ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - St. Louis Cardinals center fielder Tommy Edman will officially start the season the injured list as he continues to work his way back from offseason wrist surgery.
Edman has been working to recover from offseason surgery on his right wrist, and while Edman was able to work on his glove work during the offseason, the recovery from the surgery has limited Edman in the batters box.
Unfortunately, with the the 2024 MLB regular season only two weeks away, Edman has still not progressed to feeling pain free while in the batters box, leading the Cardinals manager Oli Marmol to officially tell reporters Thursday Edman will be shut down from hitting for a week, and he will unsurprisingly start the season on the IL.
Marmol says that while Edman will still be able to do some defensive drills and can throw the ball, the team wants Edman to be pain free in the box.
"It’s just a matter of allowing it to cool down and completely go away before we start ramping back up," Marmol told reporters.
"The hitting is what's causing some of the pain. We’re going to allow that to completely go away before we restart any work."
Edman starting the season on the IL isn't at all surprising. Edman wasn't able to begin hitting at the start of Spring Training, with Edman only recently starting to hit off a tee only from his left side last week.
Cardinals President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak casted doubt last week Edman was going to be ready for Opening Day, describing the recovery to reporters it not 'tracking' on that timetable, with the question for team became how far into the season Edman will need.
Edman was seen as the starting center fielder for the Cardinals this season. The Cardinals do have options to temporarily replace Edman in the outfield, with Dylan Carlson and Michael Siani as options, however, with the uncertainty of left fielder Lars Nootbaar availability for Opening Day too, a scenario where Cardinals prospect Victor Scott II begins the season in Los Angeles with the big league club is a possibility.
Nootbaar has two non-displaced fractures in his ribcage, and while Marmol told reporters he is feeling better every day, he will be revaluated Saturday to determine when he could return.
Nootbaar talked to KMOX Sports Director Tom Ackerman about the injury, saying that he does feel well and feels better every day and feels optimistic about a possibility that he could play Opening Day.
"I been doing more movement, more rotational stuff so I think (Saturday), we'll do an evaluation on it but right now I feel optimistic," said Nootbaar.
Nootbaar says that he received advice from former teammate Harrison Bader on how to deal with the injury. Bader has notably dealt with bruised ribs injury twice in his baseball career, including dealing with it last season when he was a part of the New York Yankees.
"I talked to him a few times," said Nootbaar. "Having a guy like him who has been through it, it's been nice to bounce my thoughts off of him and see what his process looked like compared to mine."