Rehab Works

BY KEVIN KERNAN

Baseball does not make a whole lot of sense these days. From big things to little things so let’s start with a little thing. It cannot be any simpler than this: Bring back rehab.

I do not understand how Aaron Judge could be sidelined for more than three months and then come directly back to major league games. I know the Yankees are in a lost fight for first place with the upstart Rays – an organization with a lot less money than the Yankees but a lot more baseball common sense, ie: Put the ball in play, don’t strike out, – but this is a mistake.

Judge had to leave Wednesday’s terrible 5-4, 13-inning loss to the Twins in the sixth inning with what was described by the Yankees as right lower leg tightness. Suddenly, baseball injuries are being described in hockey terms. Let the chicanery begin.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that means the right calf, and if I’m wrong, blame the Yankees for not describing the situation. We all know Yankee stars have trouble with calf injuries; just ask Giancarlo Stanton.

Considering that Judge played on May 31 in Game No. 59 and did not play again until September 8 – Game No. 144 – recovering from a right rib stress fracture, you would think that Judge would have had a minor league rehab assignment mixed in there just to get his baseball bearings and feet under his huge body.

Aaron Boone and the Yankees needed to set the rules, but Boonie isn’t about to tell Judgie what needs to be done, is he?

This is not an opinion after the fact. Before Judge returned to action I mentioned to BallNine editor in chief Chris Vitali that Judge needed to go on a rehab assignment just to simulate game action. You cannot simulate game action by getting a coach to hit you fly balls, and you cannot simulate standing in the batter’s box in a game even though teams have that fancy machine called Trajekt, basically a robot pitcher.

Vitali agreed with me, but we don’t matter. The Yankees are in their own world when it comes to injuries.

Judge and the Yankees decided to do it another way. Now, Judge could have suffered tightness in his “lower right leg’’ in the minors too, I get it, but playing in that kind of atmosphere is a much more controlled situation than coming back cold to major league games after three months of being a dugout cheerleader.

Aaron Boone and the Yankees needed to set the rules, but Boonie isn’t about to tell Judgie what needs to be done, is he?

Just to make sure I was not being too critical on all this I checked with a lifelong baseball man who deals in such matters and has seen hundreds of major league players on minor league rehab assignments, and this is what he had to say.

Rehab is important.

“Judge needed to do more than a simulated live BP session with Clarke Schmidt and whoever else was around there, and him shagging during BP,’’ the baseball man told BallNine.

“He needed to go and sit at a Double-A game and be out there for 30 minutes in right field when the pitcher is not throwing strikes and it is three and two on every hitter and get up and get down between innings and go hit and go run the bases and if you get a double, you’ve got to be on base for a while,’’ the baseball man. insisted. “He’s been leaning up against a post for three months.’’

The baseball man (and myself) look at all that as common sense, something that was proven to be correct for decades, but there is a new way, new numbers, new rules, new analytics (believe me, there were analytics in the game before this Legion of Nerds arrived) a new radar gun, and on and on it goes. Nothing is simple anymore.

Common sense needs to come back to the game. It has come back in certain situations, look at the Rays, as I mentioned. Look at the Brewers, who this week clinched their fourth straight NL Central title. The Brewers are dead last in home runs in this era of lift and launch, but second overall in runs. There are plenty of ways to score runs in baseball if you play baseball. Again, let common sense prevail.

Let me also take this rehab thing a step further.

Baseball is not alone in this new crazy way of not playing, look at what is going on over in the NFL as analytics grabs a stronger foothold each year.

Starting quarterbacks and other starters simply did not play in the three preseason games or played just a handful of plays because of the fear of injury so when the season started, these players were not ready and their play was awful. To his credit, Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh admitted that was a mistake by him, but he only admitted that after the Chargers were slapped around by the Arizona Cardinals 26-14 in the opener.

“We made some preseason-like mistakes,’’ Jim Harbaugh said of the loss. “In retrospect I wish we had played our guys a little bit more in the preseason to give them those game-like reps.’’

Yep, that is the way it was done forever. Game speed cannot be replicated.

The same thing is happening in baseball’s spring training; players are not getting enough playing time to start the season. And it shows. All because of a fear of possible injury or the belief that players should not overextend themselves physically and I saw that in the Mets spring training with players wearing a bra-like top, they call it a vest, that measures their workout levels.

Don’t want those sweat levels to get too high.

That sure helped the Mets, didn’t it? I can tell you one thing, none of the three Mets that let the Billion-Dollar Popup fall between them on Wednesday in the 7-1 loss to the Orioles – Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor and Bo Bichette – overextended themselves on that play. Perhaps they were awestruck by yet another home run by Pete Alonso, rubbing it in David Stearns’ face.

Many teams have gone the new route, wearing GPS tracking technology placed between an athlete’s shoulder blades to “capture precise location, speed, and inertial movement data in real time.’’

I also saw several Yankee minor league players wearing the tracking gear in workouts this season. To me that is just another example of too much technology in the game. Good coaches know the proper workload.

As for all those spring training games, here is an observation.

“In spring training, the players don’t play enough,’’ our baseball man flat-out told me. “They take the starters out after three or four innings; the starters only go five innings at the most now. They are not ready to go play and then in the cold weather early in the season, we have a shitload of injuries every year.’’

Yep. That sounds about right. Even with wearing all the fancy tracking bras.

And now it has become somewhat of a trend where injured players do not go on rehab assignment, they just come back to work in major league games.

Nerds have infested every part of the game, and this is yet another example.

And believe me, I get it, a veteran player, a superstar like Aaron Judge, the last thing he wants to do is go back to the minor leagues to sharpen up after an injury because they want to return to the major league team as quickly as possible and help the major league team as the season winds down. They are so confident in their abilities, and they can do the work needed with the big-league club and as we always hear from the broadcasters, instead of being around the minor leagues “they are around all the major league trainers and strength and conditioning coaches,’’ but nothing is better than playing in a minor league game to sharpen the knife.

At least that is the way it used to be until everything changed in baseball because of analytics influencers and the power of decision-making was taken away from the manager and pushed up the line to the over-bloated front office.

My friend Jack McKeon had a standard rule with injured players, when they pronounced themselves good to go, say they were coming back from a hamstring injury, McKeon the manager would sit them at least one or two more games to give them that extra time.

And you can be sure, back in his day, players who missed three months with an injury like a stress fracture of a rib, would have some form of minor league rehab assignment. Get your butt to AAA Las Vegas. The inmates did not run the asylum.

Yes, it’s also possible that Judge, 34, could have suffered the same lower leg tightness in a minor league rehab but the guardrails are there in a minor league setting, while you are also getting real game work. Again, common baseball sense.

Noted former 19-year major league catcher AJ Pierzynski, who was one of my favorite players to talk to because he was so honest, on his Foul Territory show: “It seems like he’s okay, but this is why you go on rehab, most guys want to go on a rehab assignment especially when you miss as much time as Aaron Judge did. Because he said it, it’s like spring training — so what you try to do is get the soreness and the little minor things that pop up at the beginning of spring training out of the way by going on a rehab assignment.’’

“We’re ramping up,’’ Judge said of the tightness, tightness he first felt in the first inning Wednesday. “So, there are little things like this that are going to come up.’’

For the Yankees and their fans, hopefully this is just a “little thing’’ for the huge star.

Aaron Judge has already missed way too many games. And when you miss that many games, best to start slow back in the minor leagues on a rehab assignment.

Rehab works.