Morning Rundown: Potential update on Jared Jones, more injuries in the minors
Potential update on Jared Jones, two more minor leaguers hit 60-day IL
According to Noah Hiles, Jared Jones doesn’t have any torn ligaments and will not require surgery. He will go six weeks without throwing.
That’s certainly a lot better news than what was floating around there, especially after hearing ‘elbow discomfort’ and ‘second opinion.’
The Pirates announced that Carmen Mlodzinski would be stepping in as the team’s fifth starter while Jones is out. Jones not being done for the year makes sense in having Mlodzinski begin in the rotation, and not dipping into a non-roster player.
As the regular season approaches, we are starting to see more roster moves to gear up. The Pirates placed a few minor leaguers on the 60-day injured list the other day, and yesterday they added two notable names.
Carlson Reed and Tony Blanco Jr. were placed on the 60-day injured list on Tuesday, meaning they will miss the first part of the season.
The site’s Breakout Player of the Year in 2024, Reed struck out 130 batters over 108.2 innings pitched while posting a 1.99 ERA while playing for the Bradenton Marauders and Greensboro Grasshoppers.
There’s been no official update on Reed, but it is worth noting he went from throwing 38 innings with West Virginia in 2023 (plus seven more in the FCL) to over 100 innings last year.
Blanco is an interesting case. I saw him taking grounders the day before the Spring Breakout game, which he played in. He slid into home and then left the game.
It didn’t seem like anything was wrong, but he was subbed out a couple of innings before anyone else started to come out of the game.
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The Reed thing effs up my grand plan for an Altoona rotation. Worse for him, of course. He must have been excited about this season after his big finish last year. Hope it’s not . . . you know.
Still an interesting rotation, without the star power at Indy but with a ton of depth. Assuming Sullivan is at Indy, could be:
Barco
Chen
Solo
Ercolani
Dotel
Perachi
Emmanuel Chapman
Derek Diamond
So Jones will miss nearly half the season (6 weeks rest & 4 weeks build up) after missing nearly 1/3 of his rookie season. With the recent example of Gerrit Cole looming large, do the Pirates let him resume as a SP with normal SP innings/pitches restrictions? Or do they take a more cautious approach and move him to the bullpen for remainder of year in hopes of avoiding TJ surgery in near future?
What I hope doesn’t happen is Pirates take the middle path and have him start but restrict innings/pitches compared to healthy SP’s. That would kill our bullpen and not ensure a future healthy elbow.
I would love for him to stay in rotation when healthy, but the alarm bells are ringing in my head that his arm just isn’t cut out for the workload. He’d make a hellacious Closer, and Pirates have quality SP depth. Just saying.