Justin Steele is on the IL for 2 weeks with tendinitis in his throwing elbow and I wanted to talk about it because I once had tendinitis in my throwing elbow and it sucked.
Tendinitis comes from unnecessary weight bearing on the throwing elbow and that comes from a number of things.
Most of it is atypical:
- Lower body injury
- Playing foosball too aggressively
- Casting too much fly fishing
- Not being properly stretched out before throwing live
- Going to Tokyo 2 weeks before the season technically opens to play an MLB game against the defending World Series champions
My guess is Justin Steele has some combination of the above. Here are the factors I’m considering:
- Lower Body Injury = could be an ankle or stubbed toe in his landing foot, which is his right foot. Something in the delivery that doesn’t let him land his full weight on his right side. That could be a number of things from the hip to the foot where there’s a compromise because he can’t transfer his weight 100% without some kind of strain. When that happens, you leave some of the weight transfer in your arm and that can build up in the elbow which leads to tendinitis. A lot of times it comes from a lower body injury that puts more stress in the arm.
- Random injury like foosball = this happened to me when I was 18. I was playing too much foosball in John Fletcher’s basement during the winter time and it stressed my elbow out a lot. Combined that with an offseason throwing program and my elbow almost exploded. I needed an orthopedic questionnaire to identify the foosball. It was strange. I don’t think Justin Steele plays too much foosball but it could be something weird like a video game where you’re driving a virtual steering wheel too hard. Or too many hours on a golf simulator. Something you’d never expect that puts torque on the elbow. That could be the root.
- Another thing is just not throwing enough long toss in the offseason and I wouldn’t blame Justin Steele at all. I don’t think that’s his vibe. I don’t think he throws 11 months a year and is always stretching out to 400 feet every day. A lot of good starting pitchers like to decompress in the offseason and I put him in that category. He wants to sit in a deer blind and drink Busch Light with his high school buddies and light shit on fire. Sometimes it’s just having an elbow that needs more time to get stretched out before making 4 starts before April 10th
- The most obvious thing is starting in Tokyo two weeks before your body is accustomed to starting. And then taking 10 days off before starting again. There’s just a lot of early wear and tear on your body. So mix that with his general regular guy demeanor and you have bad timing for a guy that needs every bit of spring training. All that stress and pressure on your body adds up and I think tendinitis is a logical stepping point if you’re Justin Steele with this workload early. He could probably avoid it but then he wouldn’t be Justin Steele if that makes sense.
Realistically he’s gonna need a solid month for this to go away. And that’s going to require a lot of treatment in the trainer’s room. Ice and stim. Exotic balms and massages. Maybe fly in a deep tissue expert from the far east to work it locally. Really unleash the full force and strength of the Cubs health & wellness department to get this right.
I don’t think it leads to a bigger issue right away. It’s not an immediate precursor to TJ or other surgery. It’s more a threat to create problems in the shoulder and forearm because you’re so weak in the elbow. So that force has to go somewhere up or down and that’s when you get a worse injury. So it’s all connected and that’s why you need to snuff it out now.
Fortunately the Cubs have really good pitching right now from 2 other lefties. And lucky enough we’re trying to see Jordan Wicks and Cade Horton this summer. So maybe one of those two get a call a little earlier than anticipated in May.
And more fortunately – the Cubs have 4 off days in the next two weeks which means the bullpen will be rested to step up for these Justin Steele missed starts, whoever they are.
Remember last year – the Cubs missed Justin Steele for a good chunk in the first half and the team followed by going 6-2 in the 8 starts he missed. We’ve been here before and covered just fine. Although the bullpen took a beating in the process and we all know how that went.
Most important is that this could be a lot worse, and there’s nobody you should trust more to come back better than Justin Steele. Especially from some weak shit like tennis elbow.
Sterk Family Farms Miracle Balm: for Face & Hands & Elbow Tendinitis?
Might need to get into the R&D lab on this one. Could qualify as an exotic balm.