Joe Janish does a great job today of sifting through the story and asks all the right questions.

At any rate, my surprise begins with the news that the Mets never made any inquiries about Putz health prior to the trade and that the club trivialized his injury. Significant assets were committed to get Putz and now he is gone without anything resembling compensation.

A Mets statement somewhat contradicts Putz:

We were aware that [Putz] had a bone spur before the trade,” the statement said.

“He had the same condition in 2008 and was able to pitch with it. J.J. underwent an exam during spring training and an additional exam and MRI before he was cleared to play in last year’s WBC [World Baseball Classic]. Unfortunately, the spur did flare up again in May and he missed the rest of the season.”

Putz seems to be overatating his problems with the Mets as the Mets did an MRI on Putz before they let him go the the WBC. Putz said nothoing of this is his interview. To say the Mets mishandled or mistreated him is false. They took a chance on Putz elbow would be a non factor and probably relied on much of what they Mariners were telling them.

Pitchers frequently pitch with spurs or chips present within the elbow’s hinge joint. Unless problems begin – meaning pain – they are allowed to pitch. But when a pitcher begins hurting, it’s shut down time. As in Putz case and from the timeline that Janish provided, it appears that the bone spur that Putz developed is something we see quite frequently. To make a comparison, the development is similar to that of heal spurs after years of plantar fasciitis on the bottom of a foot. We often inject painful heal spurs with some success.

Unlike a shoulder where a bursa sack can be injected, the elbow does not provide such an effective target for costisone. Putz received and injection last year in May last year likely intended to decrease the spur.

The easiest path has been to jump in another public Mets beat down and I would have if the medical staff hadn’t done an MRI prior to Putz going off to the WBC. A larger issue that provides much more interesting dynamics comes up when one notes the large number of Mets whom participated in the WBC suffered season ending injuries last season. The list include Putz, Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado, Johan Santana, and Oliver Perez. All of these injuries can be categorized as being of the over use variety.

The Mets don’t seemed to have publically advanced this theory as it could cause them considerable political problems within the industry. Having said this, it will intersting to see how the Mets handle the issue in the run up to the next one in 2013.

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