White Sox righty Zach Putnam has undergone Tommy John surgery, Dan Hayes of CSN Chicago was among those to tweet. He’s expected to miss at least one year recovering from the procedure.
Putnam, who’ll soon turn 30, was off to a very strong start to the current season before his elbow flared off. Through 8 2/3 innings, he had allowed just one earned run on two hits while recording nine strikeouts against just one walk.
That showing came on the heels of a strong 2016 — at least when he wasn’t dealing with elbow troubles. In fact, since landing with the White Sox, Putnam carries an excellent 2.71 ERA with 9.6 K/9 and 3.4 BB/9 over 139 1/3 frames.
While he doesn’t bring much in the way of velocity, Putnam wields a devastating split-finger fastball. That offering has enabled him to boost his swinging-strike rate in each of his four years with the South Siders, starting at a strong 14.0% rate and climbing all the way to 19.4% in his shortened 2017 campaign.
All told, the White Sox have reason to hope that Putnam can again be an impactful arm in the bullpen, if he can work back to health. But the surgery means that he’ll be on the shelf for one of his final two seasons of arbitration control. He’s earning just $1.175MM this year, though, so the club could decide to pay that rate again for each of the next two campaigns and hope that Putnam returns to health for 2019.
That split finger pitch is why he gots issues
You have no proof of that
Um it’s a known fact
Depending on how much he spilts the ball and the flick of the wrist(if thrown like a forkball)
Look it up
Can’t decide if he’s Dr PadreFan or Johnny Superscout
How do you figure that? A splitter is thrown no differently from a fastball in regards to throwing motion. The only difference is the grip. It’s not like throwing a slider or a curveball.
The grip is what does it. Spreading the index and middle fingers puts extra strain on the elbow unless every single pitch is thrown with proper mechanics… which never happens. But often it’s actually the MCL not UCL.
There are some organizations that will not allow their top prospects to throw the Split-Fingered FB due to injury concerns, especially starters. Cut Fastball is probably the second most likely type of pitch to cause TJ because of how most guys attempt to throw it.
Timmy did for the giants
It give elbow, shoulder and bone issues in the wrist
Yet another White Sox reliever bites the dust. This is not helping the their cause to sell off some bullpen assets to contenders this summer. Jake Petricka has struggled since coming off of the disabled list. Nate Jones would have been their best asset, aside from closer David Robertson, but his DL status makes that possibility virtually nil.
Now comes word that the Nationals are on the verge of signing veteran closer Francisco Rodriguez to a minor league deal which could impact Robertson’s value come July 31st.
At least Jose Quintana has upped his stock this month as a rotation piece.
K-Rod likely has no effect either way on David Robertson’s market. Different class of pitcher.
Buerhle threw a cutter and went 200+ innings every damn year.
trade Robertson to the Nats, make Kahnle closer