Peavy Surgery A Success

Chicago White Sox pitcher Jake Peavy underwent successful surgery today for the torn lat muscle he suffered against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Luckily for Peavy there was little to no damage to the muscle itself, the tendon itself just tore clean off the bone. A team of surgeons from Midwest Orthopedics performed the surgery at the Rush University Medical Center. Ed Price of Fanhouse reports that the team believes he’ll be ready by Spring Training.

"

@ed_price: #WhiteSox say Peavy had “little or no muscle damage” after surgery today. “Hopeful Jake will be ready by the start of Spring Training ‘11.”

"

My concern is once Peavy returns how effective will he actually be? He’s still young by baseball standards, turning 30 next May but he hasn’t been healthy for quite a few years now. Peavy hasn’t gone a season without injury since winning the National League Cy Young Award in 2007 With the San Diego Padres.

2008 – 27 starts
2009 – 16 starts
2010 – 17 starts

In addition to the decreasing amount of appearances his numbers seem to be getting worse, year by year.

2008 – 2.85 ERA over 173 innings
2009 – 3.45 ERA over 101 innings
2010 – 4.63 ERA over 107 innings (although in the month of June he was lights out 1.75 ERA over 36 innings).

Could Peavy have been improving over the month as he got back into full shape? Yes, but his competition also helped. He faced three National League teams in the month of June, as well as the Kansas City Royals and Cleveland Indians. So looking at that, you can’t tell if he actually was improving or not.

Peavy is going to cost the White Sox a lot of money over the next few years $16 million in 2011, $17 million in 2012 and unfortunately for them I don’t think they’ll ever get their monies worth. After all these injuries you may see flashes of brilliance from Peavy but I doubt he’ll ever be close to the Cy Young he once was.