9-22-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter
I’m not a doctor.
Seems obvious, but, when I’m about to write something that deals with medicine or training or health of players in general, it’s important to just clarify, I’m not trying to be an expert here. I’m simply seeing patterns and asking questions.
I mean, the team has largely hampered their second half of the season trying like hell to make sure Paul Skenes can’t pitch more than once a week, yet these same people decided Johan Oviedo needed to give them 2 more starts in a losing season, to stretch further than he ever had by a country mile.
Again, I’m not trying to claim I know beyond a shadow of doubt this lead to his eventual Tommy John Surgery. I don’t have to in order to simply point out, it’s contradictory.
I mean, your mind could go a ton of different ways. On one hand, I don’t have an issue with pushing a guy, and if you’re doing individual evaluation you should of course wind up with individual outcomes for how to proceed. On the other hand, he hadn’t even approached a load like his 177.2 innings he provided in 2023 since 2019, and it felt rushed.
Think back, Johan was acquired from the Cardinals and had been performing out of their bullpen, the Pirates decided to see if they could stretch him back out to start, which obviously worked out quite well, so well that Johan would wind up sticking and providing damn near as much as Mitch Keller did on the innings front.
He’d already done that. He’d already made it apparent this pitching starved franchise (remember that being the narrative?) had probably found a starter to add to their rotation, there had been signs that Oviedo was slowing down a bit, the velocity had dropped off, the command had become a bit more loose. The Pirates still asked him to push it and of course, it’s not just their doing, Johan wanted it too.
Again, I don’t need to openly blame the Pirates for his ultimate injury in order to ask some questions.
Even if that story has you 100% convinced the team messed up, it’s one story, one instance, and you can do nothing further than second guess.
Until you see more…
First thing I thought of was the first time I remember asking questions about their handling of a player, Vince Velasquez. Another pitcher who had been a reliever with starter experience the Pirates were trying to stretch back out. The Bucs barely got into this project as Vinny landed on the IL with elbow tightness after his May 4th appearance and to everyone’s surprise jumped right back off the IL for a May 27th appearance in Seattle where he got hit hard and ultimately took two innings to turn his tightness into a full blown UCL surgery situation.
Again, I hate to repeat myself, I’m not a doctor. Someone who is absolutely told the Pirates these situations would play out differently. Or at least that the concern was minimal, right?
Look, it doesn’t have to be someone’s fault when there’s an injury. Like JT Brubaker ultimately first felt something in his elbow reaching for something at a dinner table. That’s just bad luck and hey, for all I know, that’s all it is with Oviedo and Velasquez too.
Sadly, there’s more.
And not just pitchers. Nick Gonzales and Henry Davis both had injury plagued trips through the minor leagues, and both have been put in strange situations because of it, up to and including playing through injury, which at the very least gives fans an impression of their abilities without the complete set of information, but also puts them as more risk than you typically would a 1st round selection.
Henry has had hand injuries almost his entire tenure in the franchise. Getting hit by pitches, hitting bare handed, leaving his hand exposed in his catching stance for foul balls, and recently I heard the new weighted knob on his bat that he’s since eliminated initially hurt his hand again this year.
I mean, can we get a tighter grip on how he’s experimenting? Can we get him techniqued up a bit behind the dish, get the hand behind your back at least? Maybe make him wear batting gloves instead of playing G.I. Joe?
The latest is Jared Jones. They’ve spent all season dealing with innings counts for he and Paul Skenes and they’ve done so to the detriment of the team’s performance which has in part netted them their current position. The Bullpen has been bad, but the team has also every 6th day thrown a bullpen game, or a poor starter who probably isn’t going all that deep which always sucked, because it added focus to the Pirates most underperforming unit.
Regardless, this effort to get Skenes and Jones to the end of the season makes sense, as long as they’re healthy. It’s all about being careful, all about making sure they have a normal offseason and all the pain caused by protecting them through the season pays off in two kids stretched out and ready to be much more uninhibited in 2025.
That’s what you hope. But if you hit any bump in the road at any point, you pull the plug, no harm, no foul. Everyone gets it, even the most skeptical of skeptical.
So what the hell were Derek Shelton and the Training Staff thinking the other night when Jared Jones started losing velocity like he hadn’t all season long? What were they thinking as he showed signs of discomfort most of his outing, stretching his arms above his head repeatedly and throwing multiple fastballs at 90-91 MPH. Here’s Derek Shelton’s responses, I have thoughts, but you really should form your own first, so I’m at least giving you the opportunity.
I didn’t like this entire scene. I had felt something was off with Jared most of the game after the first inning. Couldn’t put my finger on it but, something wasn’t right.
So, when Jared had a sudden massive drop in velocity, down 6-0 in a meaningless game for a team that just clinched a losing season, again, and arguably your number 2 or 3 rotation member heading into next year, I thought, well, it’s been a good season kid. I thought, yeah, he’s probably ok, maybe aggravated the Lat again, but he’ll be fine.
I couldn’t believe they let him stay out there.
I couldn’t believe the juxtaposition that somehow in an effort to keep Jared and Paul healthy, I had to watch Domingo German, Jake Woodford, Carmen Mlodzinski as an opener or whatever piece of day old bread they found on the way home pitch, versus Eh, push through kid.
Like, what?
Not only does he stay in the game, after all that stuff, after all those observations, he’s challenged to push through and he ramps up his velocity to game high numbers.
So, if this is a tight Lat that’s still recovering, is that really what you want him doing? Even if he’s fine, even if this is all second guessing about what could have gone badly and didn’t.
How does that make sense?
Here’s Jared.
Yup, I’m sure that’s how it went down. Kid is a competitor, I’m quite sure he did want to stay out there, I’m also quite sure even if he did feel something, he very much so wanted to push through it.
I just question the team allowing it.
Everything about this team is careful.
Careful about trading prospects. Careful about multi year contracts. Careful about limiting pitch counts or innings.
Careless in my eyes. Maybe I’m just a fan overreacting. But I watched a team profess being careful was important enough to pull this kid out of a no hit effort in New York only 5 innings deep with a low pitch count only to see them apparently think now that the game doesn’t matter functionally for anyone on the field for either team, lets suddenly not err on the side of caution with an important player to our club.
Think about how they handled David Bednar at the beginning of the season. Injured, no Spring Training, pitched his Spring Training games in the Major leagues, in the same role he always held like it was just going to be ok.
Think about how they handled Colin Holderman. Injury history with the Mets and Pirates, gets a crushing flu bug in Spring and loses 25 pounds, so when he works his way back and goes through rehab what does Shelton do? Pitches him 19 times in 35 days. 31 of 59… on a guy who never gained back all his weight in the first place. And he handled it, until he didn’t. In late July into August, boom, the wall. He rode Colin like a horse to the glue factory and at the same time acted like some guys were hard done by if they had to go three times a week.
They have much more information than I do. I just see what I see, and ask questions.
Less and less do I accept the answers.
This team is simply not managed well, this is just another way.
Steel City Pirates 