Brady Aiken has Tommy John surgery...

<tt>Unlikely.</tt>

 

That Jim Callis tweet from last year just continues to show why he is the best in the business. He didn't buy into the Astros just making crap up. He gave the organization the benefit of the doubt as most should have.

At the end of the day, for the Astros Damaged Aiken, Nix, & Marshall > #2 pick this year, but #2 pick > damaged Aiken & Nix.

It was never about the $1.5M, which the Astros probably still would have given Aiken if they could have also gotten Marshall to hedge against Aiken's risk.

 

You have to think that Aiken and "his people" knew that there was an issue and that the Astros werent just blowing smoke up his butt. Ultimately Aiken got bad advice from people he trusted or he got cute and felt he was gonna get paid regardless. If he felt swindled then he should have took the money, proved himself, then when the time came for his big payday gave a big FU to the organization.

 

Good luck to you, Mr. Aiken.

 

Aiken's surgery rumored to have complications.

 

The Evan Dreillich (spelling? i really don't care) tweets last night about Astros fans taking a "victory lap" because of the fact Aiken had surgery were the most POS strawman suggestions I've seen in a while. Deflecting from the fact that virtually everyone in the national media and the writers with the Chronicle slammed them for the ASSUMPTION that the Astros were making it all up to save less than $2 million. They all jumped to that conclusion...so now they're either silent or defensive when the Astros' concerns were vindicated.

No one is happy this kid is hurt. Setting up that strawman is just flat ass dumb and intellectually lazy.

I'd rather the Chronicle just stop covering the Astros. Leave it to the bloggers.

 

Drellich is absolutely horrible.

 

I can't believe Rosenthal is relating this to Vogelsong. He likely wanted a guranteed job and instead was told he likely would be competing for a back end rotation spot. Glad we didn't sign him either and it made zero sense as to why he was even being brought in at the time.

Losing JD Martinez stings but then he's also batting in a great lineup with protection. That equals a steady diet of fastballs. Straight ball he can hit very far, curve ball his bats don't like.

I hope and pray that Aiken gets healthy and can play the game he loves. If there's any blame to this, it's the CBA with no medical checks and punative slotting rules in regards to how tyour pool money is spent and rookie contracts are structured.

Anyways, it's Spring, and the Astros are still in contention. Excited to see if they can take the next leap.

 

So where is he getting drafted this year? If he drops out of the 1st he just lost 5million bucks.

 

Depends on the medicals and if there really were complications during the surgery. If he had a normal elbow, TJS wouldn't be that big a deal and I'd guess he'd still go top 10 and get 2+ million. See last year's #9 pick, Jeff Hoffman, who wasn't as good pre-injury as Aiken and was in a better draft. Of course, one of the rumors last year was that he had structural abnormalities in his elbow that might hinder his ability to recover from TJS. My guess is, that with his history, no team is going to draft him in the first round without getting a pre-draft physical or full access to his medicals.

 

If the Astros just thought he needed TJ surgery, they would have forked over the money. Physically sound pitchers bounce back from that all the time.

We apparently doubted (due to the UCL) his ability to recover from said surgery, should he ever need it. The fact that he actually needs the one surgery we feared after only a handful of pitches is an insane twist of fate.

This isn't a simple Giolito-like situation where an otherwise healthy pitcher recently had surgery, but is expected to come back to form. There were obviously serious concerns that this kid would never be able to recover, and I guarantee other teams (no matter what is said publicly) will try to find out what made the Astros pause.

And if a random Baseball America writer heard of "complications," you can bet that every front office in the country did as well. With the history surrounding Aiken, I'd be pretty surprised if he still goes top 10 like many pundits predict.

 

The Astros aren't at fault in this. No one wants to deal with injury issues on the 1st player taken in the draft.

 

There's no way a HS pitcher recovering from TJ surgery, who has a pre-existing condition that impacts that surgery, is going top 10. I wouldn't burn a first round pick at all on him at this point. There's just too much risk associated with that pick, plus the lack of any development this season even in the best case scenario.

The Stros weren't saving money, they were trying to hedge bets by taking flyers on a couple of guys who would only take above-slot money. The whole media coverage on the issue has been a farce.

 

I don't know that there is really a "bad" guy in this whole situation.

Aiken had been pitching fine and did not have an injury. Further there was disagreement about whether his small ligament would even result in an injury. Couple that with his agent not wanting to set a precedent of clients getting "low balled" over hypothetical injury concerns.

From the Astros concerns, the rule that you have to agree with a player prior to getting a physical is absurd. The Astros wanted Aiken, they viewed him as #1 worthy, until they learned that he has a tiny ligament. Pitchers are regularly having Tommy John. The Astos factored that into the discussions. It was obvious that the Astros didn't intend to low ball Aiken from day 1, because they signed Nix. The Astros kept in contact with MLB. The Astros increased their offer and attempted to negotiate with the agent until the last minute, he wouldn't play ball.

This was about an injury risk Aiken, Nix and Marshall being worth it..... but anything else wasn't.

The irony is that now Aiken will have to disclose his precious medical records to teams if he wants to be drafted in the top 10 of the draft. Further, he will probably not be drafted in the top 3 and will LOSE money as a result.

Keep in mind, for as "odd" as the Astros front office can be, and how well it is known that they do things differently..... the Astros never bad talked Aiken or Case.

Further, it wont be long before the rules are changed so teams get the medicals PRIOR to negotiating on a contract.

The Astros are still getting blow back..... whatever, maybe Aiken becomes Kershaw..... but right now, the Astros dodged a bullet and you better believe than had the Astros signed Aiken, and he been injured.... we would be reading about how the Astros had the #1 pick in the draft three straight years and only had Correa to show for it.

 

Further proves my point:

http://blog.chron.com/ultimateastro...nknown-about-brady-aikens-elbow-negotiations/

He literally ends the article with:

Um, I can think of one danger that was presented TWELVE PITCHES LATER.

 

That wasn't the real danger... plenty of people with big-ass UCL's tear them... the real danger is the potential complications of the surgery due to the anatomy, along with the potential increased trouble with his recovery/rehab/reinjury/etc.

Not a lot is known about surgery with this sort of anatomy except that its "different" and more risky simply because not a lot of it is done.

It's just a cruel twist of fate that he hurt himself on his VERY FIRST APPEARANCE, but the elbow was the exact same elbow he pitched all of last season with... and technically, he was "healthy" despite the MRI findings.

 

You're technically right, I think I'm just tired of our own beat writer constantly taking a contrarian stance on everything Astros. Seemingly every other club has a "homer" writer to pump out sunshine stories, and we've got some joke from Beantown ripping us at every turn when we could really use some positive press.

 

We actually don't know that. We've never gotten the real medical record. We don't know what the Astros thought. What we do know is it didn't take long at all for him to get hurt despite being babied throughout his entire life with strict pitch counts and workout regimens.

 

Even if he was a "homer"... I don't think its right for any organization to be congratulating themselves in this situation (especially if its true that there were complications to the surgery), nor is it right for their beat writers to promote that agenda.

And even though the Astros never publicly spoke badly of Aiken or his agent... somebody in the organization did leak the MRI findings, along with some of the going-ons in the negotiations. I doubt that was leaked by the Aiken camp.

Aiken is the clear loser in this situation... but the Astros still have to go out and get a quality player with the #2 pick... if anything just to offset the loss of Nix, to come out on the "positive" end.