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Shohei Ohtani has a UCL tear. This is horrible news for everyone. We also have notes on the White Sox, Terry Francona, and the Yankees and Mariners snapping their streaks. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal — welcome to the Windup!
Ohtani won’t pitch again in 2023: One more day on the verge of tears
A common theme in all of the “Angels collapsed after the trade deadline” stories has been that Ohtani hasn’t really spoken on the matter. He only speaks to the media after he pitches, and after leaving his last start on Aug. 9 with arm fatigue, he took a couple weeks off, serving only as the Angels’ DH.
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He finally took the mound again yesterday in the first game of a doubleheader against the Reds, and it was a disaster. His fastball velocity was down. In the second inning, he looked into the Angels dugout and shook his head, indicating that his day was done.
“Arm fatigue” was again the diagnosis, at least at first. But after the Angels’ second loss of the night, news broke that Ohtani had a tear in his UCL. Angels GM Perry Minasian said that it is still unclear if the injury would require surgery (Ohtani has already undergone one Tommy John surgery, in October 2018).
Additional reading:
It’s one thing to go all in and lose a hand. It’s another to push your chips in, lose your balance, hit your head on the table, vomit and pass out. One outcome is your problem. The other becomes a nightmare for everyone involved.
Ohtani was set to sign the biggest free-agent contract in history this offseason. There’s simply not another player with his two-way skill set, and when he is healthy, he is the most entertaining player in the sport. Now? Who knows what free agency will look like? Even if this tear doesn’t require surgery, it’s still going to raise a lot of questions for any medical staff tasked with green-lighting a half-billion-dollar contract.
And of course, if he does require surgery, he won’t pitch in 2024. And there’s no guarantee of success after a second TJ procedure.
Either way, this is a very expensive injury for Ohtani and a gut punch for the entire sport.
Oh, and by the way, Mike Trout is also going back on the IL. He had been activated Tuesday but missed both games of the doubleheader with soreness.
Sheesh.
More on Ohtani:
Ken’s Notebook: White Sox stick with who they know
If ever there was a team in need of fresh ideas, it’s the White Sox. So, what is chairman Jerry Reinsdorf planning to do, according to USA Today’s Bob Nightengale? Promote the team’s farm director, Chris Getz, to run baseball operations.
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I did not even include Getz on my partial list of candidates for the White Sox’s position in my column Wednesday. My mistake. I forgot I was writing about the White Sox, an insular operation, and Reinsdorf, an owner who seemingly values his own comfort with employees above all else.
Reinsdorf’s comfort is why, according to Nightengale, Tony La Russa is back with the team as a consultant. Reinsdorf’s comfort is why he chose La Russa over A.J. Hinch as manager for an ill-fated two-year comeback in 2021 and ’22. Getz has been the White Sox’s farm director the past seven seasons, and not a particularly successful one. As The Athletic’s Keith Law wrote, “the biggest and most consistent problem is that the White Sox have struggled to develop their own talent.”
Getz, who turns 40 next Wednesday, was a second baseman with the White Sox and Royals from 2008 to ’14. Nightengale also reported that Getz’s GM while he was with Kansas City, Dayton Moore, is expected to be part of the White Sox’s revamped front office. Moore, who also employed Sox manager Pedro Grifol as a coach with the Royals, clearly would be an asset. But Getz, as a first-time GM, would need additional help from the outside. And he would need to make additional changes to the White Sox Way, which is … what exactly?
Not that Reinsdorf, 87, wants to hear it, but what his team needs most is an experienced, dynamic leader who would overhaul every aspect of the organization, from analytics to amateur scouting, player development to major-league evaluation. Reinsdorf signaled he would not go after a current GM when the team announced its intention to hire a single decision-maker by the end of the season. A number of former GMs would make intriguing candidates, but no. Reinsdorf, in his seeming distrust of outsiders, is no better than Rockies owner and CEO Dick Monfort.
This is nothing against Getz. For all anyone knows, he might prove an excellent choice, particularly if he surrounds himself with the right people. Every head of baseball operations started out as a first-timer, and Getz almost certainly would do things differently than Ken Williams and Rick Hahn, the executives Reinsdorf fired Tuesday. But White Sox fans would have every right to be skeptical, every right to consider the hiring of Getz to be less than inspired.
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The White Sox need the vision, knowledge and experience that only a proven external candidate could offer. Problem is, they’ve got an owner who is forever set in his ways.
Is Terry Francona retiring?: I’d encourage your smiles, I’ll expect you won’t cry
Terry Francona’s health issues have been no secret over the last few years. On more than one occasion, there seemed to be a question as to whether he would return to the Guardians’ dugout at all. But each time, he has come back, adding to what is almost certainly a Hall of Fame managerial career.
As a manager, he has the 13th-most wins in history — a 1,934-1,962 record between the Phillies, Red Sox and Indians/Guardians — and two World Series titles from his time in Boston (including the curse-breaker in 2004). No fewer than 10 of the managers ahead of him are in the Hall of Fame, and the other two are Bruce Bochy and Dusty Baker.
The numbers have continued to stack up.
But this week, Francona indicated that his time at the helm might soon be coming to an end.
“I don’t ever want to do this for the wrong reasons,” he said Tuesday.
He said he has spoken at length to (president of baseball operations) Chris Antonetti and GM Mike Chernoff about his next steps, and has attempted to evaluate his situation on a regular basis.
“I’m not always pleased with the answer I’m getting,” he said.
If this is the end for Francona, it will have been quite a career. The man once managed Michael Jordan, for goodness’ sake.
More Francona: Steve Buckley makes the case for retiring Francona’s number in Boston.
Mariners, Yankees snap streaks: Something about that yin and the yang
The New York Yankees won on Wednesday, beating the Washington Nationals 9-0 at home. The Seattle Mariners lost, dropping a 5-4 contest to the White Sox in Chicago. The last time a Yankees win corresponded with a Mariners loss was way back on July 29, when New York’s record was 55-49, and Seattle’s was 53-51.
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Back then, both teams were underperforming expectations and hoping to get hot in time to make a run at a wild-card position. The Mariners turned it on and have gone 18-5 since. The Yankees also flipped a switch — and blew a breaker. When the lights came back on, they’d gone 6-16.
That’s how you get press conferences like Brian Cashman’s on Wednesday, where he was left to admit that it has been a frustrating season for everyone in The Bronx. The “Fire Cashman” chants have been relentless of late, but the Yankees haven’t finished under .500 since 1992 — the year that Cashman was named assistant GM.
He took over the GM role just before the 1998 season, and the Yankees responded by winning the World Series in each of his first three seasons, then losing in two of the next three, before winning again in 2009.
But the standard in New York is different. They haven’t been to a World Series since ’09, and the roster construction failed them this year. It’s easy to say Cashman deserves to have one losing season out of 26, but with the Yankees, you never know.
Handshakes and High Fives
Mookie Betts was already a star when he was with the Red Sox. But the move to Los Angeles, along with a bit more confidence in who he is, has allowed Betts to flourish off the field as well.
When Bryce Harper returned to action this year, he hit just three home runs in his first 58 games. He now has seven in his last 16 games. The power is officially back.
The Blue Jays rotation appears to be just about playoff-ready. Now they just have to make the playoffs.
It’s been a weird year for Paul DeJong. Traded to the Blue Jays at the deadline, DFA’d after just 13 games, and now the Giants are hoping he’s the answer to some of their depth issues. He had a pretty good debut with his new team last night.
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The chants aren’t working in Oakland. What else ya got?
Speaking of owners being out of touch, Ken takes a hard and honest look at Orioles owner John Angelos’ recent statements about the financial difficulties of owning a franchise worth roughly $1.7 billion.
(Top photo: Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)
