An MRI For The Soul

Alderson insists Wheeler’s elbow issue isn’t major.

— Marc Carig (@MarcCarig) March 13, 2015

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So after initially poo-pooing the idea of an MRI for Zack Wheeler because “he’s got all the MRI’s he needs”, and insisting that his elbow issue isn’t major because he’s obviously a doctor, Sandy Alderson might want to rethink his definition of the word “major” as Wheeler’s MRI that was initially denied showed a torn UCL. And guess who we get to talk about again? That’s right: Tommy John. Wheeler will have the surgery named after John as he will be out for the 2015 season.

“You’re always prepared for bad news. At the same time, when it actually is confirmed, there’s a little bit of surprise. But honestly, I have to say that this kind of result is not totally unexpected.” -Sandy Alderson

Yeah. We expected Wheeler’s UCL to be torn. That’s why we didn’t even order an MRI because we just wanted to hide under our desks, put our fingers in our ears and sing “‘la la la la la la la la la la la la la la”.

“We don’t think it’s serious because it’s something that he’s experienced before and it’s sort of an intermittent issue that he has to manage. At this point, we don’t expect it’s going to be a major issue. Again, he’s been seen for this in the past.” –Sandy Alderson/March 12th

All this, remember, comes from the organization that made “Prevention and Recovery” their mantra. Well, Recovery is batting 1.000 while Prevention is having trouble finding a spot in the order. I told Sandy Alderson that I needed an MRI for my soul and he just told me “Eh, you’re soul has been messed up since 2007. We’ll just manage it.” And that’s what baseball season is for Mets fans … an MRI for the soul which shows many tears … and tears. (That’s pronounced TARES and TEERS if you don’t quite understand that last statement.)

Now it’s all relative, but losing Wheeler isn’t quite the blow that losing Matt Harvey was near the end of the 2013 season was. And the Mets 2015 season depends more on whether they can hit better than they did last season anyway. Losing David Wright or Curtis Granderson or Michael Cuddyer would be the death knell. But in a way, Wheeler is the last starter the Mets needed to lose. Think about this: Matt Harvey will have a good season but there will always be a wonder about whether he could be as dominant as he was in 2013. Jacob deGrom faces the “sophomore slump” jinx. Bartolo Colon is telling stories in the clubhouse about how Mordecai Brown taught him to locate the fastball. Jon Niese and Dillon Gee are … Jon Niese and Dillon Gee. Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz may more may not be ready for prime time. But Wheeler is the guy who was ready to take the next step in his development with no hurdles to clear other than the one his own talent and work ethic tells us how high it is. He was ready to be the exclamation point in a rotation of question marks … talented though they may be.

And now he’s gone. And he also potentially provides the built in excuse for inactivity this season. Last year was going to be “the year” until Harvey went down. Now Wheeler is gone and in August, when the Mets are doing nothing again at the deadline, we’ll hear about how Wheeler’s injury “altered the calendar” or some nonsense like that. Until then, whenever we say “Oh, he has all the MRI’s he needs”, it’ll be followed by “neh neh neh neh neh neh neh neh neh.”