This is just getting ridiculous – it appears Mets starter Zack Wheeler is the latest promising young MLB pitcher to tear his UCL. Tommy John surgery looks like a surefire bet for his near future.
Zack Wheeler torn ligament. Sounds like Tommy John surgery. #mets
— Adam Rubin (@AdamRubinMedia) March 16, 2015
torn ucl for zack wheeler, mets announce. big blow for player/team seemingly on rise.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) March 16, 2015
Wheeler is just 24, and in 49 starts with the Mets, he has a 3.50 ERA over 285 1/3 innings. In 2014, he made 32 starts and struck out 187 over 185 1/3 innings. New York would have paired Wheeler with a returning Matt Harvey at the top of their rotation as they looked to break through and make the playoffs in 2015.
But that’s not going to happen now. Dillon Gee seems likely to replace Wheeler in New York’s rotation, joining Harvey, Bartolo Colon, Jon Niese, and 2014 NL Rookie of the Year Jacob deGrom. That’s not a huge drop off, but Gee is pretty clearly an inferior option when compared to Wheeler.
Wheeler was actually shut down this weekend because of what was deemed tendinitis at the time. Of course, the real issue is much worse than some simple tendinitis.
Since Wheeler was called up in 2013, him and Harvey have only been a part of the same rotation for two months. That’s pretty depressing.
New York still has plenty of young pitching in the upper minors, but losing a finished product like Wheeler until sometime in 2016 is just terrible for them. But is his injury a season-ender for his team, like we saw with Yu Darvish and the Rangers? Not by a longshot.
