It's Finally Here - The First Totally Avoidable Injury Of MLB Spring Training Happened To Padres Stud Pitcher Joe Musgrove In The Team Weight Room
Author's note - I understand this is a baseball blog, but I'd be remiss not to say up front, on record, that barefoot squat rack people are monsters, and I believe they should have most of their civil liberties restricted if not entirely eliminated.
Should probably confirm this one first
Alright now shitty news aside, I understand a good chunk of you aren't even sympathetic for Joe Musgrove right now. You're just mad I said he was a STUD in the title and you want to bitch about it. I'll get to you in a minute. First though, some words on the toe.
Let's get the exact report:
I think this one's open for debate, but I sincerely believe a left toe injury is worse than a right toe injury. Here's both sides.
Joe's righty so he pushes with his right leg and just about 100% of his body weight is moving down and through his foot as he breaks his hands in his delivery. The golf instructors on your Instagram feed call that Weight Transfer. A right toe injury obviously makes that painful, but there's some room to work through the heel and bottom half of the foot. Not exactly a great compromise but certainly not the worst. Pitching off a bad right toe would generally lead to lower velocity (no shit) and flatter fastball but maybe a better changeup and more horizontal on the two seam. Long term you're gonna have bad mechanics. I need a right toe guy to confirm this but there's not a ton of long-term risk.
Left toe is a different ball game, folks. You need to be on the lookout for opposite-arm/lower-body injuries in pitchers at all times. I don't care if it's a knee or a hip or a quad. Any part that's involved in accepting the initial wave of the Weight Transfer has to be free and clear to operate without physical obstruction. Get up right now and do a dry windup. Don't be bashful. Kershaw does this shit all the time.
And again, I'm gonna get to the people who think Joe Musgrove sucks or is overrated or however you want to summarize your shitty argument. For now I'm doing pitching lessons online.
Stand up. Come set. Don't go through a full windup because we're practicing and you never practice out of the windup because you never make a meaningful pitch out of the windup. Almost all of your work should be done from the set from bullpens to long toss to drills like this.
1. Okay now start your motion home. Lift your knee and load up the back side. Feel the that weight.
2. Now slowly put your knee back down and touch the floor with just 5% of your weight. Feel that balance.
3. Lift your knee back up and throw a pitch. Feel the transfer.
This is fuckin good shit man. If you did that then you know exactly where I'm coming from on with a bad left toe.
You need the lower half to absorb all this force. Lift with your legs, not with the back kinda stuff. And the force they're generating is exorbitant.
That force has to go somewhere. I just said it's through the lower half. That's how you stay healthy and that's why pitchers have such gigantic fucking legs. You're working it all from the waist down.
If there's any sort of compromise, it's usually absorbed by the elbow, shoulder and lower back. You have to push a little harder. Give a little a more. Just enough where you can manage yourself. Long-term though, it's one of the worst things that can happen to your throwing arm because you're giving it more than it can handle. You wouldn't do that to your Chevy any more than Musgrove should do it to himself.
So with all that said, it could take longer than you'd expect for Joe Musgrove to return. It has the potential to be really shitty if the Padres are stupid and rush him back.
I should probably make some Machado joke now. I can save that for the Tik Tok. THE BASEBALL GODS STRIKE AGAIN would be a good attention getter. I don't know. Algorithms been a little chilly lately.
Speaking of cold (takes).
Don't tell me Joe Musgrove isn't a Stud. Last two full seasons amongst MLB starting pitchers (min 250 innings) he's 16th in fWAR making 61 starts and a 125 ERA+ with all your standard ratios coming in well-above League Average.
More importantly - he's technically only getting better. Like I know I just wrote hundreds of words about how he's gonna die from a broken big toe. But Musgrove has transformed himself since arriving in San Diego. His pitch design, usage, metrics, etc. All that shit keeps evolving as he transitions into his 30's and it's a damn shame he's banged up. This is quite literally the best chance the Padres will have at the West for another decade assuming Ohtani is already a Dodger. That's a different blog.
For now just a sad note on our first big stupid spring training injury and the long winded complications of lingering lower half injuries.
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