Sometimes a piece of news is so plainly awful that no fantasy spin is required. Such is the case with Wednesday's report on Michael Pineda. The 23-year-old has been diagnosed with an anterior labral tear in his right shoulder and surgery is scheduled for Tuesday. Early word is that the best-case recovery timeline for Pineda is 12 months. Brutal.
If you're a Yankees fan looking for any reason to be hopeful about Pineda, here's a nugget from Mark Feinsand's Twitter feed:
[Team physician] Dr. Ahmad said the rotator cuff is not damaged at all, which leaves them optimistic about Pineda's recovery.
So that's something. But obviously the labrum tear is enough of a worry.
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman has said that Pineda was "fully healthy" when acquired via trade from Seattle, and this is not a damaged-goods situation. Still, this is just terrible news. As we often say, all pitchers carry risk. In fantasy, we can drop Pineda and move on. In NY, it's not quite that easy.
(Related: This seems like the appropriate place to mention the fact that Jesus Montero will be making his fifth start of the season at catcher on Wednesday, which gives him position eligibility in Yahoo! leagues. It's always nice to roster a catcher who spends most of his time DHing. That's a win).
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