CC Sabathia & The History of Pitchers After Micro-fracture Surgery

CC Sabathia had his shortest season of his career in 2013 after undergoing treatments for a degenerative knee condition that ultimately required micro-fracture knee surgery. Earlier we looked at comparisons for Mark Teixeira and his wrist surgery as an indicator of what to expect from Teixeira in 2015 so I decided to try and do the same for Sabathia and his surgery. Unfortunately only four players in Major League Baseball history have had the same or similar micro fracture surgeries and two of them were positional players. Matt Kemp the Los Angeles Dodgers center fielder and the Indians center fielder Grady Sizemore both had the surgery and so did the Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Jeff Clement. The Texas Rangers southpaw Derek Holland missed the entire 2014 season with the surgery so unfortunately there has never been a pitcher in the majors to date to have the surgery and return to a MLB mound to compare to.

Wikipedia states that the surgery is a quick and minimally invasive surgery that only lasts between 30-90 minutes. In patients under the age of 45 years old there is a reported 75%-80% success rate with the surgery. The problem with those stats are they don't include a player who has to put extreme pressure on the joint and the repaired cartilage 300 or so times a week on a pitchers mound.

The team doesn't know what to expect from CC next season, CC doesn't know what to expect from CC next season, none of us know what to expect from CC next season. All the more reason for the Yankees to bring in depth and stability to the starting rotation for 2015.