What Does History Tell Us About Pitchers Returning From Joe Ryan's Injury?

On Aug. 7, the Twins were playing the Cubs at Wrigley Field. Coming into the game, the Twins seemed to have the second Wild Card spot all but locked up. Joe Ryan was on the mound. At that point, he was having a great season, accumulating over 3 fWAR with almost two months to play. After he threw his 33rd pitch of the outing, however, he immediately motioned for the trainer to come out to the mound. He was diagnosed with a grade-2 teres major strain, ending his season and (eventually) dashing the Twins’ playoff hopes.

When Ryan is healthy, he can look the part of an ace for long stretches. With the Twins' self-inflicted financial limitations preventing them from making a wholehearted effort to complete the roster (or, you know, make any real signings at all), Ryan will need to pitch like the best version of himself for the team to have a real chance to contend in 2025. Is that a realistic expectation, given an injury that cost him two full months? Turns out, I’m not a doctor, and I don’t even play one on TV. So, I did some research to better understand what we, as fans, are in for this season.

Finding perfect comparisons proved harder than I expected. A teres major strain isn’t a particularly common injury among pitchers. In fact, just 17 pitchers have suffered documented ones, dating back to 2019, including future Hall of Famers Max Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander. We probably shouldn’t look at them as comps, as they are both hopelessly old—not real-life old, but baseball old, at least. Both were at least a decade older than Ryan is when they suffered their strains.

That said, there are a handful of players whom we can, perhaps, glean something from: José Leclerc, Taylor Clarke, Freddy Peralta, and John Schreiber. All were within two years of Ryan’s age at the time of their injury. Let’s look at each.

José Leclerc
Coming off of a 2019 campaign in which he had a 3.59 FIP and struck out 33.4% of opposing batters, Leclerc hit the IL in the shortened 2020 season. The Rangers closer was shelved for all of August and September. He was 26 at the time, and actually missed all of 2021 due to blowing out his pitching arm, requiring Tommy John surgery. However, once he returned in 2022, he was a very similar pitcher to who he was prior to the injuries. His results were slightly worse, but it’s probably safer to attribute that to his more severe elbow trouble than to the shoulder issue.

Taylor Clarke
Clarke was a mediocre reliever with the Diamondbacks when he suffered his teres major strain in 2021 at 28 years old, the same age as Ryan. He spent close to two months on the IL. After his return, he wasn’t sharp over the last couple months of the 2021 season, and the Diamondbacks non-tendered him. He latched on with the Kansas City Royals, and in his first full season after returning from injury, his FIP dropped from 3.54 to 3.30. His K-BB% increased from 12.9% to 19.7%. It’s safe to say that he didn’t suffer any lingering effects of the injury.

Freddy Peralta
In 2021, Peralta had a career year, worth 4.0 fWAR after putting up a 2.81 ERA (3.12 FIP). In 2022, he missed two months in the middle of his age-26 season. The Brewers starter returned after 72 days on the IL, and like Clarke, wasn’t super sharp for the remainder of the season. In the second half, he had an uncharacteristically low strikeout rate and an elevated walk rate. Also like Clarke, he was good the following season, when he put up 3.0 fWAR in his first full season back.

John Schreiber
Schreiber had a breakout season in 2022, when the reliever threw 65 innings of 2.22-ERA ball (2.55 FIP). He strained his teres major while pitching for the Red Sox in May 2023, when he was 29. He missed 70 days. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but, he was rough for the rest of the season. The Red Sox traded him to the Royals for a non-prospect minor-league starting pitcher. Once again, in his first full season back, he was mostly himself, with a 3.03 FIP. However, he was missing a few ticks on his pitches and was striking fewer guys out. It’s possible he’s the exception in this group, or perhaps something else is going on.

That's four pitchers of similar ages, and four fairly positive results. Based on that alone, I’m glad to say that based on the player comps, it’s probably safe to assume that Ryan will be all the way back after a normal offseason. He’s reportedly ahead of schedule in his rehab, and will be ready when pitchers and catchers report next month. It sure seems like the only aftereffects from which hurlers suffered came within a season, when it's always harder to return from an injury at full strength. The timing of Ryan's strain appears to leave minimal risk that he'll have trouble pitching like himself in 2025.

Still not convinced? You want to hear from actual experts? Hey, you do you. The good news is that according to the NIH, between 2002 and 2008, 94% of professional pitchers who suffered a teres major strain returned to pitch at the same level or better. In other words, the injury is only about a third as likely as Tommy John surgery to derail a career—and we've all gotten pretty comfortable with the idea that Tommy John is just a bump in the road of pitching life.

Now that we have all that out of the way, since the Twins should be able to count on Ryan, they just need to figure out a way to get one more plus bat, a good lefty reliever, and maybe some good Byron Buxton insurance, and they should be competing to make a deep playoff run. It's almost time for baseball.

What do you think? Are you feeling confident that Joe Ryan will return to form in 2025?