San Diego Padres star Fernando Tatis Jr. had an MRI on his hurt shoulder that showed a labrum tear, bringing up a possible serious issue for the slugger and his team. Padres team president A.J. Preller says this injury is non-surgical, but David Samson sat down on his podcast "Nothing Personal with David Samson" to discuss why he believes those claims are false.
"Well we found out nothing because all the Padres did was announce there was an MRI and Tatis has a slight labrum tear," Samson begins, adding that Preller's announcement that it was non-surgical has no base.
"A.J. Preller wouldn't know a non surgical injury from a surgical injury if he hadn't watched Grey's Anatomy. Labrum tears are absolutely surgical injuries. Period," he said.
The podcast host then goes on to explain that people who are not athletes and have a labrum tear will likely be told by a doctor that they have to live through the pain and discuss surgery well down the road, but athletes are different.
"That's what normal people like you and I get told when you have a labrum tear. When you are a professional baseball player ... how about swinging a bat with a labrum tear? It hurts," he said.
Preller saying this is a ten-day recovery is not surprising to Samson, who knows that teams say what they have to do in order to find success.
"Well folks, that what we would always tell you because we don't want anyone to know that we are in the market for a shortstop and that we need to make a trade and we are desperate," Samson said. "We don't want to release that a player's out for the year until we've made calls and tried to trade for someone to replace that player."
The team just wants to be able to keep Tatis playing until the last possible moment, which Samson says is "the day before the doctor tells us he has to get surgery in order to be ready for 2022 Spring Training."
Concluding, Samson says there is no question regarding the severity of this injury and this is not a situation where a player is at the end of his contract and the team doesn't have much stake in.
"Make no mistake Fernando Tatis Jr. does have a surgical injury. He will have to get that fixed because they've got 13 years and hundreds of millions left," Samson said.
