As you have heard by now, Zack Wheeler is out for the season. He has a complete tear of the UCL in his pitching elbow and will require Tommy John Surgery, the same procedure that sidelined Matt Harvey in 2014 and will keep Josh Edgin out of action this year.
Is this a frustrating development? Of course. But is it a disaster? No.
Let’s set the stage a bit. Wheeler, a prized young right-hander acquired a few years ago in the Carlos Beltran trade, was solid in 2014, his first full season. Wheeler got better as the season progressed, and in the second half he really had the look of a guy who was getting things all figured out on the mound.
The Mets had been heading into 2015 with more buzz, excitement, and optimism from fans, players, and baseball minds than they had garnered in recent seasons. Most of this newfound hope stemmed from their solid foundation of good young pitching. So Wheeler’s UCL tear, confirmed today, has led to reactions of anger, sadness, and frustration from the Mets fans. Even GM Sandy Alderson seemed upset and on edge during his conference call with reporters— and what a juicy conference call it was, but we’ll get into that in just a bit.
When I say the news isn’t shocking, I’m not just talking about the black cloud that seems to hang over this organization. UCL tears are an epidemic these days, especially among the newest wave of electric young pitchers. And I’m no doctor (heck, I’m not even pre-med like seemingly 99% of the students in my year at Penn), but I don’t think it’s too hard to figure out why.
Think of UCLs as you would, say, car tires. Before a pitcher finally gets to the Major Leagues, they put a lot of mileage on their arms. Most of the top young pitchers started pitching early in their lives. They’ve been throwing hard and throwing often, and doing it for a long time. They’ve even been throwing curves (shoulder killers) and sliders (elbow killers) for many years before they get to the show. Between little league, middle school, high school, college (possibly), the minor leagues, and sometimes even international careers in Cuba or Japan, elite pitching prospects are putting a ton of miles on those car tires.
After a while, those tires are going to need replacing. Tommy John Surgery replaces the UCL. Matt Harvey got new tires. Zack Wheeler needs new tires. And while Wheeler hasn’t been in Flushing for very long, and it feels like these injuries are striking the Mets’ top young pitchers (and every team’s young aces, for that matter) right when they’re just getting started, these flamethrowers have put years of wear and tear on their elbows just to get to the point where we can salivate over their “stuff,” rank them on lists, argue about whether to trade them for star shortstops, and dream about them pitching us to a championship.
So that’s why I’m not shocked by the news about Wheeler, and you shouldn’t be either. Send me a text that any top young pitcher just got diagnosed with a UCL tear and I won’t be that surprised. Tires need replacing. That’s why I’d tweeted a couple times since the Harvey injury that the odds of Wheeler and Noah Syndergaard both avoiding Tommy John Surgery for the next several years were low. That’s why the Yankees will probably regret taking the rest-over-surgery route with Masahiro Tanaka.
And I can’t imagine being less surprised about any particular pitcher than I was about Wheeler. The guy throws hard, and he has trouble managing pitch counts. As Marc Carig pointed out last night, Wheeler had the sixth-fastest fastball among qualifying pitchers, was far and away the leader in appearances of 110+ pitches (13) by pitchers under the age of 25, and was second in that group when it came to pitches thrown (behind Madison Bumgarner).
So a sudden tear wouldn’t have been that far-fetched. But this tear wasn’t even sudden at all, based on what Sandy Alderson revealed in the aforementioned press conference. Alderson was far more candid than usual, and revealed several interesting nuggets:
- “It’s a blow, but at the same time we knew there would be a lot of uncertainty surrounding Zack and his elbow over the course of the season.”
- “We had been forewarned by the doctors that his elbow was a concern and was going to have to be managed over the course of this season.”
- “When he complained of the elbow pain, it wasn’t a surprise to us. What prompted the MRI on Saturday was, Zack had complained about the elbow in the past, but the area of pain had increased in size.”
- Wheeler had been sent for MRIs in September, November and January, but the none of them indicated ligament damage. Wheeler also had a PRP injection (the same procedure Tanaka had to avoid TJ surgery) in November.
Marc Carig of Newsday added:
“Alderson said there was no reason to change the way Wheeler was used last year, despite high pitch counts, high velocity, etc. Wheeler was skipping bullpens regularly, but threw more pitches than anybody in age group.”
“He has one of baseball’s hardest FBs and the Mets kept piling on the workload. Plenty of gray area behind reasons for elbow injuries. Nothing definitive. Wheeler’s case — and how Mets handled it — reinforces it. Anyway, skipping in-between work is always a tell-tale sign that there’s some concern.”
So, not only are many young pitchers vulnerable to elbow issues, and not only was Wheeler specifically a prime candidate statistically to suffer elbow issues… but Wheeler actually HAD elbow issues all of last season, which were more severe than the Mets had ever let on until yesterday.
Now, you might be angry that the Mets knew all these things and didn’t tell anybody. There are many reasons why the Mets would withhold the fact one of their top pitchers had some very serious elbow issues.
First of all, the Mets were engaged in negotiations with other teams and players this winter. Knowledge is power. By revealing that one of their most valuable young arms had potentially serious elbow issues, the Mets could have lost leverage in negotiations, and not just those involving Wheeler. It is never smart to show your weaknesses in a negotiation.
In addition, the Mets had to consider their fan base. The Mets need their supporters to have hope. A torn UCL requiring Tommy John surgery obviously needs to be announced (as it eventually was yesterday), but when the team is trying to generate hope, justify a lack of major offseason transactions, sell tickets, get the media talking about their playoff chances, and talk up their pitching, telling us that there might be a problem with one of the pitchers in The Big Three (Harvey, deGrom, Wheeler) might not have been the prudent move, even if it would have been the honest one.
While we would certainly would have preferred the brutal truth, us fans don’t necessarily deserve full disclosure. When a problem requires action, and a player is going to miss games, then it’s most definitely our right to know what is going on. But every team has medical issues that they keep under wraps.
Will the Mets’ handling of the situation backfire? Spring Training is a time for hope and excitement, and the shocking news definitely shook some of our confidence. Sandy Alderson said the Mets will need a few days to “digest” the Wheeler news. Well, guess what… the fans need time too.
So we’ve talked about predictability, we’ve talked about our right to be angry, but that’s all in the past. Wheeler has a torn ligament, will get Tommy John, and miss the season. That is the reality of things. Now, the biggest question of all is, what does the future hold?
Fortunately, the procedure has a high success rate these days. Losing a year of the player’s production is probably the biggest blow. But Wheeler has a good chance to come back sometime next season and likely return to the same form. And, once he’s back, there’s no reason he can’t continue to improve, and reach his ace potential. In all likelihood, his biggest issues will be what they always were: command and efficiency. He’ll have brand new tires, just like Harvey (who tossed 4 scoreless innings on Monday, by the way).
Is this the last injury we’ll have to suffer through? Probably not. Players get hurt. Pitchers especially. Steven Matz and Jacob deGrom have already had Tommy John, which is probably a good thing (again, less mileage on their current tires). Bartolo Colon is immortal. Will Noah Syndergaard avoid the surgery? Who knows. Probably not. He might need repairs at some point too, but with the ever-more-sophisticated medical treatments available, TJS and many other formerly-disastrous procedures are often just speed bumps now, or stop signs. I know, I know… an awful lot of driving metaphors for a guy who can’t drive a car.
Now, the surgery doesn’t always work. It didn’t work for Brandon Beachy or Cory Luebke or Jeremy Hefner. But it usually works out pretty well.
Prized young Mets pitcher Zack Wheeler being diagnosed with a UCL tear and needing Tommy John Surgery. There was a very good chance that this was going to happen. On Monday, it happened. Zack Wheeler missing a season. That’s going to happen too. Zack Wheeler coming back at some point fairly early next season, and getting back on the same road he had been on before the surgery, with a renewed arm better-equipped to help him fulfill his potential. We’ll have to wait and see, but I’m confident that will happen as well.
And I’m not saying this isn’t bad news. I think this is unlikely to derail Wheeler’s career, but it is still an upsetting development. The Mets, who have potential this year, will be without one of their good young pitchers, a promising member of the pitching staff that had people so excited for the 2015 campaign. But Wheeler was our #3 guy. We have Harvey and deGrom, as well as Colon and Niese. Syndergaard will be ready at some point and Matz might get a call-up of his own.
The pitching is still good. It has its flaws, but it’s good. This injury won’t cause the season to be a failure, and despite some snarky comments being made on the internet, I don’t think that the front office will attempt to or even have any desire to use it as an excuse for failure. What was true yesterday is still true today: it is the Mets’ offense which will determine whether they are decent or, for the first time in a long time, important.
And hey, good thing we didn’t dump Dillon Gee, right?
