With the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak and a delay to the start of baseball season, I will be covering some of the more notable injuries until spring training resumes.
Chris Sale had Tommy John surgery performed on his elbow earlier this past week. While this news shouldn’t come as a surprise given Sale’s elbow issues in 2019 and his complaints of elbow discomfort during spring training, it’s still unfortunate. Sale will now miss all of 2020 and probably will not return until July-ish of 2021. With Sale turning 31 on March 30, we are looking at his age-33 season before we can hope to expect the Chris Sale of old. For those of you in a keeper league, I would lean toward moving on from Sale (league rules are critical in this context; keep that in mind). In a dynasty league, try to wait and see how 2021 goes before making a decision.
Return date: July 2021
Justin Verlander underwent a semi-surprising surgery for his right groin after a setback during his rehab. The Astros expect Verlander to miss six weeks. If that timeline holds, he should begin throwing toward the end of April. With Opening Day rumored to take place after Memorial Day, Verlander should be ready to go well before that date. If I have a draft starting soon, I will operate under the assumption that Verlander will be able to pitch at an ace’s workload. Draft Verlander with confidence. This injury does not scare me off in any way.
Return date: Early May
As always, if there is someone else you have a question about, leave me a comment or send me a tweet! I will get to them as I’m able to.
Featured image by Justin Paradis (@freshmeatcomm on Twitter)
I called this and thor. For weeks my friends mocked me. I’m sorry for the players my league mates will rue the day. They will rue it!!!!
Really sucks for the players. But it is always nice to be right on a hunch!
Thanks for reading, Mike!
What’s the latest on Paxton? Will he be near ready by the delayed opening day?
There isn’t much new news coming out from anyone. But if we operate under the assumption that Opening Day will be in June, then I would think that Paxton would be more than ready for the start of the season. Thanks for reading!