P.S. I love Gee too. I think he’s exactly the reliable, go out every fifth day, and go all out to keep his team in the game – kind of pitcher every ballclub needs. I hope his health problems are truly behind him and I look forward to seeing him compete in 2013.

Gee has always surprised me at times with upticks in velocity. That was due to the slight tear, which will cause instability and ups and downs in velocity. I look for a strong return from him..

He may get better but only based on where he would have progressed if he never had the clot in the first place.

As for him being at the level of Niese I tend to doubt that as Niese has much more power and even better stuff than Gee.

Very different pitchers.

Getting a Knee operation on your landing knee is nothing compared to getting an opeation on the knee you push off the rubber on.

Getting sugery to an artery does not affect the muscles needed (unless they have to cut them to get to it) to make pitches.

He was shut down as a cautionary measure to ensure he didn’t tear the artery and now that it has healed he should be right back where he started because your Veins are not important to your mechanics as long as they keep moving the bolld along.

And I think those worries are ignorant to the fact that he didn’t suffer from muscle damage at all here. Those are the injuries and surgeries that affect your ability to come back.

All he did was have a section of vein removed and ends sewn back together to get rid of the weakened part of the vein from the bloodclot.

Due to the fact it would have been stretched tighter right after the surgery it was smart to not pitch him and let the natural growth of the vein to take the stress off the stretching and he should be as good as gold (provided he doesn’t have a relapse and get another blood clot) to pitch this year with the only affect being a bit rusty for not pitching for such a long time.

If he starts his regular off season regimen on time he should be fine and just as effective as he was when he left.

I happen to think a great deal of Gee I think he has the makings of a very good #3 or #4 rotation arm and a great complement to guys like Harvey and Wheeler who throw gas.

If we had a rotation of
Dickey (Knuckler)
Harvey (Gas)
Gee (Pitching Dirt)
Niese (Throws Everything with power)
Wheeler ( more Gas)

You could really throw a batting lineup into a funk because everyday would require a new adjustment and as soon as you made it would be forced to adjust again the next day.

Now that rotation order I posted is probably never going to happen but it would be the type of thing you want your rotation to do and showing different looks every day.

When I look at Gee I see Rick Reed and Bobby O myself.
Every pitching staff needs one pitcher like that to make thier power pitchers look that much more powerful.

Duda worries me a little though. If he was RH and could even play a competent LF he would be a huge compliment to the lineup. However, whiffing lots and lots from the LH side of the plate is already covered well enough with out him and his defense is appalling.

They are also accompanied by some good hitters in Davis, Murphy, Wright and possibly Duda and though he lacks speed at the top of the lineup, Tejada has a good glove and can get on base – he’s not Jose but at least he has plugged the hole caused by his absence. Though he would not be a first stringer for most other teams, Thole at least provides us with an adequate backstop for the time being.

Though not a closer, Parnell is coming along in late inning relief.

Though we have the promise of some good prospects coming up, they are still not enough to fill the holes created by our current general manager and those beneath him that counteracts all that we have to be grateful for. We have possibly Duda and no other outfield (though we could have had one with Duda, Pagan and Beltran) so that means we have to hope for two rookies to resolve that. We have had two different but equally pathetic bullpens the past two seasons and have no idea what the third attempt will look like and therefore cannot count on the young arms to just make up for it.

Yes, we got Wheeler, but doesn’t one trade to resolve a weakness instead of adding to a strength one already has?

Maybe it’s time to sell SNY and solve all the Wilpons cash flow problems. A boy can only dream.

He’s done a good job here.