A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE

In a comment I made last weekend, I was bemoaning the fact that Phillies GM Ruben Amaro had seemingly rocked the boat unnecessarily when he went out and signed a free agent closer from Boston named Jonathan Papelbon to big bucks, leaving the Phillies’ 2011 closer, resident madman, and all around good guy, Ryan Madson, floating in the breeze.  Well, sadly for Ryan, Ruben’s move is looking prophetic now.  In news over the weekend, we learned that Ryan has developed a tear in his ulnar collateral ligament, and will be lost for the season after undergoing UCL reconstructive surgery, aka Tommy John surgery. 

This was not Ryan’s master retirement plan.  In a perfect world, had forces and bad luck not conspired against him, he would have landed a multi-year, multi-million dollar deal this winter.  But through bad strategy and/or bad advice, however you want to spin it, all the real lollipop deals were gone when Ryan got to the front of the line.  So he went to Plan B.  Sign a stopgap, one year deal ($8.5M should keep the kids in shoes through the crisis), kick ass for a season to show his true value, and then be at the front of the line, a happy smile on his face, when the money trucks pull up after the 2012 season.  And it probably would have worked, if not for this crazy little anomaly in the game of baseball.  Players, pitchers in particular, who have to repeatedly hurl a 5-ounce missile at speeds in excess of 90 mph, usually while employing a twist of the wrist – this way or that – to add some deceptive motion to fool the guy with the bat, have a tendency to injure their arms.  Go figure.

And so, Ryan’s season is lost before it began, his surgery scheduled for next week.   The good news?  Well, Tommy John surgery is a remarkable piece of medical ingenuity.  Developed by world-famous orthopedic surgeon Frank Jobe, and named after the first pitcher to lay on the operating table thinking it was a good idea, the bad ligament in the throwing arm is replaced with a tendon, usually from the non-throwing arm.  The surgery has a remarkable success rate, with the patient often coming back, a year or so later, with an extra mile or two on his (or her) fastball.  So, all is not lost for Ryan.  But the gamble just became considerably edgier.  He’ll now be out of action for an entire year as he undergoes the operation, and then rehabs his arm.  Then next year, he and his agent, Scott Boras, will need to convince a GM somewhere to give him a new contract.  (You’ll recall that the current one with the Reds is only for this year.)  Then all he’ll need to do is prove that the injury is behind him, while re-establishing himself as a top-shelf closer.  Oh, and did I mention he’ll turn 33 during the 2013 season.  No easy row to hoe, as we say here in the country.  Bewildered as always by simple twists of fate, we wish you well, Ryan.