5:51 pm: Carrasco isn’t expected to miss more than around one week of Spring Training action, reports Tim Healey of Newsday (Twitter link).
1:47 pm: The Mets announced that right-hander Carlos Carrasco underwent surgery yesterday in New York to have a bone fragment removed from his throwing elbow. No specific timeline was given on Carrasco’s recovery, except that he will “resume baseball activities later this winter.”
2021 was already an injury-riddled season for Carrasco, who tossed only 53 2/3 innings over 12 starts after suffering a torn right hamstring during Spring Training. Initially projected to miss between 6-8 weeks, Carrasco instead didn’t make his season debut until July 30, and then didn’t look like himself in posting a 6.04 ERA. Carrasco’s 4.44 SIERA was more flattering, but his 21.1% strikeout was by far his lowest since the 2013 season (when Carrasco tossed only 46 2/3 innings in his first year back after Tommy John surgery).
It could be that the bone fragment was a factor in Carrasco’s lack of results, so with this procedure now in the books, the veteran might be able to return to his old form in 2022. As non-descript as the wording of the Mets’ press release was, the fact that Carrasco will be able to do some type of offseason prep provides something of a positive view that he’ll be ready for Spring Training.
In the bigger picture, of course, another injury is naturally a concern for a pitcher who is entering his age-35 season and already has a significant history of health issues. Beyond the Tommy John surgery, Carrasco missed three months of the 2019 season battling leukemia before making a stirring return in September as a reliever out of the Indians’ bullpen, and then pitching well as a starter (2.91 ERA/3.91 SIERA) over 68 innings in 2020.
Carrasco is entering the last guaranteed season of the four-year, $47MM extension he signed with Cleveland in December 2018. The righty is set to earn $12MM in 2022, and the Mets hold a $14MM club option ($2MM buyout) on Carrasco for 2023 that vests into a guaranteed deal if Carrasco tosses 170 innings next season and finishes the year with a clean bill of health. After acquiring Carrasco as part of the Francisco Lindor blockbuster last offseason, the Mets are certainly hoping for more in Carrasco’s second year with the team, especially since both Marcus Stroman and Noah Syndergaard could leave in free agency this winter.
Hate it for Carrasco. Guy just can’t catch a break.
Thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery.
tHoUgHtS aNd pRaYeRs fOr A sPeEdY rEcOvErY
Muted.
You don’t need to announce it, no one cares.
EBD cyber stalker. Muted.
I have thoughts, prayers and HOPE for a speedy recovery. Why doesn’t Fever have hope? He doesn’t hope they get better? He has said the same exact thing hundreds of times and made a point to never say he hopes any of them recover. I guess that makes the rest of us that actually have hope are better people that him, huh? I mean… He could always add hope to his motto but that would involve him doing more than just copying and pasting the same exact thing over and over again. So I’m sure he won’t.
Jonny5, I care.
JoeBrady is one of the good ones, I respect his decisions.
Unoriginal POS – I give you credit for choosing a handle that fits you. However I don’t care to read anyone who screams for attention by typing like that so you’re muted, have a nice day!
Idiot
Yes EBD cyber stalkers like you are idiots. Muted.
Pitch Guys – You’re trying to impersonate me, and you’re calling someone else an idiot?
Try coming back to reality sometime dude. I won’t ask how many restraining orders you have against you. LOL
Everyone take a deep breath. We need to thoroughly consider what Fever Pitch Guy said. Or was that what Fever Pitch guys said?
If he caught a break, he’d be out forever
And you say Curley was the smart stooge…yip, yip, yip.
Carlos is a stub when healthy so if he bounces back as expected well Mets’ fans be ready for a quality performance plus Carrasco will be entering his final year before becoming a free agent…
“as expected”
I don’t think it’s fair to expect him to bounce back.
Seriously. The man has been through a lot and he turns 35 soon. I’d say the jury’s out on that one and I don’t know that betting money is on his side either.
Hope Carlos can make it back. As far as being a stub please don’t pass this around. He’ll never get a woman……
Get well soon, Cookie! We need ya next year
Why is my team always hurt? We would be perennial world series champs if we sidnt get these injuries! Collusion
The Braves wouldn’t be in the NLCS Rn but idk if we would have made it to the WS.
Hard to be perennial champs if you don’t make it to the WS, isn’t it? You act like only the Mets had significant injuries. Acuna’s injury hurt a lot more than Carrasco.
And I hope the collusion thing is a joke, but with you, it’s hard to tell.
Good think carrasco wasn’t the only injury. Or I’d be wrong
Yes, Acuna’s injury hurt worse than Carrasco’s, but it didn’t hurt worse than deGrom’s. He was on pace for the greatest single season pitching performance in modern baseball history.
Yes, and with the Mets, still would have gone 8-8
What goes around, comes around……
Throwing a baseball is an unnatural use of the shoulder arm, elbow, wrist, etc. What is going on in MLB today – because of the obscene salaries – is Pitchers putting more and more strain on themselves to increase their K rate…..which are now a major measurement of a Pitchers success….and subsequently his salary. TJ surgeries are accepted as normal. In the future we’ll continue to see those that do what they have to in order to throw harder and get more spin on the ball, resulting in more movement of their pitches. Expect to see more star pitchers follow the path of Blake Snell and others. It’s why teams that can develop their own pitchers will continue to outperform expectations.
@MetsFan22, You’re right, good think
Lol… It was a great think! I wonder if Mets22 has slunk jeep, I mean, junk sleep. Maybe he’d have a greater think; what do you thunk?
Yep, degrom missed a major part of playing time, but hes a .500 pitcher. He just missed his regular 1 to 0 losses.
I sure am happy for the Braves. Love it if they knock off the Dodgers.
Understand heat and k’s bring the salary. However to have a career the pitcher needs to be a pitcher. The throwers are the ones that crash and burn. I would like to see the data for before and after the substance enforcement began.
Bauer POS would have gotten knocked around some if not for administrative leave. There are others that probably had a large drop off.
God hates the Mets, just like the rest of us.
The only perennial anything you guys are is underachievers. How do you think the Mets could make anything happen when you had Lindor, McCann, McNeil, Smith and Comforto all giving bad to terrible performances?
All the metrics said Lindor would decline so why did the mets get him and pay so much.
What metrics said he was going to decline?
To be honest, you didn’t need metrics to tell you he was in decline. Only an idiotic organization would have felt the pressure to sign him before they had to. Not auditioning him in New York first was dumb, dumb, dumb…it’s not like they couldn’t have outbid others for his services, and look how much they would have saved. Dopes.
This explains a lot. People don’t even realize that lugo and carasco who are huge to our team weren’t really lugo and carrasco when playing. Playing hurt.
How important was McNeil, Lindor, Smith, McCann and Conforto? You know, because that right there are five spots on your starting line up that were pretty bad. Does that help you figure out why the Mets didn’t score more runs and win more games?
@SalaryCapMyth Did you know no one else in the NLE had injuries or other issues? Including major stars like Acuna Jr, Soroka, Ozuna and Hoskins? Not a single one of those guys missed significant time. Oh wait…
He also mentions they’d be perennial champs without all the injuries, but the Dodgers, White Sox, and Indians/Guardians were all snake-bit far worse. Even the Astros lost McCullers for possibly the rest of the playoffs. But those injuries pale in comparison to the travails of the Mets’ season.
You’re replying to points made by a MF22 troll account…
wHeN cOoKiE coMeS bAcK iT wILL bE lIkE mAkInG a TrAdE lol mets are so mets
Did you have your 3 year old type that. heheheh
Sorry didn’t know where else to put it but Laz Diaz, Angel Hernandez, and C.B. Buckner need to be fired. I can’t understand why the union would allow these incompetent idiots to disgrace their profession.
Probably a race thing.
Written on January 12th, 2021 by Anthony DiComo “Carrasco will slide either second or third in the rotation behind Jacob deGrom and possibly Marcus Stroman. That gives the Mets the sort of stability they lacked a week ago, when questions abounded regarding the depth of their starting five.
On paper, the Mets are now one of the National League’s best teams; Fangraphs places them third in the Majors in projected WAR behind only the Dodgers and Padres. That’s a significant improvement from Carrasco’s former situation in Cleveland, as the Indians rate 13th..
Looks like old Anthony was relying on common sense that day when he should have been relying on his crystal ball
You can’t predict this game. That’s part of its beauty. Predicted to be 2 of the 3 best teams and neither could win 80 games. Twins collapsed unexpectedly, Giants won over 100. It’s a crazy sport.
flamethrower – You are soooo right about that! It’s funny how certain people with their little statistical formulas are so very wrong most of the time. Time and time again I’ve pointed out how badly their projections missed.
That’s because many are too obsessed with analytics, and they don’t look behind the numbers.
Like you said it’s truly a beautiful game.
If you don’t follow a team really closely, baseball isn’t that crazy. I posted in 2020 that the Giants would win 90 games in 2021 and make the WC. Going from Bochy to Kapler was a huge culture shock to the team. The pandemic made it hard to get things started. But, the team had a strong finish. With Posey coming back, you knew the team was going to improve.
Why do you think Cleveland traded him.They k new he was hurt and with his history he will be lucky to be back and be any good.Another fine move by the Mets that had all their fans thinking they were going to the WS.Never going to happen with Cohen the owner I promise.
Dream On,Dream On LOL
They knew he had physical issues, but they also knew that they couldn’t afford his salary even if he did get well. Going into the season they had 2-3 young pitchers that should have been able to perform as well as him for less than 10% of the salary. But then they got hurt.
The Cleveland FO and management loved him. It was totally a business decision. Like the Rays, Brewers and others, they always have players – or have their eyes on players – that will give them reasonable innings or position production for a reasonable salary. Last year the Mets got Corrasco for $12m which to them is a bargain salary. That was expensive compared to what the Indians pay their young players. If large market teams (excluding the Dodgers) such as the 2 in NYC could actually sign and develop young talent – particularly Pitchers – then their fans wouldn’t be talking about more and more payroll for name players past their peak and having physical issues which are common at their age.
Mets dumpster diving again gets them
Just another joke of a season in terms of managing personnel. They totally mishandled DeGrom’s injuries by letting him dictate their decisions, their choice to let a totally worn-out Walker keep starting all the way through to the end of the season was baffling, and now we find out that they may have knowingly let Carrasco (who they arguably rushed back to begin with) pitch injured for two months. Again, these are problems that are ultimately on Alderson, as evidenced by the fact that it happened all through his first run as GM.
Mets should count on nothing from Carrasco and plan their acquisitions accordingly.
So if the Mets didn’t win because they had injuries doesn’t that tell us more about how bad their depth is than anything?
Thoughts and prayers for a slow and painful recovery. Who cares how he feels. He’s richer then anyone on here.
They should just release him, hes finished
With the lockout he will have plenty of time to recover
Rob n Bob LOL
Man the Guardians lucked out on that transaction with the Mets lol. And yeah in what stratosphere is deGroms injury WORSE than Acuña’s? A guy who pitches once every 6 games and is lucky to even win 20 games or a star EVERYDAY player??? Metsfan22 can sit here and cry Mets injuries were worse when compared to top to bottom it clearly was one “one-sided” for the Mets. Get your coke bottle glasses off and pay ACTUAL attention before you write useless junk. Oh and to make it to the WS the Muts need to at least make it to the Wild Card Game lol!
He’s been a very good pitcher every season when he’s healthy. Clear out the bone fragment and I wouldn’t bet against him having a fine season in the last year of his contract.
Even though he plays for the Mets now, it’s hard not to root for guys like Carrasco. The man has given everything he has and then some to the game. Coming back from leukemia and pitching the way he did was nothing short of amazing! He could have had an excellent career had it not been for all the injuries. I hope he remains healthy in 2022 and becomes the ace of the Mets staff. We all know deGrom is injured much worse than he is letting on, so you can’t count on deGrom for more than 15 starts next season, if he’s even able to make it that far. I wouldn’t be surprised if deGrom decides to have surgery this offseason and misses the entire season.
You can’t help noticing that Cleveland traded Carrasco, Kluber, Clevinger, & Bauer in a timely manner. Is it just luck or is there some formula there? All teams do physicals on trades, (& maybe mentals in Bauer’s case) so it’s not like nobody understood the risks.
No two cases are the same, but in the Clevinger case, I think Preller simply wanted to see something that wasn’t there. He was never a rated prospect, and his K/W from 2016-18 was 9.5/3.7, good but not great. He had a great 2019, but reverted badly in 2020. I think Preller wanted him badly, and didn’t want to think about what was causing the reversion.
Kluber likewise was off the charts bad when the Indians traded him, with a 5.80 ERA and a K/W that went from 6.53 to 2.53. But in this case, I think Texas recognized that risk and only gave an RP prospect.
Bauer was a straight salary dump. He was good, with a 3.79 ERA/4.15 FIP, but there was no way they were going to pay him $17.5M for that, and that was pre-sticky.
Carrasco was similar to Clevinger. Carrasco had pitched for several years with ~ 5/1 K/W, and slipped to 3.04 in 2020.
So I think there were two things going on:
1-They followed Branch Ricky’s advise that it is always better to trade a guy one year too early than one year too late.
2-They dealt with GMs who were, maybe not desperate, but certainly highly motivated to make a deal. That’s where you always want to be. You need an opposing GM that has a plethora of decent prospects. They won’t trade a top-25 prospect, but they will trades multiple top-125 types.
But that’s led to their current 40-man roster crunch. A bunch of guys who have been in the minors long enough to be rule 5 eligible, but aren’t good enough to crack the team. They should trade those guys in volume to upgrade the prospect quality or fill in holes in the big league lineup.