Spinal Trap: Back Injuries Cast a Huge Shadow Over Outlooks for Key Twins Hitters

[Nick Nelson]

A serious back injury forced Alex Kirilloff into retirement at the age of 26. While not quite so dire, there are other concerning back injuries for key Twins players we need to be monitoring heading into 2025.

Image courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff and Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images

In 2016, Ian McMahan wrote for Sports Illustrated that back injuries were on the rise in Major League Baseball. "The repeated twists, torques and dives of baseball make the lower back a weak spot for many," he wrote, noting that at that time 12% of all injuries in MLB were localized in this region. 

"According to Dr. Joshua Dines, assistant team doctor for the New York Mets and the author of a recent review article on back injuries in professional baseball," McMahan shared, "these problems are all too common among baseball players, primarily for the reason that baseball places a great deal of stress on the spine."

Dr. Dines puts it simply: “Swinging a bat is not a normal activity." And yet pro baseball players are asked to do it hundreds if not thousands of times over the course of a season, between game action, BP and the cages.  

We've seen the toll it can take. Alex Kirilloff fought through a depressing array of injuries and rehabs over the years – elbow surgery, shoulder surgery, multiple surgeries on the same wrist – but the back condition he's now facing proved to be the one that pushed him to step away. When they say "the straw that broke the camel's back," it's perhaps not a random body-part choice in the expression.

As many reading this can surely attest from experience, back injuries are pernicious. They tend to be mysterious in nature and difficult to accurately diagnose. Given the spine's central integration within our interconnected bodies, back issues often present as pain or discomfort in various different areas, contributing to the challenges of diagnosis. And just in terms of quality of life, back pain can be downright overwhelming in the misery it causes.

 

It is with this setup that I regretfully acknowledge: back injury concerns involving Twins players don't end with Kirilloff. I'm not trying to be overly dire but it cannot be ignored that this is a major factor in the team's outlook. Namely, can José Miranda and Brooks Lee rebound from the issues that plagued them in 2024?

Miranda was on a massive tear heading into mid-July, with a .950 OPS in his past 50 games when he landed on the injured list with a lower back strain, which was initially deemed minor. He came back 15 days later but was never the same afterward, slashing .212/.242/.301 with zero home runs in 45 games. In late September, with just two games remaining on the schedule, the Twins placed him on the injured list to close the season, once again citing a lower back strain.

To my knowledge, rest and rehab is the gameplan for Miranda this offseason. For the Twins, much hinges on him bouncing back physically and producing next year, because he could well be written in as the primary first baseman for 2025 as things currently stand.

Lee has a long history of his own back problems dating back to high school, when they cost him his entire sophomore season. Reservations held by teams relating to Lee's balky back were among the reasons he fell to the Twins at No. 8 overall in 2022, despite being viewed by many as the top bat in the class.

This year, a back injury surfaced in spring training for Lee ("the worst I’ve ever had it"), sidelining him out of the gates. Ultimately diagnosed as a herniated disc, it cost him the first two months of the season. 

“I’ve been dealing with the same thing — same pain, same flare-ups [since high school],” Lee said in June, after finally joining the Saints. “It feels like I have been trying to find that magic bullet and I haven’t found it yet. I don’t know if there is one; maybe a culmination of a bunch of different things."

“We’ll see if I ever figure it out," the 23-year-old said. "It will be a challenge, but I’m ready to take that on.”

Despite these rather ominous remarks, Lee seemed to relieve some of the concerns about his health by returning with a bang, dominating at Triple-A and then jumping to a hot start with the Twins coming off his big-league promotion. But the second half for Lee, like for Miranda, was a major struggle. He slashed .182/.233/.270 in his last 44 games, with a three-week stint on the injured list mixed in. 

In this case it was a shoulder injury, not a back injury, that led to his being shut down. But Lee just never seemed healthy outside of about a month-long stretch of the season, and that renders him a major question mark heading into 2025. Alas, the Twins have little choice but to depend on him, and Miranda.

There are no easy answers for this kind of thing. Undoubtedly the players and team doctors have laid out some plans to keep these issues in check going forward. A few months off can do wonders. 

As a matter of maintenance in the future, it might make sense to limit how many nonessential cuts these guys are taking outside of games. It bears noting that Lee, much Kirilloff, is a notorious lifelong "baseball rat" who was the son of a coach. These types are renowned for the amount of time they spend churning out reps and practicing their craft, which is a generally a positive but has downsides. I think back to that quote from Dr. Dines: “Swinging a bat is not a normal activity." 

No, but Miranda and Lee are abnormally good at it when healthy. Here's hoping we get to see more of that in 2025. I hate to say the weight of the offense's hopes is largely on their backs ... but, well, it kind of is.

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[jmlease1]

Year-round baseball training leading to more of these kinds of injuries?

It's got to be a concern. Hopefully they can find a plan that can keep these guys healthy because they are very talented players and could make a big difference for the Twins next season if healthy.

Maybe it's time to send everyone to yoga? (not entirely kidding here)

 

[dxpavelka]

16 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

Year-round baseball training leading to more of these kinds of injuries?

It's got to be a concern. Hopefully they can find a plan that can keep these guys healthy because they are very talented players and could make a big difference for the Twins next season if healthy.

Maybe it's time to send everyone to yoga? (not entirely kidding here)

 

So, basically, compared to 30-50 years ago, players train far more to play far less.  Go figure.

[Rod Carews Birthday]

18 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

Year-round baseball training leading to more of these kinds of injuries?

It's got to be a concern. Hopefully they can find a plan that can keep these guys healthy because they are very talented players and could make a big difference for the Twins next season if healthy.

Maybe it's time to send everyone to yoga? (not entirely kidding here)

 

I think that yoga is a fantastic idea, but not ONLY yoga (or not forever yoga).  Changing it up is pretty important.  The difficulty with the non-stop training in specific areas is that it builds up very specific muscles, allowing others to atrophy and throwing it all out of balance.  Lack of flexibility is also a huge problem.  When kids play whatever sport is in season, it is really good cross-training, even though they don't know it.   

[LambchoP]

It seems like just about every single Twins prospect has injury problems. Do we draft guys that are not durable? Is it our training program, focusing too much on power and not enough on flexibility and durability? Someone has got to figure this out. Buxton, Lewis, Lee, Jenkins, Miranda Rodriguez, Rosario, Larnach and Keaschal. Everyone we draft highly ends up having major injury concerns that follow them through their careers. Not a good look....

[PDX Twin]

6 minutes ago, LambchoP said:

It seems like just about every single Twins prospect has injury problems. Do we draft guys that are not durable? Is it our training program, focusing too much on power and not enough on flexibility and durability? Someone has got to figure this out. Buxton, Lewis, Lee, Jenkins, Miranda Rodriguez, Rosario, Larnach and Keaschal. Everyone we draft highly ends up having major injury concerns that follow them through their careers. Not a good look....

I agree. Modern baseball demands that the players give 110% all the time or they will get beaten by other players giving 110%. But our bodies were only intended to go 100%. It's like running a machine at higher speed or power than its "rated capacity." Sooner or later, the machine breaks down. Our players are breaking down.

Have any teams devised a training plan that keeps players within their "rated capacity" most of the time, yet still allows them to overachieve on those few occasions when it is particularly needed?

[jmlease1]

54 minutes ago, Rod Carews Birthday said:

I think that yoga is a fantastic idea, but not ONLY yoga (or not forever yoga).  Changing it up is pretty important.  The difficulty with the non-stop training in specific areas is that it builds up very specific muscles, allowing others to atrophy and throwing it all out of balance.  Lack of flexibility is also a huge problem.  When kids play whatever sport is in season, it is really good cross-training, even though they don't know it.   

It's definitely one of the things that sucks about youth sports now, where kids are pressured into picking one sport earlier and earlier and the training and competition goes year-round. Don't play this other sport, you have to go to performance camp. skip that other sport, we're running "dome ball" this winter. kids who want to play multiple sports get buried by the coaches of both for "not being dedicated enough" and have to pick one just to be able to play unless they're just so superior an athlete it doesn't matter. athletic cross-training by playing multiple sports is probably really good for the kids, but the coaches will probably never believe it.

Maybe the next frontier for gaining a competitive advantage really is in health. Finding out how many swings a hitter should really be taking to stay sharp, improve, etc and still stay healthy rather than just "more". Maybe a greater focus on core strength and flexibility will matter? Healthier teams win more.

[Jim wyllie]

I would think that more players trying to hit for power not contact is part of the problem, and give the big shifts are gone the emphasis should shift back to contact not power then the hitters won't be swinging so hard.   Also pitchers ate trying to throw harder than ever which probably impacts the back.   Pitchers should focus more on pitching skill not speed

[D.C Twins]

I worry that swinging for the fences (ie attempts to maximize high exit velocity and launch angle) may be putting more strain on the (lower) back similar to the concern that sliders and focus on high spin rate may put more strain on the elbow

[D.C Twins]

11 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

It's definitely one of the things that sucks about youth sports now, where kids are pressured into picking one sport earlier and earlier and the training and competition goes year-round. Don't play this other sport, you have to go to performance camp. skip that other sport, we're running "dome ball" this winter. kids who want to play multiple sports get buried by the coaches of both for "not being dedicated enough" and have to pick one just to be able to play unless they're just so superior an athlete it doesn't matter. athletic cross-training by playing multiple sports is probably really good for the kids, but the coaches will probably never believe it.

Maybe the next frontier for gaining a competitive advantage really is in health. Finding out how many swings a hitter should really be taking to stay sharp, improve, etc and still stay healthy rather than just "more". Maybe a greater focus on core strength and flexibility will matter? Healthier teams win more.

This.... this...aaaaaaaaaaaaand.... THIS!

 

[D.C Twins]

....also.... maximizing core strength (especially abs) is crucial to offloading strain on the back

[jjswol]

Hard swing and misses won't help your back one bit. Maybe all these strikeouts are putting a hurting on the batters in more ways than one.