Couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece about how the Mets don’t exactly have the greatest track record avoiding Tommy John surgeries. You can read it here.
I brought up the following:
Since 2005 there have been 524 Tommy John Surgeries in MLB and MiLB with 194 of them at the Major League level. The Mets are tied for third worst during that stretch with 24 TJ surgeries (12 of them at the Major League level). The only teams with a higher incidence than the Mets are Rangers with 28 and the Braves with 30.
Then this morning I read something ex-Met Dana Eveland wrote on his personal blog:
This winter, teams called. Multiple teams called this offseason. Last season with the Mets, I finished the season injured and missed the last few weeks. At the end of the year, the Mets’ doctors said everything is going to be fine and that my elbow was clean. I just need to rest because it’s inflamed and if there was time left in the season I could come back no problem.
Going into the off-season, I thought that was the situation. Teams called, and they wanted to see my medical history and I said no problem. At the time I was feeling pretty good. My rehab was going well. So I gave multiple teams access to my medical history and those multiple teams came back with the same response: “We’d love to have you but your arm is…not real pretty.”
The results from the MRIs from last year and the notes from the doctors weren’t what they explained to me.
In the comments of the original piece there was some controversy over why the Mets seem to have so many UCL injuries. I mentioned how “you’d think” an organization with as much prized young pitching would take steps to protect these arms, investing in whatever state of the art medical care and conditioning programs might give your pitchers an optimal chance at staying healthy. It’s not even a matter of whether or not the Mets are “that cheap,” but rather the faulty logic of not taking steps to insure your assets. The argument was countered with the fact that Dr. Altchek, who works for the Mets, is one of the most prominent doctors in the field.
But then you have this post by Eveland and … well, you have to wonder.
The perception on the field has been, in the Collins era at least, that middle relievers are run into the ground with fairly bleak long term outcomes. Mets starters haven’t fared much better. If Zack Wheeler was pitching with a bone spur and a tendon tear, was it really a good idea to let him run up his pitch counts? Overuse has been an issue from Perpetual Pedro to Scott Rice … but overuse of one of your most prized arms when he’s already dealing with two significant elbow issues? Especially when a lot of recent research seems to be centering on pitching when already fatigued as a primary culprit? It’s a head scratcher.
The Mets on paper appear to have a formidable medical operation, but in practice the numbers speak for themselves. The Mets have one of the worst track records for keeping their pitchers off the UCL repair table in baseball.
It’s unfortunate really … There was a lot of talk early in 2011 about how the team would pursue durability profiles, focussing on stocking the system with big right-handers with good mechanics and effortless repeatable deliveries … unfortunately an effective prevention protocol eludes major league baseball when it comes to UCL tears. There are simply no consistent patterns of wear or predisposition or even warning signs that can be applied to major league pitchers that effectively reduce incidence. Any team that manages to develop such a program would enjoy such an advantage they’d almost certainly establish some sort of pitching dynasty.
I was half hoping the Mets were hard at work developing just such a program, but it doesn’t seem that way. It seems their approach is to simply stockpile so much pitching they’d be able to weather even higher levels of attrition. The durability profile is the holy grail of pitching at the moment … my guess is an effective preventative protocol would probably involve some combination of monitoring wear and tear on arms from a young age and avoiding fatigue, particularly stress while already fatigued, at all levels. There are healthier teams out there. Milwaukee, The White Sox, the Rays all have consistently strong health outcomes. It’s not like improving durability is outside the realm of possibility.
But, again, it makes absolutely no sense to accumulate this impressive depth of talented arms without also investing in medical personnel and state of the art conditioning, prevention, and rehabilitation programs.
Indeterminate durability insinuates a dark cloud over almost every prospect from the time they are drafted … the establishment of an effective health matrix would allow the originating team to exploit a massive market inefficiency. Most teams don’t even bother focussing too much on finding and securing pitchers who won’t break down because it’s so hard to predict. Frankly, I’m surprised a team hasn’t made the drafting, developing, and maintaining of durable players (the Chicago White Sox come the closest) an overriding priority.
How hard would it be to figure out why some guys break down while others don’t? In the long run you aren’t saving money by skimping on programs that improve durability because the benefits would present with a monumental competitive advantage … It’s all about preserving assets … you’d think a front office as tuned into market forces as ours is would be all over that.
