MVN - Most Valuable Network

Casey Crosby may need TJS

I stumbled across this story over at Motownsports.com. Casey Crosby, the Tigers’ fifth round pick who was given a bonus more appropriate for a supplemental first round pick, is most likely going to need Tommy John surgery on his elbow. That generally requires about a year of recovery and quite a bit more time before the pitcher returns to their old self, if they ever do (see Kyle Sleeth).

It would obviously be better if that weren’t the case, but if this was going to happen I’d rather it happened now than at some later point when the Tigers were relying more on his progress.

As Tiger fans, we are left to hope for two things. First, that Crosby gets healthy and comes back from this throwing like a pitcher who should receive a $750K bonus. Also, that the Tigers shrug their shoulders, say “those are the risks you take” and continue to dish out the bonuses required to get the top talent possible in the draft.

After reading this story, it also occurred to me that this may be a good reason to hang back on the top talents who may fall because of signability. The Tigers took Crosby in the fifth round, which allowed them to get some good, signable talent (Brandon Hamilton, Danny Worth, Luke Putkonen) in the preceding rounds. With some quality players they would likely get into the fold for not much - if any - above slot, they were free to take a shot on some tougher signs when there was less talent left in the pool. That actually makes losing Crosby for a year plus a little easier to take.

The downside to that strategy, of course, is you end up paying a number of players as if they were early round selections. The draft is such a pittance in a team’s overall budget, though, the pros still outweigh the cons by a good deal.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 25th, 2007 at 6:08 pm and is filed under casey crosby. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.