This week baseball fans watched Shane McClanahan walk off the mound with his arm hanging by his side and we all had a collective gasp. This wasn't the regular type of worry for an injured pitcher, this was a multi-injury for the Rays starter.
McClanahan missed the entire 2024 season after having his second Tommy John Surgery the year before, that was now his second TJ surgery. The success rate of pitchers with multiple Tommy John Surgeries is terrible and many in the fantasy community said the cold hearted "I told you so", but as cold hearted as it was, it's true.
Fantasy players have to be extra weary of starting pitchers who are on the watch lists because of injuries. McClanahan was the obvious red flag, but many other starters scream to steer clear yet keep getting drafted too soon.
Tyler Glasnow is on that list. Sure, his unreal upside is alluring but he has had a long history of injuries. He has never gone more than 134 innings in his career and that happened last season. He has had all sorts of injuries but complaining of an elbow issue is usually the biggest red flag you can have; despite the upside this is someone to run away from.
Hunter Greene has also had some injuries in his young career, but like Glasnow it's the type that worries most. He also had elbow soreness, and the fact he is a fire baller all but screams a major injury will be on the way at some point. Don't overdraft him expecting to squeeze one year out of the injury waiting to happen youngster.
Grayson Rodriguez is already on the injured list, and this is now a continuing trend. He has missed time twice for a lat issue, and then he came to camp and said he was suffering from sore triceps and elbow pain. Lat, elbow and triceps is a fancy way of saying that the golden arm is in bad shape. Let someone else take the stab.
You could throw Max Fried into this group with some of his injuries, but the last player is a fellow Yankee Carlos Rodon. Rodon has always been a massive injury risk. Last season he was healthy as he threw for his second-most innings in a season. With that said we can't overlook the fact that he has been on the injured list nine times in his ten-year career. You could argue the entire Yankee rotation is a do not draft because of injury label this season.