Manny Banuelos has started playing catch following elbow surgery

February 9, 2013 by Mike Axisa 14 Comments

Via Dan Barbarisi: Top pitching prospect Manny Banuelos has started playing catch as part of his rehab from Tommy John surgery. He had the procedure in early-October, so he’s roughly four months out and right on schedule according to Mike Dodd’s classic article. As I said in my Top 30 Prospects post yesterday, I don’t expect the Yankees to have Banuelos throw in winter ball after the season. They’ll probably bring him to camp next year fresh and ready to go.

trr

“fresh and ready to go”… Yes, we can always hope…
- Ted Nelson
  
  TJS is a fairly common procedure with a high success rate and usually a 12-18 month recovery window. Certainly not a lock, but I think it’s what we should expect.
RetroRob

The past year, 2012, was to be his first season in AAA to continue his development and work on his fastball command, which seem to leave him in 2011. It was also supposed to be a year he’d work his innings up to 150+ so he could compete for a rotation spot in 2013. All of that is lost now, plus he’s had surgery and a full year off.

He was actually showing much better command in several starts, and TJS has a high recovery rate, but what’s happened has happened. He’s lost two years. I don’t see him contributing to the big club until 2015 beyond a late-season call-up in 2014.
- Ted Nelson
  
  We’ll see. Some well regarded people thought he was already MLB ready two years ago and TJS rehab is not exactly time off.
Jacob The OG (formerly Jacob)

hooray for rehab
CS Yankee

Couple things don’t exactly make sense to me here;
1) wasn’t TJS decided in July or August last year as he went down in June?…if so, why did they wait until October?
2) 12 months would lead to AFL ball, why start him fresh when he could get in a few and build the arm & hone the location? He just throws for the next 13 months, until ST 2014?

So, with his timing and delayed procedure, it cost him 2012, all of 2013, limited innings in 2014 & 2015?
- Ted Nelson
  
  1) They were hoping it didn’t require surgery, the doctors reportedly told them to give it time.
  
  2) That’s just Mike’s opinion. There’s certainly a case to be made for it, but other people disagree.
  
  How did you get to limited inning in 2015? That’s a pretty huge, unsubstantiated leap.
  - Jerkface
    
    Well if you consider he has essentially no innings in 2012 and 2013, 2014 & 2015 will be ‘build up years’. It would be very unlikely that he is good for 180 innings in 2015.
    
    64
    120
    24
    0
    
    If you give him 120 in 2014, that is still only 150 in 2015, which isn’t enough to sit in the rotation for a full season.
    
    They managed to turn 1-1.5 seasons of lost time into 2-2.5 seasons of lost time with their decision to rehab it. Not good.
    - Ted Nelson
      
      You don’t just sit around and wait while rehabbing from TJS and building innings is not a linear thing. Manny will be 24 in 2015 and his connective tissue shouldn’t be much of an issue, innings limits are generally for younger pitchers. Let me know if you find any evidence of guys taking three years to recover from TJS.
      
      Pretty tough to comment unless you know any of the details. And again 2.5 years is a joke.
  - NettlesE5
    
    See what happens with Campos
- RetroRob
  
  No proof here, but I think people were fired over this situation, and others.
  
  He came down with a sore elbow in May and they kept trying to rest and rehab him. His return was always a month away, and then they decided he’d sit out the rest of the season and pitch in Winter ball. Come October, they finally decided he needed TJS. He could have had it back in mid-summer and he could pitched some in 2013, but not now it’s 2014, which means he really won’t help the Yankees until 2015. Two lost seasons.
  
  My fear is the same people are the ones who make the decision on Campos and his elbow. They could be entirely different, but if they’re wrong, and he goes down in 2013, then the team is looking at three lost seasons with him.
  
  As said at the start, I believe people fired over this and it’s why Gil Patterson and others were hired.
  - Ted Nelson
    
    The end is near!!!!!!!!
- Ed
  
  The story seemed to be that he had a lesser injury early in the season, then blew out the ligament while rehabbing from the first injury.
  
  My guess is either they pushed him too hard during the rehab leading to further injury, or he altered his throwing mechanics to compensate for it and ended up causing damage.
Slu

Eh, there is always a chance, but I am not optimistic this kid will ever contribute anything to the Yankees. All prospects are a long shot, and now he is pushed back to 2015. That is way too far away to count on anything.