Royce Lewis talks about his injury

[Rik19753]

https://www.fox9.com/video/1432825

Listening to the presser, it didn't necessarily make me feel good about the state of his injury, but it is beyond impressive how upbeat and optimistic he is about the situation.

As someone who is the same age as Royce, it amazes me how he is so mature at his age.

His personality alone makes him my favorite Twins player.

[RaoulDuke]

He really is impressive.  I hope its a minor thing like cramping, I really want to see what Royce can produce given a stretch of health.

I don't remember another Twins player just coming up and instantly being the guy, Liriano maybe (for a tragically short time)? Mauer season 2?

Royce has been the guy instantly, when he can play.  That is just bonkers considering the time missed and stuff overcome.

[nicksaviking]

"At least it's not the knee."

That's all I needed to hear. Feels like a cramp, he says. Surely it's a pulled muscle, sucks but shouldn't be long term.

[Doctor Wu]

6 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

"At least it's not the knee."

That's all I needed to hear. Feels like a cramp, he says. Surely it's a pulled muscle, sucks but shouldn't be long term.

Yeah, a pulled muscle is something that should not be long term. Hoping for good news tomorrow. 

[Doctor Gast]

The fire was evident from the beginning but he has matured beyond his years, some people never mature. Lewis would want to play tomorrow but I'm sure they'll take all the time that's necessary to protect him.

[JD-TWINS]

It seemed more than just a light tug - I gotta think 6 to 8 weeks because the Conservative Approach needs to be used with this tremendous asset. Too bad for the kid!!

[Hubie29]

18 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

It seemed more than just a light tug - I gotta think 6 to 8 weeks because the Conservative Approach needs to be used with this tremendous asset. Too bad for the kid!!

He's not much of an asset if he is going to be out 6-8 weeks or even a full year every time he gets hurt, which is constantly.  If he could play 140+ games a year, yes,  tremendous asset.  He is almost bordering the Buxton history now.  I can accept a week off but not 6-8 weeks or more every time he gets hurt.  That's almost 1/3 of the season. He is either very unlucky, or very injury prone. 

[nicksaviking]

1 hour ago, JD-TWINS said:

It seemed more than just a light tug - I gotta think 6 to 8 weeks because the Conservative Approach needs to be used with this tremendous asset. Too bad for the kid!!

If it's a low grade strain that should be maybe two weeks (no maybe, play it safe), if it's high grade it could be more than a month. In my HS track days I tore my quad and was out two months, but the whole muscle was on fire and it locked up and it definitely didn't feel like a light tug and I couldn't have casually jogged 90 feet to 3B. Obviously we're talking professional athlete versus soon-to-be-kegstand-champion, but we've seen plenty of guys pull a quad, hamstring or calf muscle rounding the bases and go down like they were shot. 

I mean last year he played with a pulled hamstring in the playoffs. He missed two weeks, but they said he could have played earlier if the team didn't already have a handle on the division. If he comes back in a couple weeks than DHs for another week or so, that would work for me too.

[wavedog]

I may be 100% off here but I think we need to look at our training staff again on what they are doing to prepare the players for and during the season.  Either we have selected the most injury prone players or we can prepare them better adding more flexibility and stretching activities.   Fouling a ball off your leg is one thing but pulling a muscle running the bases sounds something that a 50 year old would encounter in a pick-up softball game.  This Lewis injury reminds me of when Donaldson pulled a muscle in the first at-bat a couple of years ago.    Takes a little of the air out of the balloon.  

[chpettit19]

23 minutes ago, wavedog said:

I may be 100% off here but I think we need to look at our training staff again on what they are doing to prepare the players for and during the season.  Either we have selected the most injury prone players or we can prepare them better adding more flexibility and stretching activities.   Fouling a ball off your leg is one thing but pulling a muscle running the bases sounds something that a 50 year old would encounter in a pick-up softball game.  This Lewis injury reminds me of when Donaldson pulled a muscle in the first at-bat a couple of years ago.    Takes a little of the air out of the balloon.  

I never understand the posts about "they need to hire better training staffs" or "they need to prepare them better by doing X, Y, or Z activities." What do people think these guys do before games? Do people think it's like little league and these guys show up 30 minutes before the game and jog up the baseline a few times and call it good? These training staffs are the best of the best (even the "bad" MLB training staffs) who know how to get players ready for MLB games. Players show up hours and hours before the game and go through a ton of pre-game prep. 

I get that people have a tendency to need to find someone, or something, to blame, but sometimes guys just get hurt. Sometime the same guy gets hurt a lot. Not every bad thing that happens is because somebody is bad at their job or because the athlete didn't put in the work or any other excuse people want to try to find. Does Royce Lewis look like a guy that isn't preparing to play? Not many guys in better shape than that dude. He's dealt with literally years of rehab and people think he's not doing "flexibility and stretching activities" to prepare to play opening day? There likely aren't many players on the planet putting in more work to stay healthy than Royce Lewis and Byron Buxton. Sometimes the human body just can't hold up to pushing itself to perform at it's peak everyday. It's a bummer, but I can promise everyone that the Twins training staff knows what "activities" the guys need to do, and Royce Lewis is putting in the work to stay healthy.

[arby58]

28 minutes ago, wavedog said:

I may be 100% off here but I think we need to look at our training staff again on what they are doing to prepare the players for and during the season.  Either we have selected the most injury prone players or we can prepare them better adding more flexibility and stretching activities.   Fouling a ball off your leg is one thing but pulling a muscle running the bases sounds something that a 50 year old would encounter in a pick-up softball game.  This Lewis injury reminds me of when Donaldson pulled a muscle in the first at-bat a couple of years ago.    Takes a little of the air out of the balloon.  

These guys do plenty of stretching - go to any game early and you'll see most of the players on the field at one time or another doing stretching. Early in the season is always more difficult - the ramp up effect, cooler weather, for starters - and the Twins weren't the only team to have key players go down yesterday. In fact, CBS Sports recap headline read "MLB Opening Day 2024 winners and losers: Dodgers, Juan Soto, lefties have standout day, but injuries stack up."

[chinmusic]

Man, you've got to be impressed by his attitude.

Checking for updates. Here's hoping for the best possible outcome. What an asset he is.

[bean5302]

2 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

...In my HS track days I tore my quad and was out two months, but the whole muscle was on fire and it locked up and it definitely didn't feel like a light tug and I couldn't have casually jogged 90 feet to 3B...

Remember that time when Royce Lewis completely tore his ACL and then completed his training run? He's ridiculous. That said, I think you're dead on about Lewis' injury being minor here.

[Woof Bronzer]

1 hour ago, chpettit19 said:

There likely aren't many players on the planet putting in more work to stay healthy than Royce Lewis and Byron Buxton

Maybe that's the problem, they're overworking. 

I find it equally odd when fans look at the IL on day 1 of the season and say "guys get hurt, nothing to see here."  What other sport has a rash of injuries occur on the first day of the season?  When baseball has more injuries than a sport like hockey something is very wrong.  

[chpettit19]

13 minutes ago, Woof Bronzer said:

Maybe that's the problem, they're overworking. 

I find it equally odd when fans look at the IL on day 1 of the season and say "guys get hurt, nothing to see here."  What other sport has a rash of injuries occur on the first day of the season?  When baseball has more injuries than a sport like hockey something is very wrong.  

What is the difference in injuries between the NHL and MLB? Why should the NHL have more injuries than MLB? How many MLB injuries are pitchers hurting their arms which is something completely different than anything in the NHL? What about the injuries that happened yesterday make you think it's at all connected to it being the first day of the season? Why does the point of the season even matter when it comes to injuries? Do guys not get hurt? Do you have a hypothesis about what leads to "a rash of injuries" in MLB?

[Woof Bronzer]

24 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

What is the difference in injuries between the NHL and MLB? Why should the NHL have more injuries than MLB?

Not sure if this is a serious question, but hockey has SLIGHTLY more contact than baseball.  

25 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

How many MLB injuries are pitchers hurting their arms which is something completely different than anything in the NHL?

Plenty.  It's a big problem.  

25 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

What about the injuries that happened yesterday make you think it's at all connected to it being the first day of the season?

What about the rash of injuries yesterday and in spring training makes you believe it's all random?

26 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Why does the point of the season even matter when it comes to injuries? Do guys not get hurt?

Well, if spring training is supposed to prepare teams for the grind of the season, I'd say it's not succeeding in that goal on the injury front.  

28 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Do you have a hypothesis about what leads to "a rash of injuries" in MLB?

Increased emphasis on throwing as hard as humanly possible for pitchers, and swinging as hard as humanly possible for hitters.  The body is not designed to make these violent motions thousands of times at high force, much less maximum force.  It's a matter of stress and strain - basic engineering concepts. 

[Road trip]

It is not unique to the Twins organization or to Twins players, but MLB players as a whole spend far more time on the injured list now than they did a (half) generation ago.  It isn't even close.  And, no, I'm not talking about the medical dark ages..

From 1998 to 2015 MLB player days on the IL gradually rose from 22,000 to 30,000 days.  536 players spent time on the IL in 2015, a number that had been very gradually rising from 413 in 1998.

Then the big jump came.  Last year 821 MLB players spent time on the IL, and missed 44,661 days.

Something has changed.  It is fair to ask what, even if pinning down the answer(s) is difficult at this point.  I'm sure the GM's, trainers, nutritionists, agents, doctors and everyone else involved in MLB is searching for answers because injuries benefit no one, and keeping a roster healthy is a key to winning and increasing revenue at both an individual and team level.

[nmcowboy]

Thank goodness it isn't "bilateral leg weakness"!!

[KirbyDome89]

1 hour ago, Woof Bronzer said:

Maybe that's the problem, they're overworking. 

I find it equally odd when fans look at the IL on day 1 of the season and say "guys get hurt, nothing to see here."  What other sport has a rash of injuries occur on the first day of the season?  When baseball has more injuries than a sport like hockey something is very wrong.  

You need to possess a certain level of conditioning as well as general durability to survive the grind that is a MLB season. Plenty of runners experience injuries/setbacks when training for, or running, a marathon. The answer isn't to run less often or log fewer miles in the months leading up to race day.   

Until hockey players start throwing pucks overhand into nets the comp is apples and oranges. 

[USAFChief]

3 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

I never understand the posts about "they need to hire better training staffs" or "they need to prepare them better by doing X, Y, or Z activities." What do people think these guys do before games? Do people think it's like little league and these guys show up 30 minutes before the game and jog up the baseline a few times and call it good? These training staffs are the best of the best (even the "bad" MLB training staffs) who know how to get players ready for MLB games. Players show up hours and hours before the game and go through a ton of pre-game prep. 

I get that people have a tendency to need to find someone, or something, to blame, but sometimes guys just get hurt. Sometime the same guy gets hurt a lot. Not every bad thing that happens is because somebody is bad at their job or because the athlete didn't put in the work or any other excuse people want to try to find. Does Royce Lewis look like a guy that isn't preparing to play? Not many guys in better shape than that dude. He's dealt with literally years of rehab and people think he's not doing "flexibility and stretching activities" to prepare to play opening day? There likely aren't many players on the planet putting in more work to stay healthy than Royce Lewis and Byron Buxton. Sometimes the human body just can't hold up to pushing itself to perform at it's peak everyday. It's a bummer, but I can promise everyone that the Twins training staff knows what "activities" the guys need to do, and Royce Lewis is putting in the work to stay healthy.

I think we need to be careful about drawing large conclusions based on Royce Lewis. I have no doubt Royce Lewis is putting in the work to prepare for the grind of MLB.

That said, it's absolutely, positively, unequivocally true that the amount of time players are missing due to injury is on the climb. And it seems to get worse by the year. More players, more injuries, more time. Pitching injuries are at a ridiculous level.

Something isn't working. 

And to bring this full circle, something isn't working with Lewis, either. If he ends up on the IL, it'll mark the 3rd time, I believe, with soft tissue injury. This quad, an oblique, and a hamstring .  That seems like a lot in *13* months.

 

[Hubie29]

39 minutes ago, Road trip said:

It is not unique to the Twins organization or to Twins players, but MLB players as a whole spend far more time on the injured list now than they did a (half) generation ago.  It isn't even close.  And, no, I'm not talking about the medical dark ages..

From 1998 to 2015 MLB player days on the IL gradually rose from 22,000 to 30,000 days.  536 players spent time on the IL in 2015, a number that had been very gradually rising from 413 in 1998.

Then the big jump came.  Last year 821 MLB players spent time on the IL, and missed 44,661 days.

Something has changed.  It is fair to ask what, even if pinning down the answer(s) is difficult at this point.  I'm sure the GM's, trainers, nutritionists, agents, doctors and everyone else involved in MLB is searching for answers because injuries benefit no one, and keeping a roster healthy is a key to winning and increasing revenue at both an individual and team level.

This proves players and trainers should be working towards bodies like Wilbur Wood, Mickey Lolich, Harmon Killebrew, David Wells etc. Get some FAT on those bones!

[chpettit19]

1 hour ago, USAFChief said:

I think we need to be careful about drawing large conclusions based on Royce Lewis. I have no doubt Royce Lewis is putting in the work to prepare for the grind of MLB.

That said, it's absolutely, positively, unequivocally true that the amount of time players are missing due to injury is on the climb. And it seems to get worse by the year. More players, more injuries, more time. Pitching injuries are at a ridiculous level.

Something isn't working. 

And to bring this full circle, something isn't working with Lewis, either. If he ends up on the IL, it'll mark the 3rd time, I believe, with soft tissue injury. This quad, an oblique, and a hamstring .  That seems like a lot in *13* months.

 

Much of the increase in injuries is the new approach of going 100% 100% of the time instead of fluctuating. Especially with pitchers. More max effort for shorter bursts leads to max stress on joints and ligaments and muscles that wasn't there previously. That isn't just a baseball thing, it's a sports world thing.

Yes, something is very clearly not working with Royce. His body is a reasonable answer, though. That's my point. It doesn't have to be the training staff failing or him not putting in work or the highly paid professionals who study baseball specific movements for a living not knowing what exercises are right to keep guys healthy. Sometimes certain people's bodies just can't handle being pushed to the max of human performance. Buxton and Lewis look like they may have been cursed with bodies that can perform at extraordinary levels, but can't stay healthy while doing it.

[chpettit19]

1 hour ago, Woof Bronzer said:

Not sure if this is a serious question, but hockey has SLIGHTLY more contact than baseball.  

Plenty.  It's a big problem.  

What about the rash of injuries yesterday and in spring training makes you believe it's all random?

Well, if spring training is supposed to prepare teams for the grind of the season, I'd say it's not succeeding in that goal on the injury front.  

Increased emphasis on throwing as hard as humanly possible for pitchers, and swinging as hard as humanly possible for hitters.  The body is not designed to make these violent motions thousands of times at high force, much less maximum force.  It's a matter of stress and strain - basic engineering concepts. 

You didn't answer my first question. What's the difference in NHL injuries vs MLB. How many more does MLB have than the NHL? Is contact the easiest way to get hurt? If you take out the pitcher injuries what does the comparison look like? I'm pretty sure you can understand what I'm getting at here. Your stance seems to be that since the NHL has more contact than MLB it should have more injuries while ignoring the fact that many of MLB's injuries are because throwing a baseball overhand is an unnatural act that the body isn't designed to do. It's a bad comparison.

When you say "rash of injuries" and suggest it isn't random, do you have some data showing that there was a significant increase in injuries to this point in the season? It may be, but I don't know what the numbers are. And, yes, it could be completely random. That is a legitimate possible answer.

So if there's a basic reason for why there's more injuries that has nothing to do with what preparation a player does and is all about the human body not being built to do what baseball players do, why do you find it unacceptable for me to say "guys get hurt, it doesn't have to be the training staff or their fault?" Your explanation for why guys get hurt is "the body is not designed to make these violent motions thousands of times at high force, much less maximum force," but you can't understand why a fan would say "guys get hurt and it doesn't have to be somebody's fault?" Don't really understand that, but to each their own.

[Jocko87]

This is a thread about what he said and how he reacted to the injury, not a global discussion of injury rates or the new training staff. 

I'm glad to hear he felt like it was a cramp and I'd take the over on his estimate but there is still a chance its very minor as he wanted to stay in the game.  3 weeks is fine by me.

This woe is me Minnesota crap has to stop. A tweaked quad is not a reason to get rid of Royce Lewis ferchrissakes.

It's tough but we really need to take the Royce Lewis approach to this, not the Minnesota doomer.  If the legacy he leaves is the positive attitude he will be on a Mt Rushmore of one in Minnesota sports history. 

Be more like Royce.

I love this kid.

[KirbyDome89]

To add onto the how/why; specialization has also increased. Before Lewis went down the Twins were still platooning half (more depending on what happens with Santana) of the defensive positions. That's increasing your exposure to injury. If Farmer misses 3 months as the short side at 2B those days still count towards IL time despite the fact he probably only plays 40% of that period.

[USAFChief]

4 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

Much of the increase in injuries is the new approach of going 100% 100% of the time instead of fluctuating. Especially with pitchers. More max effort for shorter bursts leads to max stress on joints and ligaments and muscles that wasn't there previously. That isn't just a baseball thing, it's a sports world thing 

I can sort of buy that for pitchers. Sort of. Pitchers were throwing with max effort 50 years ago too. They just didn't have the science, video, and coaching to increase velo like they do now.

As for position players, nobody is giving more effort today, as far as I can see.

And in both cases, players are asked to do less than they were 50 years ago. How many players today play 160 games? This is particularly true for pitchers, where IP are reduced by as much as a third, or more.

And yet...

 

Something isn't working. 

[nicksaviking]

42 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

I can sort of buy that for pitchers. Sort of. Pitchers were throwing with max effort 50 years ago top. They just didn't have the science, video, and coaching to increase velo like they do now.

As for position players, nobody is giving more effort today, as far as I can see.

And in both cases, players are asked to do less than they were 50 years ago. How many players today play 160 games? This is particularly true for pitchers, where IP are reduced by as much as a third, or more.

And yet...

 

Something isn't working. 

Agree with the pitchers. Science has almost certainly pushed biology to it's limits, because that's what teams are tying to get out of their pitchers.

Also agree that hitters aren't pushing harder now than they used to; I mean we actually used to have a laughable debate about the merits of sliding headfirst into first base. However, I don't think hitters are more injury prone now than they used to be. I'm sure someone can dig up data that I don't have, but hitters have always been hurt, that's why Cal Ripken's journey was such an incredible event.

Hitters DID use to play through injuries more often, but that was just dumb.  Those guys always played way under their normal productivity. The better move would have been to heal them so they can perform to their ceiling later and have a bench player man the spot in meantime. That's pretty standard now, but injured players rarely play well, back then, they simply had too much pride not to play. Plus, teams ran like 10 man pitching staffs, there was way less incentive to put guys on the DL (dated reference) since the bench bats ran about six deep.

[JD-TWINS]

10 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

If it's a low grade strain that should be maybe two weeks (no maybe, play it safe), if it's high grade it could be more than a month. In my HS track days I tore my quad and was out two months, but the whole muscle was on fire and it locked up and it definitely didn't feel like a light tug and I couldn't have casually jogged 90 feet to 3B. Obviously we're talking professional athlete versus soon-to-be-kegstand-champion, but we've seen plenty of guys pull a quad, hamstring or calf muscle rounding the bases and go down like they were shot. 

I mean last year he played with a pulled hamstring in the playoffs. He missed two weeks, but they said he could have played earlier if the team didn't already have a handle on the division. If he comes back in a couple weeks than DHs for another week or so, that would work for me too.

DH doesn’t do anything relative to being safe - you gotta run to play offense too. He wasn’t “casually jogging” to 3B. Hobbling after he hit 2B bag - his momentum carried him forward for the most part. Cannot imagine him being able to sprint for at least 6 weeks…….probably can’t do much of anything with his legs for 3 weeks………hopefully, the treatments of the day…cryo, etc. get him feeling better more quickly!

[chpettit19]

4 hours ago, USAFChief said:

I can sort of buy that for pitchers. Sort of. Pitchers were throwing with max effort 50 years ago too. They just didn't have the science, video, and coaching to increase velo like they do now.

As for position players, nobody is giving more effort today, as far as I can see.

And in both cases, players are asked to do less than they were 50 years ago. How many players today play 160 games? This is particularly true for pitchers, where IP are reduced by as much as a third, or more.

And yet...

 

Something isn't working. 

The science, video, and coaching are a huge difference. And they weren't throwing max effort every pitch. They weren't even teaching that 20 years ago when I was in college. Max effort at the arm speed necessary for 98 is different than max effort at the arm speed necessary for 88. Spin has gone up. Mix that with max effort 95+% of the time for starters and 100% of the time for relievers and there's not much mystery as to why elbows are blowing up left and right.

Every swing is an "A swing" now. That's new. And it's complained about everyday on these threads. Guys are bigger, stronger, faster and they're swinging max effort everytime. That wasn't how it was in the past. 

The science, video, and coaching has these guys pushing their bodies past anything that was done in the past. They're bigger, stronger, faster and it tests the bounds of what the body is able to do. Makes sense to me that more bodies would break when more bodies are doing more.

They aren't maximizing movement for health, they're maximizing it for performance. Seems that those things are at odds as they ask the body to do things it isn't meant to do.

[RpR]

17 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

The science, video, and coaching are a huge difference. And they weren't throwing max effort every pitch. They weren't even teaching that 20 years ago when I was in college. Max effort at the arm speed necessary for 98 is different than max effort at the arm speed necessary for 88. Spin has gone up. Mix that with max effort 95+% of the time for starters and 100% of the time for relievers and there's not much mystery as to why elbows are blowing up left and right.

Every swing is an "A swing" now. That's new. And it's complained about everyday on these threads. Guys are bigger, stronger, faster and they're swinging max effort everytime. That wasn't how it was in the past. 

The science, video, and coaching has these guys pushing their bodies past anything that was done in the past. They're bigger, stronger, faster and it tests the bounds of what the body is able to do. Makes sense to me that more bodies would break when more bodies are doing more.

They aren't maximizing movement for health, they're maximizing it for performance. Seems that those things are at odds as they ask the body to do things it isn't meant to do.

Assuming you mean on average, a ball solidy hit coming in at 100 miles per hour will go farther out than one coming in at 90 mph, yet home run distance records are not being set and a LOT of home runs just clear a fence or caught by fielders.

Way back in Babe Ruths day he was hitting balls distances that were near 500 feet and he was not a dude out pushing weights every day.

Every person has different limits, to say that some how baseball is SO different nowadaya that people are pushing too far, maybe some, but probably a lot simply do not have a strong physic or, modern medicine is doing more harm that good.

Military Special Forces are pushed to limits that make baseball look like a romper room, some are built to take it and some find out they are not.

So the -- being pushed too far -- sounds like Lions and Tigers and Bears OH MY.