The New York Yankees have plenty of injury concerns to go around when it comes to their starting rotation for 2015, and former Japanese superstar Masahiro Tanaka may be atop their list of worries.
“I admire him because he has the wherewithal to know his own body and believe in what he can do,’’ former New York Mets pitcher and current MLB Network analyst Ron Darling said. “I think some of these decisions to have Tommy John surgery are made hastily, because so much is at stake now and organizations want to have a ‘known’ that they can project forward..
“It’s certainly a gamble. It’s not a monetary gamble (Tanaka is guaranteed $155 million) for him but it’s still a gamble and I think he’s taking it because he wants to get out there and pitch. He’s just doing what most pitchers did years ago."
Darling pitched soon after suffering a broken thumb in 1985, forcing him to exchange his curveball for a splitter due to physical necessity. While that splitter was devastating in its time, he attributes coming back so soon and worrying about the here and now for a loss in velocity on his fastball at age 28 (and the subsequent struggles in his career).
“At that point," Darling recalled, “I was only thinking about today."
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