More Atlanta Braves Rotation Woes Mike Minor Moves to 60 Day DL

Shoulders Aren’t Simple

In 2010 Jerry Crasnick wrote an article for ESPN called – prophetically it seems now, “Nothing ‘minor’ about shoulder surgery.”  In that post he said that while elbows get all the publicity there is at least a successful treatment for them. It’s not that way for shoulders.

Crasnick says his research shows that, “If Tommy John surgery is considered a new lease on life for a pitcher, shoulder problems are often viewed as a death sentence.”

In 2004 Will Carroll wrote in a piece call Labrum, It Nearly Killed Him that “. . .if pitchers with torn labrums were horses, they’d be destroyed. Of the 36 major-league hurlers diagnosed with labrum tears in the last five years, only midlevel reliever Rocky Biddle has returned to his previous level. . .when your favorite pitcher comes down with labrum trouble: He has a 3 percent chance of becoming Rocky Biddle. . .”

That’s because the shoulder is a much more complex structure than an elbow and it’s often impossible to determine what’s wrong with even the best diagnostic tests around.

As I wrote when Brian McCann’s shoulder was being abused back in 2012, the best tool is a contrast MRI and even then surgeons are often surprised by what they find.  According to Rangers training director Jaime Reed most rotator cuff surgeries are simply a cleanup of the frayed bits hanging off a well used labrum.

"“. . . It’s like when you take a rope and go over the corner of a table, back and forth, and get all that fraying. It’s the same when you get inside a shoulder.(the bits floating around)  clog up (the joint) and get inflamed, and that’s where a lot of guys have shoulder pain and discomfort. You’re basically getting that tissue that needs to be debrided out of the way.”"

On the other hand, it could be a lot worse. Former Brave, Giant and Dodger Jason Schmidt went to spring training and found his pitches had no zip. When the doctors looked inside they found a torn rotator cuff, frayed biceps tendon and inflammed bursa.

In my post a year and a half ago I explained that Schmidt never pitched well after returning. He described to Crasnick how it felt when he tried.

"“After you get your shoulder fixed, you try to throw from your normal arm angle and feel a little pinch . . .you drop down a little bit and don’t have that pinch, but you can’t locate. .  since you’ve dropped down, you start putting pressure somewhere else and . . . you feel soreness in another spot in your shoulder. It’s a never-ending battle.”"

In his book “Starting and Closing” Smoltz explained his experience like this.

"The best way I can think to describe this is to have you imagine what it would feel like if someone suddenly disengaged the power steering in your car while you were driving. You would still be to steer your car and get to where you needed to go, but it would be a lot more work than you were used to. That’s how pitching after shoulder surgery felt to me."

In that book Smoltz said that his surgeon told him the inside of his shoulder looked like a firecracker went off inside of it. They had no idea it was that bad in spite of multiple MRIs, CAT scans and X-Rays. Bottom line they don’t; know until they look and looking isn’t always a good thing.

Dr James Andrews always cautions his patience that there are few things a surgery can’t make worse. Players and team know that and that’s why surgery is often delayed so long.  It’s also the reason they don’t know what’s wrong with Minor’s shoulder.

As I noted before Hart seemed unusually pessimistic; “We don’t see him coming back anytime soon”. . .”has not been any measurable improvement that you want to see. . . “  That’s not good, not good at all. What now?