Guardians provide disheartening Shane Bieber update

Earlier this week, the Cleveland Guardians announced that Shane Bieber had taken a huge step forward in his return to the field by moving his rehab assignment to Double-A Akron. 

It took about 48 hours for that plan to blow up. 

On Thursday, the Guardians relayed to the team’s beat that Bieber won’t go on his rehab assignment after he reported soreness in his arm after throwing a bullpen earlier this week. 

He’s meeting with team doctors and Dr. Keith Meister to figure out his next steps.

Guardians announce disheartening Shane Bieber update

While Bieber’s next steps are a bit unclear, this about as ominous of an update you can have at this point since forearm soreness can sometimes be a precursor to a bigger arm issue. 

Meister performed Tommy John on Bieber last year after the pitcher injured his ulnar collateral ligament in April. He managed to make two starts before going under the knife. 

Any arm injury would be a huge blow to Bieber, who is one of the best pitchers in MLB when healthy but has struggled with arm issues over the past couple years.

He broke onto the scene in 2019 when he won All-Star Game MVP and put together a stellar season in 2020 and won the American league Cy Young on the back of a Triple Crown win. 

He got off to another good start in 2021 but ended up missing most of the final four months of the season due to a right shoulder injury. He followed that up with 200 innings in 2022 and 123 innings in 2023 before suffering his UCL injury. 

While it would have been foolish to expect Bieber to be the same kind of pitcher that he was in 2022, the Guardians desperately need reinforcements in their rotation, and he would have been the perfect kind of reinforcement.

His rehab assignment would have ended around the first week of July, so the Guardians could have gotten around 15 starts out of him had he been activated then.

And while there’s still a chance that this could all blow over and just result in his return being delayed by a bit, it also means that something worse could be coming down the pipeline. 

According to Dr. Christopher Ahmed, 19.4% of MLB pitchers underwent Tommy John surgery a year after being diagnosed with forearm tightness. 

While Bieber was never diagnosed with forearm tightness the first time he underwent Tommy John surgery, he later admitted that he felt a pain in his arm during his Opening Day start. 

Earlier this month, Ben Lively was first diagnosed with right forearm inflammation before the team later announced that he’d need Tommy John surgery. 

Bieber threw the ball great last week in his lone rehab assignment at the Arizona Complex League. 

It looks like there’s a chance that could be the last time we see him on a mound for a long time.