Thursday, August 14, 2014

Should Masahiro Tanaka Even Come Back?


With the Yankees falling farther and farther behind in the American League East division and second Wild Card race should New York even risk it with their 25 year old stud right hander Masahiro Tanaka? Four doctors, including Dr. James Andrews the Tommy John surgery guru, agreed that Tanaka should rest and rehab his less than 10% tear of his ulnar collateral ligament and use PRP injections to speed up the process. With less than a 10% tear is it feasible that the tear could fix itself and Tanaka could avoid Tommy John surgery altogether so why risk coming back for a team that is seemingly going nowhere but down this season?

I don’t mean for this post to sound negative, not at all, but the realistic chances of the Yankees making the post season and then getting past a Wild Card Playoffs round and the likely probability of facing the Oakland Athletics and the Detroit Tigers on the way to the World Series seems unlikely. Using that line of thinking the risk of Tanaka tearing the ligament and being out for another full season over the chance of another World Series might not be worth it. The Yankees have Tanaka for six more seasons, assuming he doesn’t opt out of his deal, and the team has to think about that more so than an unlikely run at a 28th championship this season.


If it were me I would shut Tanaka down for the season, apologize to Derek Jeter profusely for not making the postseason in his final year, and begin to build for the 2015 season. Then again every time I write something like this the team goes on a 7-3 or 8-2 stretch so what do I know?

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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)