NEWSLETTER
Just to confirm the bad but expected news on the timeline: Cubs shortstop prospect Ed Howard’s hip injury will end his season.
Cubs farm director Jared Banner confirmed the news to Gordon Wittenmyer, offering only that the team expects Howard to make a full recovery thereafter. Howard suffered the hip injury last week in a freak incident at first base, and if the Cubs already know that his season is over in May, it was clearly quite serious.
Now you just hope, in addition to Howard making a full recovery in the sense that he has normal operation of his hip, that he can regain his lateral quickness, and is not developmentally dinged for missing another near full season (after missing the 2020 pandemic season, during which he was the Cubs’ first round pick). It’s a lot of missed game action in a key developmental window. It just sucks so much because Howard, challenged with an aggressive High-A assignment at age 20 (after little success last year at Low-A), had started to respond really well over the past few weeks.
We aren’t likely to get much in the way of detailed updates on Howard in the months ahead, other than perhaps hearing – way after the fact – whether there was surgery, whether Howard will be able to participate in post-season instructs, whether Howard will be ready in time for Spring Training, etc.
I just wish Howard the best on the recovery and rehab process. The good news here is that Howard is young, is otherwise in great physical shape, and is the kind of high-character, hard-working player who can be expected to attack this process with as much as he has.
UPDATE: Just to confirm that it’s an injury that required surgery:
Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer notes that shortstop prospect Ed Howard will undergo surgery for his hip injury. Expecting a full return to health, but Howard has “long road” ahead. Think, 2023.
— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) May 19, 2022
There aren’t any “minor” hip injuries that require surgery that I’m aware of, so this is just another point underscoring how bad the injury was. This all sucks so much. You just have to hope the surgery goes well, and he can attack the rehab. All the best to him.
Jed Hoyer said Ed Howard will have surgery on his hip. Didn’t outright call it a season-ending injury but talked about a “real road ahead of him.”
“The early prognosis is really good as far as a comeback, but that’s going to be a comeback after a lot of rehab and a lot of time.”
— Maddie Lee (@maddie_m_lee) May 19, 2022
