I know the easy thing is to kick Pavano for his non-contribution. After all, its a 4 year $39.95million contract he signed to pitch for the Yankees. Anyway, here's an article in the NYT that explores his side of the story.
In hindsight, Pavano said, he could have had Tommy John surgery that summer, but the Yankees did not recommend it to Andrews.I'm sure it was really frustrating for Pavano to live through all that... and get paid $39.95m. I guess that's the point. The sympathy runs out when the money runs out, and the money has been running out the door with Carl 'American Idle' Pavano. Maybe it could have been handled better, but there seems to be a point at which Pavano should have spoken up sooner about his back pain and then subsequent elbow pain.
“I think I could have, but we’ll never know,” Pavano said. “He was told not to. He was told to take the bone chips out and rehab it.”
Two starts into the 2007 season, the elbow pain returned, and Pavano insisted on major surgery as the only way to heal everything. It took four doctors — Hershon, Andrews, Lewis Yocum and David Altchek — to find one who agreed definitively. That was Altchek, the Mets’ team doctor.
“They had to go through all that red tape; that’s why I had to go get all these opinions,” Pavano said. “It was crazy. And I had to walk around with my heart in my throat: ‘Are you serious? You’re messing with my career here.’ You think I wanted to have Tommy John surgery? But I knew I needed it and I knew I could come back from it. That’s why I was all for it.”
Altchek told Pavano he had done everything he could to come back from the 2006 operation. His only choice was Tommy John surgery, in which a tendon from Pavano’s knee was used to replace an elbow ligament.
It took place June 5, 2007, nearly two months after he had last pitched in a game. Pavano said he wished he had the operation sooner.
“I would have been back seven weeks earlier this year,” Pavano said. “That would have been a considerable amount of time to help the team.”
General Manager Brian Cashman said the fact that Pavano had bone chips in 2006 did not necessarily mean he should have had reconstructive surgery.
“That doesn’t mean the ligament was gone yet,” Cashman said. “Bone chips usually mean there’s an unstable ligament, but that doesn’t mean you can’t pitch another 10 years without having Tommy John.”
In any case, Cashman said, he does not blame Pavano for wondering what different steps he might have taken. If anybody can relate to Pavano’s frustration, it is Cashman, who championed his signing.
“At the end of the day, he was hurt,” Cashman said. “People always say, ‘Why do you stick up for him? Is it because you signed him?’ I’m just being objective. The guy, I know, can pitch when he’s healthy. He just hasn’t been healthy. It’s not because he mentally wanted it that way. It just happened.”
Teammates recognize that his pitches are not as sharp as they will be, and they respect his approach. Pavano is challenging the hitters, and himself, with a fastball that has command but little pop.If all this were true, then Pavano sort of owes it to come back for a cut-price rate for 1 year and show what he's really got. I hate it when the Yanks rehab a pitcher like Lieber and Dotel and they end up pitching for other teams. Pavano owes a year of his best effort under normal conitions. It would be a serious drag to see him pitch somewhere else and do alright.
“Obviously, his stuff now is not that good, but he’s going out there and competing, he’s going after guys,” reliever Brian Bruney said.
“There are guys with way better stuff than he has that don’t go after people like that. The guy’s got heart and he wants to win. I’ll take that any day.”
Pavano will be a free agent after the season, and he could turn a decent September into a new contract with another team. He may succeed the way the Yankees hoped, just not for them. His time on the mound with the Yankees has been brief: he has made 22 starts, pitched 126 1/3 innings and compiled a 7-6 record.
No comments:
Post a Comment