It was announced today that Brett Anderson of the A’s, who hasn’t pitched since June 5th, would miss the rest of the season and most of (if not all of) next season with Tommy John surgery. When he first got injured, I initially considered writing an article about this topic, but decided to hold off on the rare chance he’d be able to come back. After today’s news, the question comes to the forefront: can Anderson ever put it together for a whole season?
With his elbow injury killing all but two months of his 2011 season, and soreness in the same elbow killing a lot of his 2010, Anderson has thrown 195 2/3 innings in the majors over 32 starts over the last two seasons. He was fully healthy in 2009 and managed to throw 175 1/3 innings over 30 starts. In his two full seasons as a minor leaguer, Anderson didn’t throw many innings. In 2007, his professional debut, Anderson only threw 120 1/3 innings. Understandable, given that it’s his first full season. In 2008 though, Anderson’s innings count actually went down, and he threw only 105 innings due to time in the Olympics.
The Verducci Effect is named after writer Tom Verducci, who essentially said that pitchers under 25 should only have their innings increased by a maximum of 30 innings in each season, so as to not injure the pitcher. After the cut of 20 innings going from 2007 to 2008, the A’s increased Anderson’s innings by 70 going from 2008 to 2009. A’s GM claimed that the A’s paid attention to the Verducci effect and were taking care of their young arms. Beane also claims that the innings increase wasn’t too bad because of Anderson’s innings in that he threw in the Olympics. Well I did a little research, and found that Anderson only threw 13 2/3 innings in the Olympics. So essentially, he threw 120 innings in both of his first two professional seasons, and that number jumped by 55 in his first professional season. That’s an increase of nearly 50% for a 21 year old. You can see why he’s been injured for a good part of the last two seasons.
The A’s are not going to nontender Anderson. Hell, they can’t. He’s under contract until 2013, with team options for 2014 and 2015. He’s not due to be a free agent until after 2014 even if the options are declined. For a frugal club like Oakland, having Anderson make $4 million to pitch 83 1/3 innings over two seasons (assuming he misses all of 2012) is not a proposition that looks too good right now.
When he’s healthy, Anderson is a game changer. The problem is, he’s never been healthy. Will he ever reach that status of being an ace? Well, there’s a rather large percentage of success rates for Tommy Joh surgery in this day and age. The thing about Anderson is that he’s still only thrown over 135 innings in his career just once (figuring in a rehab stint in 2010, he crossed the 130 mark as well). When he returns in 2013, he’ll be 25, and still will have no stamina under his belt. That’s not a good thing in the long haul. At the end of the day, he might develop into a dominant, 200 inning pitcher…or he could be Rich Harden, a guy who is a soul taker when healthy, but has issues cracking 120 innings in a year.
