Mariners right-hander David Phelps recently underwent surgery to remove a bone spur from his right elbow, reports Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times (Twitter links). That procedure will come with a recovery time of six to eight weeks, per Divish, but he’s expected to be ready to go for Spring Training in 2018.
Unfortunately for the Mariners, there’s far more troublesome news surrounding the health of right-hander Hisashi Iwakuma. Evaluations on Iwakuma’s right shoulder have revealed some form of structural damage (more Twitter links from Divish), though the extent of the injury remains unclear at this time, as Iwakuma declined to specify the precise nature of his ailment. Iwakuma hopes to continue playing, but the 36-year-old will first need to ascertain the best course of treatment for his yet-unspecified injury.
Phelps, 31 next month, was acquired from the Mariners earlier this summer in exchange for a package of four prospects headlined with outfielder Brayan Hernandez. The former Yankees swingman broke out with the Marlins in a high-leverage, late-inning role in 2016 and carried that success over into his brief tenure in the Seattle bullpen this year. Phelps worked to a 3.12 ERA with 11 strikeouts against four unintentional walks through 8 2/3 innings in the Mariners’ pen before ultimately being shut down for the year. He’s arbitration-eligible this winter, so he should be a key piece for the 2018 Mariners.
Iwakuma’s future, obviously, is far murkier. The Mariners hold a $10MM club option over former All-Star, though with structural damage in his right shoulder it seems all but certain that Iwakuma will instead be bought out for $1MM. Iwakuma has spent his entire Major League career in a Mariners uniform and returned to the team as a free agent following the 2015 season. While his first year back with the club resulted in 199 innings of solid 4.12 ERA ball, he’s been limited to just 31 innings in 2017 and hasn’t pitched since May 3.
The Dodgers are probably extremely happy about the deal with Iwakuma falling out.
They are only happy about not losing the draft pick. They signed Kazmir after iwakuma failed and that signing has been just as awful
Less expensive and didn’t cost a pick
Why wouldn’t the Mariners be happy too? They got him for less than the market value, got a good year out of him, and now can move on for $1M. I’d argue that Kuma was better than Kazmir’s deal…
wasn’t it a shoulder issue that hung up his deal w LA?
Elbow
dodgers dodged a bullet
Wasn’t phelps acquired BY the Mariners FROM the Marlins?
Sad news on Phelps and for SEA, but why has nobody talked about job MIA did at the trade deadline without parting with their key guys Stanton Yelich Ozuna Realmuto Gordon Bour??? Since trades: Hechavarria .252/.290/.409 and TB out of WC spot… Ramos 3.71 ERA is very vanilla with high walk rate 5.3!… Phelps only threw 8.2 innings for SEA who is also out of WC spot… Koehler has been good for TOR but as a reliever and will be making too much money next year for Blue Jays to tender for this new role. Guys MIA got back to fill system with talent: Braxton Lee won the batting title in AA and carried that team to a division title… Pablo Lopez 2.18 ERA with only a 1.4 walk rate!… Merandy Gonzalez 1.11 ERA with only a 1.8 walk rate!… Osman Gutierrez 3.18 ERA with a 1.6 walk rate!… Brayan Hernandez is a top prospect, raw, but will be a good addition to MIA… same with the other Cespedes they got from Mets…. Lukas Schiraldi reliever even got his walk rate to career low 3.7 and kept high strikeouts at 10.4. Farm System got better, they stayed in the wildcard hunt until recently, didn’t get rid of high profile guys, and got rid of guys they probably could not afford next year anyways.
They did well! Fantastic job under the final loria regime! Wonderful!
I wonder if Iwakuma sits out 2018 with the hopes of finding a new deal in 2019. I know it seems unlikely due to his age, however Big Sexy missed his age-37 season, and came back to post 7 seasons of 3.93 ERA Ball (100 ERA+) including this dumpster fire of a season—(3.63 ERA ball with a 107 OPS+ not including 2017). Prior to his missed season, he had pitched 1982.2 Innings Pitched for his career.
Despite injuries, Iwakuma has remained rather effective when on the mound, I wouldn’t count him out. He only has 883.2 Innings under his belt.
He does have significantly more innings pitched if you include his time in Japan however. Seems like Japanese pitchers do have a tendency to break down more often than not anyways. It’s also possible he could look to return to Japan to finish out his career. He would likely be average or better in the NPB and I’m sure there would plenty of interest, health-permitting.
“Seems like Japanese pitchers do have a tendency to break down more often than not anyways.”
Not Hiroki Kuroda. That guy was a tank(Ok more like Toyota Camry)
Reliable for 200IP every year.
A bit surprised Seattle didn’t look at giving Drew Hutchison (Pirates) a look when the Pirates cut him loose. It would have cost a roster spot but Hutchison was decent in AAA & the Mariners never seem to have healthy starters.