It wasn’t a dream. The gut punch is real. Michael Kopech is expected to miss the entire 2019 season with a “significant” tear of the Ulnar Collateral Ligament (UCL) requiring Tommy John Surgery.
Michael Kopech will likely undergo Tommy John surgery after tests revealed a tear in his UCL. He is expected to be ready for Spring Training in 2020.
He will receive a second opinion in the days coming to confirm today’s diagnosis.
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) September 7, 2018
Second opinions aside, based on the tone of what came out White Sox officials mouths today it seems to be a foregone conclusion that Kopech is done for a while.
“So, unfortunately, I’m sitting here today to share some unfortunate news,” White Sox General Manager Rick Hahn said in his opening remarks to a pre-game media scrum. “Michael Kopech reached out to us yesterday to share the fact that he felt a little bit discomfort, a little trouble getting loose in his previous outing against Detroit. He actually didn’t make too much of it and was talking about making his next start and we recommended from a precautionary reason that he see our doctors today and undergo an extensive examination. Unfortunately, that examination revealed a rather significant tear in the Ulnar Collateral Ligament. The preliminary recommendation is for Michael to undergo Tommy John surgery.”
Few things could suck the wind out of a promising stretch the past two weeks, but Hahn’s news was exactly the piercing instrument for the task. And having listened to enough gleeful announcements by Hahn, there was a serious tone of disappointment and frustration in his voice.
“There will be a second opinion coming in the coming days. So, we’re still going to hold out a little bit of hope that perhaps there is a different prognosis, but we are certainly preparing for him to not only miss the remainder of the 2018 season but the entire 2019 season.”
Don’t worry, I’m sighing along with you.
“If there are any silver linings to this it would simply be that given the timing of this injury he will be on pace to be complete without restriction for start of Spring Training for 2020 and fully able for the 2020 season. Obviously, if this timing had been a little bit later this injury could have possibly jeopardized two seasons of his future.”
Hahn went on to hail Kopech’s work ethic and point to his diligence as a source of optimism as he tackles recovery. The news of Kopech’s diagnosis had been delivered to Hahn mere hours before his media scrum and seems to have left the entire organization in shock and Hahn took the opportunity in front of the media to extoll the virtues of depth in the organization.
“This obviously hurts. It’s obviously a disappointment, but it’s one that we try to prepare ourselves along the way. You’ve heard us speak of repeatedly throughout this process about the importance of depth. The importance of having quality options. And the importance of feeling like we never had enough. We do have other quality arms coming up through this system behind Michael that will contribute here in the coming years, and we also feel that again Micheal still has a very bright future in a White Sox uniform for a very long time.”
Hahn added that there was no indication from either Kopech or the injury reports that he had ever felt anything that would make the medical team suspicious about an injury of this nature. He went so far as to mention the absence of red flags regarding delivery and mechanics — two things that immediately stuck out to me. Hahn even ventured an estimation of the injury occurring sometime between the last two starts but made it clear that there was no obvious answer tot he question of when Kopech noticed the injury. It seems there was no pop that set off alarms for the young pitcher.
Kopech has a clean delivery and does not demonstrate any proclivities towards this type of injury whatsoever. Yet, power arms tend to have these types of problems simply by the sheer nature of the forces acting on those joints. It’s a cost of doing business for these players.
Hear Kopech discuss his reaction to the news in his own words.
Kopech said there’s no real telling when it happened. Feeling never advanced beyond soreness to pain pic.twitter.com/gfeYlcpRAc
— James Fegan (@JRFegan) September 7, 2018
Kopech offered a crumb of intrigue by saying the injury may have developed over time, information that would be consistent with Hahn’s estimation.
“It’s been a whirlwind of emotions for me in the past couple weeks,” Kopech told the media before Friday’s game against the Angels. “I went from just about my absolute peak to absolute rock bottom for me. I think to say this was unexpected would be an understatement.”
All of this punctuated by the plain words “it sucks.” Yeah, Michael. It sure does.
Lucas Giolito is one teammate that is able to help Kopech through this period of turmoil and Kopech shared his thoughts on the injury itself and what Giolito could offer him as he enters an unknown phase in his career.
“I was just talking to him a little bit about it. Unfortunately, in this day and age, it’s a regular part of the game with pitchers. Personally, I never thought it would be something I’d be going through. But it’s part of it and unfortunately for them but fortunately for me there are a lot of guys in this clubhouse that have gone through it, so there are a lot of guys I can talk to about it. And I will because right now is an emotional point for me, but you know, seeing other guys that have gone through it is going to be helpful.”
And here’s Rick Renteria‘s take on Kopech’s injury and what it means to the team.
“Very tough for all of us,” said Renteria, “but again he’ll get that repaired he’ll hopefully be able to get back on track. Obviously, next season is the miss, but he’ll be back for the following year.”
Renteria explained how a team gets past such shocking news even if it is in the midst of a losing season. He said that the team has to deal with the reality of it.
“I think we have to do that as quickly as possible,” Renteria explained about accepting the injury and moving forward. “How we do that is by dealing with the reality of it. We’re not going to be able to change it. There’s no magic peel for it. The reality is everyone is going to have to pick up their spot a little bit to kind of overcome it. … We’re very optimistic that once he’s recovered from this whole process that he’s still going to be a part of this thing in a big way…”
Renteria added that a replacement hasn’t been identified for Kopech’s spot in the rotation yet and said that there were options available. Dylan Covey comes to mind as an easy replacement, but with expanded roster space the Sox could pull someone else from the minors or give Hector Santiago another shot at the rotation.
The good news is that, like Kopech said, there are several players around the White Sox organization that have endured this type of injury and rebounded. Dylan Cease, Zack Burdi and Giolito are three notable pieces of the organizational future that have emerged from the same injury. Burdi is working his way back and Cease was named MLB Pipeline‘s minor league pitcher of the year.
Kopech finished the season with 140 2/3 innings pitched between Triple-A and the majors, and 5.02 earned run average with the White Sox.
