The medical issue: Why can't the Jays get it right?

[dagger]

Just a thought exercise, related to the Donaldson rehab, also past rehabs and injury diagnosis failure involving a host of players dating back to Adam Lind's foot fracture that went undiagnosed for weeks.

It boils down to this. The Jays don't have the confidence of some veterans who have the kind of nagging injuries that linger, with protracted rehabs. They can't seem to get this right. Admittedly, medical diagnosis often is not a simple yes/no, unless the x-ray, CT scan or MRI is crystal clear (which it often is not). And when you have the oldest roster in baseball, those kinds of nagging injuries like calves and hamstrings can take longer to heal. Nor is it absolutely a Toronto problem - look at the whole Kawhi Leonard fiasco in San Antonio with a younger player and a misdiagnosis/possibly botched rehab. The Spurs had a long history of managing older players' injuries really well, which why guys like Duncan, Manu and Parker were able to extend their careers at a high level.

However, I look at the Raptors, and to a lesser extent the Maple Leafs (the Joffrey Lupul situation being the outlier) and wonder if there is a philosophical approach to how injuries - beyond the usual stuff like ankle sprains and knee and shoulder wear issues like tendinitis - are handled. The Jays tend to send anyone for extended rehab to Dunedin, whereas in-season, the Raptors or Leafs keep these types of rehab programs close to the city. The latter both have exceptional facilities, like the Biosteel Centre, and of course the Raptors have one of the best sports science guys in the business, Alex McKechnie, with the team. And off-season, a lot of players cleaning up in-season injuries or off-season surgeries are working out with McKechnie in Vancouver or with friends/associates of his in the US. In other words, the principal guy in charge keeps control of these situations year-round. (Yes, the Raptors and Leafs are younger, which is likely a factor).

I'd like to know more about the Jays medical/sports science hierarchy. I get the feeling there is no hierarchy. Look at the high performance department, per this chart.

https://www.mlb.com/bluejays/team/front-office-directory.

It looks like there are a lot of sous-chefs but no one head chef. It's a pretty flat structure. Lot of consulting physicians in two locations.

The head of high performance is a sports psychologist, and the mental side has been a point of emphasis for the Jays under the current administration, but it doesn't seem like that's been undermining the team as much as lingering injuries (I'm thinking about Donaldson, and in 2016-17, Edwin Encarnacion in particular.) Just wondering if the Jays would do better with a more hierarchical structure, and would do well to go speak to someone like McKechnie for advice on what they could do better.

[Skin Blues]

From your link: "Angus Mugford: Director, High Performance". AKA head chef. I don't know what good finger pointing does, but there's a guy you can point to if you want.

I don't think we're particularly bad with injury diagnosis. It's not like we're the Mets. You cite Edwin as an example yet he played 160 games in 2016 at a level that he has not yet returned to since going to Cleveland. He had a nagging hand injury but played through it, and played extremely well. I don't see any issues, there. And they went out of the box with Stroman's rehab and he made it back much sooner than anticipated, at full strength. Donaldson is the only real failing, here. He's had a calf injury dating back to last spring training and he's used his own personal doctor rather than the team's doctor for part of the rehab. I haven't followed the drama related to that, but it seems like you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

[Ado05]

Read on Twitter

Seems dumb to let him pitch through it for no reason

[Fairview4Life]

From your link: "Angus Mugford: Director, High Performance". AKA head chef. I don't know what good finger pointing does, but there's a guy you can point to if you want.

I don't think we're particularly bad with injury diagnosis. It's not like we're the Mets. You cite Edwin as an example yet he played 160 games in 2016 at a level that he has not yet returned to since going to Cleveland. He had a nagging hand injury but played through it, and played extremely well. I don't see any issues, there. And they went out of the box with Stroman's rehab and he made it back much sooner than anticipated, at full strength. Donaldson is the only real failing, here. He's had a calf injury dating back to last spring training and he's used his own personal doctor rather than the team's doctor for part of the rehab. I haven't followed the drama related to that, but it seems like you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

Angus Mugford sounds like someone who you only point a finger at once.

[LBJKB24MJ23]

If i'm not mistaken, the Jays had one of the healthiest rosters during the AA years. Happ, Estrada all healthy.

its just luck. this year was not lucky to the Jays.

[I_Like_Dirt]

If i'm not mistaken, the Jays had one of the healthiest rosters during the AA years. Happ, Estrada all healthy.

its just luck. this year was not lucky to the Jays.

Luck is surely involved, but it's more than just luck. I mean, there was a lot of luck that the Jays managed to stay as healthy as they did in AAs last season and the season thereafter. The Jays built one of the oldest rosters in the game and traded for Tulo, who had averaged 88 games played per season before the season the Jays traded for him. Their luck was going to run out at some point or another. Guys just don't stay reliably healthy into their mid, or even early 30s in baseball following the crackdown on PEDs. And beyond that, the Jays also didn't exactly have a lot of guys to call up and replace players, so they were in a position to feel injuries quite a bit more than some of the other good teams out there.

[Schad]

Yeah, there's some bad luck now, but there's also just a lot of old dudes with bad track records of health. There's no question that the Stroman/Sanchez injuries are unlucky, in that they're weird ways to get injured, but you could argue fairly convincingly that pitchers break so frequently that the primary source of weirdness is that they didn't blow out an elbow or something like so many of their peers.

[Scott Hall]

Didn't the Jays and Leafs used to hire trainers and medical guys from community colleges like Sheridan College?

[GoRapstheoriginal]

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/leafs-advanced-medical-staff-got-tyler-ennis-ready-roll/ Kind of related.

[Schad]

Didn't the Jays and Leafs used to hire trainers and medical guys from community colleges like Sheridan College?

Jays had the same head trainer for 15 years in George Poulis, who had a total of 13 years experience as a trainer in MLB before taking that job. Our current head trainer has a PhD and was previously working at a prestigious institution. So whenever we were supposedly getting these people from Sheridan College, it wasn't in recent memory.

[Scott Hall]

Didn't the Jays and Leafs used to hire trainers and medical guys from community colleges like Sheridan College?

Jays had the same head trainer for 15 years in George Poulis, who had a total of 13 years experience as a trainer in MLB before taking that job. Our current head trainer has a PhD and was previously working at a prestigious institution. So whenever we were supposedly getting these people from Sheridan College, it wasn't in recent memory.

Just did a quick google search the Jays have been hiring Sheridan College interns for the last 25 years
or so as George Poulis was a big believer in the program and old long time Leafs trainer Chris Broadhurst
is from there.

[Schad]

Just did a quick google search the Jays have been hiring Sheridan College interns for the last 25 years
or so as George Poulis was a big believer in the program and old long time Leafs trainer Chris Broadhurst
is from there.

I'm going to take a wild guess that the lone annual intern is not in fact a driving force behind our injury woes.

[Scott Hall]

Just did a quick google search the Jays have been hiring Sheridan College interns for the last 25 years
or so as George Poulis was a big believer in the program and old long time Leafs trainer Chris Broadhurst
is from there.

I'm going to take a wild guess that the lone annual intern is not in fact a driving force behind our injury woes.

Good guess

[BigLeagueChew]

That led to a visit with one West Coast specialist Friday and Atkins said Sanchez had again left the team for further consultations. When Sanchez rejoined the Blue Jays from the disabled list Aug. 22, Sanchez told reporters that "they said there was nothing structurally damaged" in the finger.

A surgery would likely mean he suffered damage to either the ligaments or tendons in the index finger.

"We’ll see," said Atkins. "That’s what we’re in the process of gathering more information on. There is the potential of that."

https://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/blue-jays-notebook-hinch-calls-giles/

[manjusaka]

Sanchez and Stroman, our medical staff just couldn't get it right for the whole season

[Skin Blues]

Sanchez and Stroman, our medical staff just couldn't get it right for the whole season

He busted his finger lifting a suitcase and didn't tell the team because he wanted to pitch in front of his family. But yeah... lets blame the team. If he and Stroman keep trying to play through injuries and insisting they're healthy, you gotta put some blame on them. In an attempt at putting their personal interests ahead of the teams, they end up hurting both sides.

[BigLeagueChew]

The issue would be letting Sanchez pitch with ligament damage that they didn't detect originally.