Right now is not the time of year you want to hear one of your best pitchers are going down with back surgery. However, that is the news today for the New York Yankees and their starting pitcher James Paxton.
This comes to us from Jon Morosi on twitter on Wednesday afternoon.
NEWS: #Yankees LHP James Paxton will miss start of the season. Per team, he “underwent a microscopic lumbar discectomy with removal of a peridiscal cyst . . . His approximate timeline to return to Major League action is 3-4 months.” @MLB @MLBNetwork
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) February 5, 2020
According to the report from Morosi, he will miss the start of the season. Paxton underwent a microscopic lumbar discectomy with a removal of a peridiscal cyst. First off, that just sounds painful.
Second, Paxton’s injury history just reads like a Tolstoy novel. It’s not that he hasn’t been good – he has been good when he’s on the mound – it’s that he’s almost never healthy.
For instance, Paxton has never thrown above 160 innings in a season (2018). He’s also never surpassed 30 starts in a year, though he came close with 29 for the Yankees in 2019.
Perhaps Paxton is just one of those guys who will always be a 20 to 25 start guy, and people should resign themselves to that thought. Still at 31 years of age, and making $12.5 million in a contract year for the Bronx Bombers in 2020; this is definitely a setback.
Of course the Yankees are just fine, having Gerrit Cole to go along with Luis Severino and Masahiro Tanaka for the time being. When you can trot Paxton out as your fourth or fifth starter, it’s not really fair; and it doesn’t really matter if he misses a few months.
The Yankees just want Paxton fully healthy and at their disposal in October, and everyone should know that.
