hopefully, answered. This is about the people, and it is about the game, and it is about the awful place where the two are intersecting.
If anything in baseball deserves max effort, this is it.
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Bradford Doolittle
The initial 2025 MLB All-Star Game rosters are out, the product of the collaborative process between fans, players and the league. How did this annual confab do?
We already know that injuries will prevent some of these selectees from appearing in Atlanta, and replacement choices will be announced in the coming days. By the end of this post-selection period, we’ll wind up with something like 70 to 75 All-Stars for this season.
These first-draft rosters contain 65 players, the odd number stemming from the decision to send Clayton Kershaw to the festivities as a “Legend” pick. First reaction: Baseball’s newest member of the 3,000 strikeout club has earned everything he gets.
Now, on to the nitpicking.
American League
Biggest oversight: Joe Ryan, Minnesota Twins
The Twins’ lone representative on the initial rosters is outfielder Byron Buxton, a worthy selection. Ryan (8-4, 2.76 ERA) fell into a group of similar performers including Kansas City’s Kris Bubic and the Texas duo of Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi. Bubic and deGrom made it, which is great, and Bubic in particular is quite a story.
But Ryan and Eovaldi didn’t make it, and both were probably a little more deserving that Seattle’s Bryan Woo, whose superficial numbers (8-4, 2.77) are very close to Ryan’s. But Woo plays in a more friendly pitching park, and the under-the-hood metrics favor Ryan.
The main takeaway: If this is the biggest discrepancy, the process worked well.
Second-biggest oversight: Many-way tie between several hitters
The every-team-gets-a-player rule, along with positional requirements, always knocks out worthy performers from teams with multiple candidates. Thus, a few picks on the position side might have gone differently.
The Rays are playing so well they probably deserve more than one player. Their most deserving pick made it — infielder Jonathan Aranda — along with veteran second baseman Brandon Lowe. Infielders such as J.P. Crawford (Seattle), Isaac Paredes (Houston) and Zach McKinstry (Detroit) had good cases to make it ahead of Lowe, whose power numbers (19 homers, 54 RBIs) swayed the players.
While acknowledging that Gunnar Henderson has had a disappointing season, I still think he deserved to be the Orioles’ default pick instead of Ryan O’Hearn. But the latter was selected as the AL’s starting DH by the fans, and Baltimore doesn’t deserve two players. It’s a great story that O’Hearn will be a first-time All-Star just a couple of weeks before his 32nd birthday.
Other thoughts
• The default White Sox selection is rookie starter Shane Smith, a Rule 5 pick from Milwaukee last winter. Smith is my lowest-rated player on the AL squad, but he has been consistently solid. Adrian Houser, an in-season pickup, has been great for Chicago and has arguably produced more value than Smith. But I like honoring the rookie who has been there the whole campaign.
• The Athletics’ Jacob Wilson was elected as a starter and is easily the most deserving player from that squad. I’m not sure I see a second pick there, but Brent Rooker made it as a DH. Rooker has been fine, but his spot could have gone to one of the overlooked hitters already mentioned, or perhaps Kansas City’s Maikel Garcia.
• Houston’s Jeremy Pena is a deserving choice and arguably should be the AL’s starter at shortstop instead of Wilson. Alas, he’s on the injured list, and though reports say he might soon resume baseball activities, it’s likely Pena will be replaced. Any of the above-mentioned overlooked hitters will do.
• As for the starters, the fans do a great job nowadays. I disagreed with them on a couple of spots, though. I would have gone with a keystone combo of Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Pena rather than Gleyber Torres and Wilson, but I’d have them all on the team. And I would have definitely started Buxton over Javier Baez in the outfield.
National League
Biggest oversight: Juan Soto, New York Mets
Not sure how this happens, but I’m guessing Soto is a victim of his own standards. Yes, he signed a contract for an unfathomable amount of money, and so far, he hasn’t reinvented the game as a member of the Mets. He has just been lower-end Juan Soto, which is still one of the best players in the sport. His OBP is, as ever, north of .400, he leads the league in walks and it sure seems as if Pete Alonso has very much enjoyed hitting behind him.
The All-Star Game was invented for players like Soto, and though you might leave out someone like him if he is having a truly poor season, that’s not the case here. It is kind of amazing that he didn’t make it, while MacKenzie Gore and James Wood — both part of the trade that sent Soto from Washington to San Diego — did. They deserve it, and you can make a strong argument that a third player the Nats picked up in the trade — CJ Abrams — does as well. But Soto deserves it too.
Finally, the Marlins’ most-deserving pick is outfielder Kyle Stowers, who indeed ended up as their default selection. But he probably ended up with Soto’s slot.
Second-biggest oversight: Andy Pages, Los Angeles Dodgers
It’s hard to overlook anyone on the Dodgers, but somehow Pages slipped through the cracks despite his fantastic all-around first half for the defending champs.
It was just a numbers game. I’ve got five NL outfielders rated ahead of Pages, and all but Soto made it, so no additional quibbles there. The fans voted in Ronald Acuna Jr. to start at his home ballpark. Having Acuna there in front of the fans in Atlanta makes sense. But he has played only half of the first half.
Other thoughts
• The shortstop position is loaded in the NL, but the only pure shortstops to make it were starter Francisco Lindor and Elly De La Cruz. Both are good selections, but the Phillies’ Trea Turner has been just as outstanding. Abrams and Arizona’s Geraldo Perdomo are also deserving. The position has been so good that the player with the most career value currently playing shortstop in the NL — Mookie Betts — barely merits a mention. Betts has had a subpar half, but who will be surprised if he’s topping this list by the end of the season?
• Both leagues had three pitching staff slots given to relievers. The group in the AL (Aroldis Chapman, Josh Hader and Andres Munoz) was much more clear-cut than the one in the NL, which ended up with the Giants’ Randy Rodriguez, the Mets’ Edwin Diaz and the Padres’ Jason Adam. It made sense to honor someone from San Diego’s dominant bullpen, and you could have flipped a coin to pick between Adam and Adrian Morejon.
• Picking these rosters while meeting all the requirements and needs for teams and positions is hard. I don’t have any real issue with the pitchers selected for the NL. One of them is Atlanta’s Chris Sale, who is on the IL and will have to be replaced. My pick would be Philadelphia’s Cristopher Sanchez (7-2, 2.68 ERA).
• And for the starting position players, Alonso should have gotten the nod over Freddie Freeman at first base, though it will be great to see Freeman’s reception when he takes the field in Atlanta. For that matter, the Cubs’ Michael Busch has had a better first half than Freeman at this point, though that became true only in the past few days, thanks to his explosion at Wrigley Field. I would have gone with Turner at short, but it’s close. And I’d have started Wood in place of Acuna.
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Jesse Rogers
The last-place Washington Nationals fired president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and manager Davey Martinez, the team announced Sunday.
Rizzo, 64, and Martinez, 60, won a World Series with the Nationals in 2019, but the team has floundered in recent years. This season, the Nationals are 37-53 and stuck at the bottom of the National League East after getting swept by the Boston Red Sox this weekend at home. Washington hasn’t finished higher than fourth in the division since winning the World Series.
“On behalf of our family and the Washington Nationals organization, I first and foremost want to thank Mike and Davey for their contributions to our franchise and our city,” principal owner Mark Lerner said in a statement. “Our family is eternally grateful for their years of dedication to the organization, including their roles in bringing a World Series trophy to Washington, D.C.
“While we are appreciative of their past successes, the on-field performance has not been where we or our fans expect it to be. This is a pivotal time for our club, and we believe a fresh approach and new energy is the best course of action for our team moving forward.”
Mike DeBartolo, the club’s senior vice president and assistant general manager, was named interim GM on Sunday night. DeBartolo will oversee all aspects of baseball operations, including the MLB draft. An announcement will be made on the interim manager Monday, a day before the club begins a series against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Rizzo has been the top decision-maker in Washington since 2013, and Martinez has been on board since 2018. Under Rizzo’s leadership, the team made the postseason four times: in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019. The latter season was Martinez’s lone playoff appearance.
“When our family assumed control of the team, nearly 20 years ago, Mike was the first hire we made,” Lerner said. “Over two decades, he was with us as we went from a fledging team in a new city to World Series champion. Mike helped make us who we are as an organization, and we’re so thankful to him for his hard work and dedication — not just on the field and in the front office, but in the community as well.”
The Nationals are in the midst of a rebuild that has moved slower than expected, though the team didn’t augment its young core much during the winter. Led by All-Stars James Wood and MacKenzie Gore, Washington has the second-youngest group of hitters in MLB and the sixth-youngest pitching staff.
The team lost 11 straight games in a forgettable stretch last month. And during a 2-10 run in June, Washington averaged just 2.5 runs. Since June 1, the Nationals have scored one run or been shut out seven times. In Sunday’s 6-4 loss to Boston, they left 15 runners on base.
There was industry speculation over the winter that the Nationals would spend money on free agents for the first time in several years, but that never materialized. Instead, the team made minor moves, signing free agents Josh Bell and Michael Soroka, trading for first baseman Nathaniel Lowe and re-signing closer Kyle Finnegan. Now, the hope is a new management team, both on and off the field, can help change the franchise’s fortunes.
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David Schoenfield
The rosters for the 2025 MLB All-Star Game will feature 19 first-timers — and one legend — as the pitchers and reserves were announced Sunday for the July 15 contest at Truist Park in Atlanta.
Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw, a three-time Cy Young Award winner who made his first All-Star team in 2011, was named to his 11th National League roster as a special commissioner’s selection.
Kershaw, who became only the fourth left-hander to amass 3,000 career strikeouts, is 4-0 with a 3.43 ERA in nine starts after beginning the season on the injured list. He joins Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera as a legend choice, after the pair of sluggers were selected in 2022.
Kershaw said he didn’t want to discuss the selection Sunday.
Among the first-time All-Stars announced Sunday: Dodgers teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto; Washington Nationals outfielder James Wood and left-hander MacKenzie Gore; Houston Astros ace Hunter Brown and shortstop Jeremy Pena; and Chicago Cubs 34-year-old left-hander Matthew Boyd.
“It’ll just be cool being around some of the best players in the game,” Wood said.
First-time All-Stars previously elected to start by the fans include Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, Athletics shortstop Jacob Wilson, Baltimore Orioles designated hitter Ryan O’Hearn and Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong.
Overall, the 19 first-time All-Stars is a drop from the 32 first-time selections on the initial rosters in 2024.
Kershaw would be the sentimental choice to start for the National League, although Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes, who leads NL pitchers in ERA and WAR, might be in line to start his second straight contest. Philadelphia Phillies right-hander Zack Wheeler, a three-time All-Star, is 9-3 with a 2.17 ERA after Sunday’s complete-game victory and also would be a strong candidate to start.
“I think it would be stupid to say no to that. It’s a pretty cool opportunity,” Skenes said about the possibility of being asked to start by Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “I didn’t make plans over the All-Star break or anything. So, yeah, I’m super stoked.”
Kershaw has made one All-Star start in his career, in 2022 at Dodger Stadium.
Among standout players not selected were New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto, who signed a $765 million contract as a free agent in the offseason, and Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts, who had made eight consecutive All-Star rosters since 2016.
Soto got off to a slow start but was the National League Player of the Month in June and entered Sunday ranked sixth in the NL in WAR among position players while ranking second in OBP, eighth in OPS and third in runs scored.
The players vote for the reserves at each position and selected Wood, Corbin Carroll of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Fernando Tatis Jr. of the San Diego Padres as the backup outfielders. Kyle Stowers also made it as a backup outfielder as the representative for the Miami Marlins.
Unless Soto later is added as an injury replacement, he’ll miss his first All-Star Game since his first full season in 2019.
The Dodgers lead all teams with five representatives: Kershaw, Yamamoto and starters Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith. The AL-leading Detroit Tigers (57-34) and Mariners have four each.
Tigers ace Tarik Skubal will join AL starters Riley Greene, Gleyber Torres and Javier Baez, while Raleigh, the AL’s starting catcher, will be joined by Seattle teammates Bryan Woo, Andres Munoz and Julio Rodriguez.
Earning his fifth career selection but first since 2021 is Texas Rangers righty Jacob deGrom, who is finally healthy after making only nine starts in his first two seasons with the Rangers and is 9-2 with a 2.13 ERA. He has never started an All-Star Game, although Skubal or Brown would be the favorite to start for the AL.
The hometown Braves will have three All-Stars in Acuna, pitcher Chris Sale (his ninth selection, tied with Freeman for the second most behind Kershaw) and first baseman Matt Olson. The San Francisco Giants had three pitchers selected: Logan Webb, Robbie Ray and reliever Randy Rodriguez.
The slumping New York Yankees ended up with three All-Stars: Aaron Judge, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Max Fried. The Mets also earned three All-Star selections: Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz.
“Red carpet, that’s my thing,” Chisholm said. “I do have a ‘fit in mind.”
Rosters are expanded from 26 to 32 for the All-Star Game. They include starters elected by fans, 17 players (five starting pitchers, three relievers and a backup for each position) chosen in a player vote and six players (four pitchers and two position players) selected by league officials. Every club must be represented.
Acuna, Wood and Raleigh are the three All-Stars who have so far committed to participating in the Home Run Derby.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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