Grady Injury Leaves the Tribe Behind the Eight Ball
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March 1, 2012The Cleveland Indians have announced that outfielder Grady Sizemore has undergone a microdisectomy on his injured back and will miss 8-12 weeks.
The operation was performed in Miami, Florida by Dr. Barth Green. A form of spine surgery, a small portion of the bone over the nerve root and/or disc material from under the nerve root is removed to relieve neural impingement and provide more room for the nerve to heal. It is the same procedure which Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning had done, twice.
Sizemore strained his back fielding ground balls during the first week of Indians’ spring training. He was recently signed to a one-year, incentive-laden deal that would pay him a base of $5 million. Michael Brantley will move over to center field with the vacant left field position up for competition.
Sizemore has played in only 104 games over the last two season. In 2011, he hit .224 with 10 home runs and 32 runs batted in.
[Related: Grady Injury Leaves the Tribe Behind the Eight Ball]
7 Comments
hate to say (read: love to say) I told you so but knew “back strain” had to mean something else to declare him out for the opener so soon.
This one isn’t horrible. A little disc shave, some therapy and anti-inflamms and we’re good to go until we again hear that horrible clanging noise as another part comes flying out of the engine. Grady, dude, hope you can still walk when you’re 35. That outfield wall, centerfield grass and gynormous swing are not your friends.
I had this same procedure done a couple of years ago. Woke up one morning with tremendous pain shooting down my right leg. Turned out I had a disc pushing on a nerve in my back. I never had any back issues before that. Of course I had been running and rehabbing my chronically bad right knee where the ACL had been replaced a few years before. Sound familiar? I’ve never been quite the same ever since. Sizemore is done. There is no Sizemore. Forget about him.
“There is no Sizemore, forget about him”
Grady Sizemore is Kaiser Soze?!?!
…..which makes Hillis joining the CIA completely explanatory now!
Wow that was a waste of 5 million.
Glad we didn’t get Willinham and his 30 HR’s from the right side or Pena with his 30 from the left, we got Kotchman and his 10.
Btw this isn’t a “Dolan’s are cheap” argument, I’m too big a Tribe fan to go to that well. This is a “our front office plays it safe too often” argument. After all it’s not the size of the payroll, it’s how you use it 😉
Sure, they spent $5M on Grady, but I’m glad they didn’t shell out a combined $17M per season for guys who hit .246 and .225 last year.
Wait, they played it safe by signing Sizemore and Kotchman instead of Willingham’s 1.8 WAR? I think it’s the exact opposite. They knew that just adding Willingham would make them soundly an 80-85 win team. Taking the chance that Sizemore could be healthy and Kotchman’s breakout was real were the only ways they’d get close to the 95 wins it will take to pass the Tigers.