Injured MLB Players Who'll Have Biggest Impact On 2024 Playoff Races
There was a lot of speculating as to why this year's MLB trade deadline was so much more underwhelming than usual, with many placing the blame on the size of the postseason field and the sheer volume of teams still in the hunt for a spot in October.
Without question, that was one factor.
The biggest, however, is staring us right in the face.
From the IL.
Just about every team with a discernible postseason pulse has at least one—in most instances more than one—star player working his way back to the field from an injury. And instead of those injuries fueling the fire of desire to buy, it just kind of filled the entire market with uncertainty and an unwillingness to deplete a farm system for the likes of Garrett Crochet and Luis Robert Jr. and their own injury histories.
Which of the recuperating stars are most likely to impact what the postseason bracket will look like eight weeks from now?
We've ranked the 10 biggest.
Honorable Mentions
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In addition to our top 10, here are 10 more potentially pivotal injured players to keep an eye on down the stretch.
Arizona Diamondbacks 1B Christian Walker (oblique)—Losing Walker one day before the trade deadline left the Diamondbacks with little choice but to take a flyer on Josh Bell for at least a few weeks. They're getting Eduardo Rodriguez and hopefully Merrill Kelly back soon, and getting Walker back into the lineup at some point in late August or early September could be a major catalyst in that wild card race.
Atlanta Braves 2B Ozzie Albies (wrist)—Didn't make the top 10 because he's expected to be out until mid-September and wasn't hitting anywhere near as well as he did last season. Still, he could be key for those final two weeks or so of the regular season.
Baltimore Orioles 3B Jordan Westburg (hand)—See: Albies. The fractured hand suffered on July 31 might keep Westburg on the shelf for the rest of the regular season. But if he makes it back for that Sept. 24-26 series against the Yankees, perhaps the 25-year-old with a slugging percentage just shy of .500 can deliver something clutch in what is shaping up to be a three-game battle for a first-round bye.
Boston Red Sox 1B Triston Casas (rib)—Casas is finally on a rehab assignment after more than three months on the shelf, and he's looking good so far in Worcester. Getting him back in the lineup in place of the Dominic Smith / Romy González tandem could be a game-changer as the Red Sox try to chase down the AL Central's Royals and Twins for a wild card spot.
Cleveland Guardians RHP Alex Cobb (hip/shoulder)—Cleveland's trade deadline acquisition has yet to pitch in the majors this season, but his 2024 debut should be coming within the next few days. Cobb could be key in the Guardians' quest for home-field advantage throughout the postseason.
Los Angeles Dodgers UTIL Tommy Edman (wrist/ankle)—There is a much more noteworthy Dodger at No. 1 on this list, but Edman could be for Los Angeles what Cobb could be for Cleveland. Different positions, of course, but he, too, could play a key role in his new home after moving at the trade deadline despite not yet appearing in a game this season. If they can spend the bulk of September with Edman in center, Mookie Betts at shortstop and Max Muncy at third, it's hard to envision the Dodgers failing to win the NL West.
New York Mets RF Starling Marte (knee)—As a whole, New York's offense has gotten along just fine since losing Marte to the IL in late June. However, the rotating cast of DJ Stewart, Tyrone Taylor, Ben Gamel, Jeff McNeil and now Jesse Winker in RF has left much to be desired. Getting Marte back in the mix just might be the final piece of the puzzle.
New York Yankees 1B Anthony Rizzo (arm)—Rizzo had already been in a five-week-long funk prior to suffering a broken arm. But maybe he could return from his injury with a rejuvenated flourish on par with what Xander Bogaerts has done for the Padres since missing nearly two months with a fractured shoulder? At any rate, Rizzo can't make things much worse for the Yankees offense, as after his initial flourish, Ben Rice is batting .130 dating back to July 7.
Pittsburgh Pirates RHP Jared Jones (lat)—In 16 starts (nine quality) as the third fiddle to Paul Skenes and Mitch Keller, Jones gave the Pirates a 3.56 ERA. They are surprisingly still in the hunt for a wild card spot and just might pull it off if Jones gets back soon and pitches well down the stretch.
Texas Rangers RHP Tyler Mahle (Tommy John)—The Rangers have a bigger name working his way back from TJ surgery who we'll get to in just a moment, but Mahle could be a major addition, too. He has a career ERA of 4.30, however, nearly half of his career innings pitched came in the homer-happy confines of Great American Ballpark. He has looked solid throughout his rehab, and his Rangers debut Tuesday against the Astros looms extremely large.
10. Jacob deGrom, RHP, Texas Rangers
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Latest Jacob deGrom (Tommy John) injury news: After a successful bullpen session Saturday, deGrom is expected to progress to facing live hitters soon. An anticipated return date has yet to be announced, but deGrom's progression throughout this 14-16 month recovery has remained where it should be. (MLB.com's Dave Sessions)
If Jacob deGrom were coming back tomorrow or if the Rangers were more legitimately in the running for the AL West crown, this one would probably rank No. 1 on the list.
After all, this is one of the most dominant pitchers in all of baseball we're talking about.
Dating back to the start of 2018, deGrom has made 108 starts with a 2.08 ERA. He has the fifth-highest fWAR among pitchers during that window, this despite missing darn near as many starts as he has made.
He missed 13 months of action from July 2021 through August 2022, but in his first seven starts back, he was ludicrously good with a 1.66 ERA, a 0.55 WHIP and a 13.1 K/9.
Who's to say he can't do something similar over the final five or six weeks of this season?
It might be too little, too late. However, with Josh Jung and Cody Bradford already back and Tyler Mahle making his season debut Tuesday, the prospect of getting deGrom (and Max Scherzer) back by the end of August has kept this team from giving up hope.
And here's a fun fact: If deGrom were to return to the mound on August 27, his starts down the stretch (assuming a typical five-man rotation) would come against the White Sox, A's, Angels, Mariners, Blue Jays, A's again and Angels again. Those are five of the six lowest-scoring offenses in the AL.
9. Ranger Suárez, LHP, Philadelphia Phillies
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Latest Ranger Suárez (back) injury news: Out since July 22 with lower back soreness, Suárez threw a bullpen Monday. However, a return to the rotation in Arizona (Aug. 8-11) is unlikely. (MLB.com's Todd Zolecki)
Back in mid-June when the Phillies were 25 games over .500 and running away with the best record in the National League, Ranger Suárez was the biggest reason why.
Through 14 starts, he had a 1.77 ERA and had emerged as one of the top candidates for NL Cy Young. Phillies hitters sure did love it when Suárez was on the bump, too, giving him at least five runs of support in 13 of those 14 games, winning all 13 of those contests.
That all went out the window about seven weeks ago.
Suárez started to struggle, posting a 5.73 ERA over his six most recent appearances. The run support vanished, too, held to either one or two runs in five of those six starts. And things have really taken a turn for the worse for the Phillies as of late, losing six consecutive series and desperately missing Suárez's turns through the rotation.
Somehow, they still have the best record in the National League. That cushion is all but gone, though. They could be one more bad week away from losing their grip on a first-round bye, and might even blow their spot atop the NL East altogether.
You can't rush lower back injuries, but the Phillies need first-half-of-the-season Suárez back ASAP, if only to provide some sort of slump-busting spark before it's too late.
8. Michael Harris II, Atlanta Braves
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Latest Michael Harris II (hamstring) injury news: Harris isn't eligible to return from the 60-day IL until August 14, but he "feels confident" he will be ready as soon as he is eligible. (AJC's Justin Toscano)
Since losing Michael Harris II to a grade 2 hamstring strain in mid-June, Jarred Kelenic has started all but one game in center for Atlanta, batting a mediocre .208/.272/.399.
Worse than that, with Kelenic sliding from left to center, left is now a gigantic black hole for the Braves, as it has become abundantly clear that "reacquiring Eddie Rosario" was not the correct answer to their problems.
Even though Harris wasn't having a banner year in his own right, they need him back.
They need his glove in center.
They need his speed on the basepaths.
Yes, even his .295 on-base percentage for the year would be a welcome upgrade over what they've been forced to settle for in his absence.
With any luck, though, he'll come back in less than two weeks' time playing like he did in 2022-23, batting nearly .300 while averaging 24 home runs and 26 stolen bases per 162 games.
That would be the shot in the arm for this offense that they failed to get at the trade deadline, and it could be what keeps them from blowing what once looked like a guaranteed spot in the postseason picture.
7. Eduardo Rodríguez, LHP, Arizona Diamondbacks
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Latest Eduardo Rodríguez (lat) injury news: Rodríguez is expected to make his season debut Tuesday against the Cleveland Guardians.
Tuesday night has been a long time coming.
Eduardo Rodríguez was one of the first big dominoes to fall in what ended up being an unusually lengthy free agency "season," signing with the Diamondbacks in early December in a move that solidified the Snakes as a serious threat to return to the World Series for a second consecutive year.
Thus far, however, Arizona has gotten absolutely nothing in return for that four-year, $80 million investment, as the lat strain Rodríguez suffered in mid-March turned into a months-long series of setbacks and waiting games.
Here he comes, though, without so much as a rehab assignment.
Rodríguez threw four innings in a simulated game this past Wednesday, and the Diamondbacks decided that was good enough—that in an NL wild card race that seems destined to come down to a razor-thin margin, they might as well deploy their second-highest-paid player, even if he does figure to be on a pretty strict pitch count in that debut.
Also big news in the desert is that Merrill Kelly might not be far behind Rodríguez. Out since mid-April, he is expected to make a rehab start Tuesday night and may well be back in the rotation 10 days later.
Barely a month ago, the Diamondbacks had to trot out all of Joe Mantiply, Christian Mena, Slade Cecconi and Yilber Díaz for starts in the span of one week. Having Rodríguez, Kelly, Zac Gallen, Brandon Pfaadt and Jordan Montgomery for the stretch run could be a major difference-maker.
6. Christian Yelich, OF, Milwaukee Brewers
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Latest Christian Yelich (back) injury news: Yelich is attempting to rest and rehabilitate his way through low back inflammation. The hope is that he won't need surgery—neither season-ending nor in the offseason—but that's still a possibility. (MLB.com's Adam McCalvy)
By no small margin, Christian Yelich had been Milwaukee's best hitter.
He missed 27 of the team's first 97 games, but he entered the All-Star Break with a .933 OPS and a great shot at winning a batting title (.326), if he could stay healthy enough in the second half to eclipse 500 plate appearances for the year.
So much for that dream. Yelich lasted just three hitless games into the second half before landing on the IL with a back injury that was initially feared to be season ending.
The good news is several of Milwaukee's other bats have stepped up in a big way. Jackson Chourio has an OPS of nearly 1.000 since the break. Rhys Hoskins is starting to homer on a regular basis. And the Garrett Mitchell/Blake Perkins tandem in center has combined to bat around .400.
Sans Yelich, though, the Brewers have needed all of that just to tread water, saddled with a 7-7 record since the All-Star Break as they try to ward off both St. Louis and Pittsburgh for the NL Central crown.
If those other guys continue to hit well, maybe they get the job done. If they start to regress, though, and Yelich doesn't make it back any time soon, let's just say we're not overflowing with faith in this starting rotation. (Recently getting Devin Williams back into the bullpen mix was huge, though.)
5. Carlos Correa, SS, Minnesota Twins
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Latest Carlos Correa (plantar fasciitis) injury news: Correa took grounders and BP Saturday and is working toward being able to run without pain. (Star Tribune's Bobby Nightengale)
With the Minnesota Twins, it's always at least one of the three stars, isn't it?
There have only been 17 games this season in which all of Byron Buxton, Royce Lewis and Carlos Correa were in the starting lineup together—and 10 games in which none of the trio was available to start.
Buxton (knock on wood) has been the most available of the bunch with 85 games played, and Lewis is looking pretty darn good since returning from his second IL stint a little over one week ago.
All that's missing now is the shortstop who was having one of the most productive seasons of his career before yet another case of plantar fasciitis—in the opposite foot from what shut him down for a couple weeks late last season—sent him to the IL in mid-July.
Correa had been on fire leading up to that point, batting .384 with nine home runs over his final 32 games before the pain in his heel passed the acceptable threshold. And things haven't been the same without him, with Willi Castro and Brooks Lee batting a combined .230ish with no home runs in the games they've started at shortstop over the past few weeks.
And, to put it lightly, Minnesota didn't address its constant injury woes at the trade deadline, either. The only move the Twins made was acquiring a reliever with a 5.00 ERA over the past three seasons.
If Correa gets back soon, though, and their big three stays moderately healthy the rest of the way, they should be able to hang on and make the playoffs.
4. Fernando Tatis Jr., RF, San Diego Padres
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Latest Fernando Tatis Jr. (leg) injury news: "We expect him to be back. Exactly when? That's something we've still got to get more information from our doctors." (San Diego GM AJ Preller, on July 30, per 97.3 The Fan)
When Fernando Tatis Jr. took a Colin Rea sinker off his left elbow/triceps on June 21, we initially feared that could be an injury that took him out of commission for some time.
Lo and behold, Tatis was already playing through a quad injury that was diagnosed as a right femoral stress reaction a couple of days after that wholly unrelated HBP.
Though there had been reports of a quad injury, there was no indication it was that serious. Not only had he played in each of San Diego's first 80 games, but he was on fire in the 20 games leading up to the fateful HBP, batting .372/.424/.641—albeit with only three RBI that didn't come from solo homers. He was leading the team in both home runs and total hits, selected to the All-Star Game in spite of his injury.
What's bizarre is that they've been better off without him—as well as without both Joe Musgrove and Yu Darvish since late May. San Diego was 39-40 at the start of the game in which Tatis last played, but now the Padres are nine games above .500. And aside from the six games (all wins) against the Nationals, they got there against a brutal stretch of the schedule, winning series against each of the Guardians, Orioles and Dodgers in the second half of July.
The two players who have been tasked with plugging that hole in right field haven't played well, though. Bryce Johnson and David Peralta are barely batting a combined .210 dating back to June 22, each providing below replacement level production. So, while it's true they've played well since losing Tatis, it's plausible they would have overtaken the Dodgers in the NL West by now if they still had him in the lineup.
Getting him back for the final month of the regular season would be huge. San Diego ends the year with six straight on the road against the Dodgers and Diamondbacks. At least one, possibly both of those series will be crucial in determining how the NL bracket ultimately shakes out.
3. Julio Rodríguez, CF, Seattle Mariners
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Latest Julio Rodríguez (ankle) injury news: Rodríguez began running on Aug. 1 for the first time since suffering the high-ankle sprain on July 21. He was cleared for hitting the following day (Seattle Times' Ryan Divish)
It's a shame Julio Rodríguez got injured when he did, because he was finally, emphatically snapping out of what had been a season-long funk.
He had a painfully low .616 OPS through the team's first 88 games before going on a 12-game tear in which he hit 17-for-37 with a 1.389 OPS.
Between his emergence, Cal Raleigh mashing bombs on the regular and what is almost unarguably the best starting rotation in baseball, it was starting to feel like Seattle was destined to at least secure a playoff spot, probably as AL West champs. But between Rodríguez getting hurt on the 21st and J.P. Crawford suffering a broken finger the following day, the oft-cited .540 winning percentage has felt like much less of a sure thing lately.
The star center fielder is on the mend, though.
You never quite know with high ankle sprains, even for a 23-year-old, and we'll see what happens when he advances from running in straight lines to trying to make those instinctive quick cuts and turns. But the hope is that it will only be a few more days, with the secondary hope being that he can pick right back up where he left off.
The M's are still neck-and-neck with Houston atop the division, and not too far gone in the race for the AL's No. 6 seed if it comes to that. They unfortunately don't have any head-to-head games remaining against the Twins, Royals or Red Sox in which they could help their own cause. However, they do have seven games left against Oakland, six against Detroit and a big three-game set against the Astros in late-September.
If they have J-Rod for all 16 of those games, got to like their chances.
2. Justin Verlander, RHP, Houston Astros
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Latest Justin Verlander (neck) injury news: Threw a bullpen on Sunday, after which he will go on a rehab assignment, provided no setbacks. Could be back in mid-to-late August. (MLB.com's Brian McTaggart)
At this point, who knows if we'll see Kyle Tucker again in 2024. He was the AL MVP frontrunner when he fouled that ball off his shin on June 3, but that was more than two months ago. He is presently on the 60-day IL and "not close to a minor league rehab assignment," per MLB.com's Brian McTaggart.
Would be massive for the Astros in this no-margin-for-error-whatsoever AL West race if Tucker does come back, though. Same goes for both Lance McCullers Jr. (forearm surgery) and Luis Garcia (Tommy John), neither of whom has pitched in a big league game in well over a year, but both of whom might return before the end of the season.
At least Justin Verlander is close, though, so we'll let the 41-year-old serve as the poster boy of the ailing Astros.
After opening the season on the IL with a shoulder injury, Verlander made it through 10 mostly solid starts before landing back on the shelf in mid-June with neck stiffness.
If all goes well with his rehab, though, he should be back in two, maybe three weeks, potentially playing yet another colossal role in yet another AL West crown for Houston.
Dating back to 2017, Verlander has made 26 regular-season starts for the Astros from Sept. 1 onward, compiling a 1.93 ERA, 0.77 WHIP and 10.8 K/9 as Houston won 20 of those 26 games. (One of those starts was the no-hitter in 2019, by the way.)
So, yeah, kind of a big deal. Even if he hasn't been *vintage* Verlander this season, there's reasonable hope he'll be clutch down the stretch—perhaps even toeing the rubber in that ginormous series against the Mariners in the final week of the regular season.
1. Mookie Betts, SS, Los Angeles Dodgers (also RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto)
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Latest Mookie Betts (hand) injury news: Has been cleared to start taking batting practice with mid-August a "very realistic" timeline for a return. (MLB.com's Juan Toribio)
Latest Yoshinobu Yamamoto (triceps) injury news: Threw a bullpen this weekend in Oakland with the goal still being a return to the mound before the end of the season. (LA Times' Jack Harris)
We're lumping these two Dodgers stars together because Yamamoto doesn't warrant his own spot in the top 10. If he does make it back, it would be huge for Los Angeles' World Series aspirations. From the sound of things, though, we're talking mid-to-late September, at best, making it unlikely he would have much of an impact on whether the Dodgers end up with the NL's No. 1 seed.
Betts' impending return, on the other (fractured) hand, is as big as it gets.
Shohei Ohtani has all but completely run away with the NL MVP trophy at this point, but let's not forget that up until Dan Altavilla's wayward four-seamer on June 16, Betts was the betting favorite in that race. He hit the shelf with a .304 batting average, an OPS just shy of .900 and quite a bit of value added on defense with his switch to shortstop.
With Betts leading the charge, the Dodgers were 15 games above .500 and running away with the NL West.
Since then, they've barely been treading water, letting both the Padres and Diamondbacks get back to within striking distance.
Sure, they've lost more than just Betts. The starting rotation really starting dropping like flies right around the time that Betts got hurt. But getting him back is going to be such a big morale booster, on top of how much of an offensive improvement he will be over what they've been trotting out there at shortstop in his stead.
If he's back in less than two weeks, LA hanging on to win the NL West is all but a foregone conclusion, and they may well be able to overtake the Phillies for the No. 1 seed.
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