The timing of Michael Soroka's injury is the worst case scenario for both him and the Atlanta Braves
Atlanta Braves starter Michael Soroka was forced to leave last night's game after only three innings, with reports coming after the game that he was going to be placed on the injured list with numbness in his fingers. Braves manager Brian Snitker indicated to the media after the game that this wasn't just a precautionary measure, saying "I think it's probably a big deal."
It's the worst case scenario for both Soroka and the Atlanta Braves.
What this means for Michael Soroka
For Soroka, a player that's battled back from two catastrophic Achilles injuries to make it back to the bigs after almost three full years away, this is another setback to his quest to rejoin the major league rotation on a permanent basis. And to have it be something as nebulous as finger numbness means the process of identifying what exactly the problem is at all might be tough, nevermind actually treating it to get him back on a mound. Nerve issues are never straightforward and rarely have very simple and obvious answers.
In all likelihood, this will end Soroka's 2023 season and has the potential to leave him in a questionable status for the start of 2024 spring training, depending on the severity.
This exacerbates his scenario heading into arbitration, as well - Soroka's making $2.8M as an Arb-3 eligible, with another arbitration year coming up. Since the original 2020 injury, Soroka's avoided arbitration and settled for three consecutive $2.8M contracts with Atlanta. Were he or the team to request arbitration, there's only a limited sample of production to draw from for the arbitration team, and it's not all great for Soroka.
Hopefully he and Atlanta agree on a contract and avoid arbitration again, because there's a potential for that to get messy.
What this means for the Atlanta Braves
For Atlanta, this is probably the worst case scenario as far as Soroka's service time status is concerned. We were one of the first to break down the service time scenario for Soroka, explaining in mid-August that September 13th was the first date that Soroka could be called back up with Atlanta retaining his services into the 2025 season.
Not everyone shared our opinion of the exact date of Soroka's callup mattering that much:
Turns out the date mattered not only if he was going to stay up the rest of the way, but also if he got injured prior to that date and went on the major league injured list.
It's impossible to predict injuries, and the point we were making was a larger one about being mindful of how much time Soroka spent in the majors this season, but the point remains that the September 13th date ended up mattering.
When Soroka goes on the injured list - the official league transaction log doesn't show that as having happened yet, as of Wednesday morning - Soroka will finish 2023 with enough days on the active roster (time on the injured list counts as service time) to finish with five years of service time at the end of this season, making him a free agent after the 2024 season.
UPDATE: The team has made the transaction official.
For a team that will be facing ace Max Fried heading to free agency and veteran Charlie Morton having played through his team option year (if picked up, which is all but a formality at this point from the Braves perspective), it's another piece of the starting pitcher puzzle for Atlanta to figure out.
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