The All-Star break was not quite over when the Indians received devastating news: Lefty Nick Hagadone will be done for the season after breaking a bone in his elbow in a rehab appearance with Mahoning Valley on Wednesday (7/15).
This was not a typical pitching elbow injury, although there was another recent example as Gavin Floyd had the same issue. Officially, it was a fracture of the medial epicondyle bone in his left elbow and he had multiple surgeons look over the situation during the past week before deciding on Dr. James Andrews to perform the surgery yesterday.
Hagadone was on a rehab assignment after straining his lower back two weeks ago and it was assumed the strain was light. However, a back strain usually has a domino effect on the rest of the body as it will usually compensate for the lack of flexibility and muscle tightening by putting more strain on the throwing arm. This is possibly the case with Hagadone, that his bulky back led to bad mechanics, causing the break.
Since the break required surgery, Hagadone will miss the rest of the season and then some. At the moment, his expected return to throwing will be between six and nine months, slightly less than comes with Tommy John surgery, which Hagadone has already recovered from. Since he doesn’t have a new ligament in his elbow, he should be able to rehab a little faster as well.
With this time frame, he should be just starting things off when the Indians are beginning Spring Training in 2016. This will place both parties in an awkward situation as he will be heading into his first year of arbitration and is out of minor league options. With Kyle Crockett and Marc Rzepczynski both under team control through 2016, it is possible that the Indians may find it necessary to part ways with Hagadone before he completes his recovery.
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