A little over a year ago, Chicago Cubs shortstop prospect Ed Howard hit a routine groundball to shortstop.
Howard, then playing with the South Bend Cubs, arrived at first base just as the throw sailed off course and took the first baseman into his path. The disruption was enough to send Howard into the first baseman and then tumbling past first base, significantly injuring his left hip. A fluke. A devastating fluke.
A major surgery and a year of rehab later, the 2020 first round pick is finally headed back to South Bend:
Howard, 21, has had about as challenging road as a baseball career can offer in its first few years. His senior year in high school was mostly wiped away by a global pandemic, which also limited the scope of his introduction to professional baseball. He was then challenged by a full-season assignment in his professional debut. He was then promoted to the next level even after the rough debut, and started to show promise at the plate. And then almost immediately, the injury happened, wiping away another year.
To his credit, Howard attacked the rehab, and his performance in extended spring training, according to Arizona Phil at The Cub Reporter, was outstanding. We have seen that missing a year of game action to a major injury doesn’t have to actually be a “lost” year – Pete Crow-Armstrong and Miguel Amaya used their time away to strengthen their bodies and improve their offensive game at the edges. You can’t expect that for every prospect, but I don’t think it’s unfair to hope it for a former first rounder like Howard.
The first big question is, of course, what the bat looks like this year. We still don’t know if the bat was going to take major steps forward in any case, and now there’s this huge gap in game action. Like I said, we can hope anything we want, but making predictions would be silly.
The second big question is whether Howard’s superlative defense at shortstop will have returned. Nicknamed ‘Silk,’ Howard’s ability at shortstop was a huge component in creating a floor for him as a prospect – it was very easy to see a plus big league glove at shortstop for him down the road. That means offensive expectations didn’t HAVE to be enormous. But with a major hip injury and surgery, what has happened to his mechanics? To his lateral movements? To his explosiveness? I couldn’t answer those questions right now.
All that said, today is a very good day. I love that Howard made it back. I hope he impresses us all this year, and gets himself right back on the radar as a notable prospect in this Cubs farm system.