When news broke that Masahiro Tanaka had a successful, and
very routine, elbow surgery this week my mind immediately went to not whether
Tanaka would be okay or whether or not he would be ready for Spring Training
2016. No. My mind immediately went to all the garbage, trash and half-truths
that I was going to have scattered all over my timeline on Twitter (cheap plug,
@GreedyStripes) not only this winter but during the 2016 season as well. Brace
yourselves Yankees fans, the group that thinks Tanaka should go ahead and get
an unnecessary and potentially career threatening surgery just to make them
stop criticizing every pitch he throws and to make them sleep better at night
are coming and they are coming in full force.
Many fans will ignore the fact that the Yankees organization
stated that the bone spur that Tanaka had removed and cleaned up from his elbow
stemmed back from his time pitching in Japan. The bone spur had nothing to do
with his partially torn ligament in his elbow that five Tommy John specialist
doctors recommended to rest and rehab. The spur is a routine surgery much like
Carlos Beltran had before the 2015 season and requires six weeks of rest and
rehab before beginning a throwing program. Tanaka will be ready for 2016 and
will be fine in 2016, hell he may even be better in 2016. We all saw how much a
bone spur affected Beltran at the plate in 2014 imagine what it could do to a
pitcher throwing 100+ pitches every fifth or sixth day.
Isn’t October, 23 2015 a little early to be saying that the
2016 season is already over?
I just want to throw this out there, it’s not completely
unprecedented for a pitcher to rest and rehab a tear in his UCL that is less
than 10%. Ervin Santana did the same thing and never had the surgery to this
day while Adam Wainwright pitched for years, longer than Tanaka’s current
contract with the New York Yankees, before having the surgery. Another thing is
you don’t see an increase in velocity, which Tanaka did in 2015, and you don’t
increase your use of breaking stuff and splitters, which Tanaka also did in
2015, if your elbow is a concern or bothering you. Tanaka does not need a
surgery that could end his career, and yes even today it is ending the careers
of many even with such a high success rate, until and/or unless it is
absolutely 100% necessary. The bone spur didn’t cause the tear in the UCL, the
surgery to repair the bone spur is not due to the tear in the UCL and it has no
bearing whatsoever on the tear (that may not even be there anymore for all we
know) in the UCL.
Yankees fans, chill. As much as you don’t want to admit it
the Yankees know what they are doing.
They need to ban webMd. It's creating too many doctors.
ReplyDeleteAmen to that!
DeleteI second that Levin! Plus it keeps telling me I should have died from cancer four times already because my left hand was itching....
Delete