Turns out something was wrong with Michael Pineda, afterall. Really wrong. 

Pineda showed up to New York Yankees camp with a noticable drop in velocity this spring after New York gave up its top prospect, Jesus Montero, to acquire him from the Seattle Mariners. Pineda began the season on the disabled list, and now we know the problem: Michael Pineda has a torn labrum in his right shoulder. The injury will require season-ending surgery, and there is a very real chance Pineda's career is over.

Pineda was the prized acquisition of the offseason and was being counted on to help anchor an otherwise shaky starting rotation. His loss leaves the Yankees leaves the Yankees pitching staff dangerously thin.

Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman called it a "tragic diagnosis" and said he believes the injury occurred on the last singular pitch Pineda threw in a rehab start on Saturday, when Pineda had to leave the game after fifteen pitches.

More than likely, however, Pineda has been dealing with labrum issues for some time. 

An in-depth piece at Slate eight years ago details why a torn labrum is probably the worst injury a pitcher can suffer, short of actual amputation of the limb -- far worse than Tommy John elbow reconstruction surgery. Roughly 85 percent of pitcher eventually come back from Tommy John, the article says, "but if pitchers with torn labrums were horses, they'd be destroyed. Of the 36 major-league hurlers diagnosed with labrum tears in the last five years, only midlevel reliever Rocky Biddle has returned to his previous level."

I don't suggest that you read the Slate article if you're a Yankees fan and don't like to hear bad news.

Though medicine has surely progressed in certain ways over the past eight years, Slate's Will Carroll writes: "The leading minds in baseball medicine are flummoxed by the labrum. Doctors can't agree on how to detect a tear, don't know the best way to fix one, and aren't sure why, almost without fail, a torn labrum will destroy a pitcher's career."

Pineda has clearly not been right ever since the Yankees gave up Montero -- who many view as a future Hall of Fame caliber hitter -- and brought Pineda east. 

"He didn't have his velocity from Day One, and we didn't know why," Cashman said. "This must have been responsible. Clearly, he was fighting through something."

Cashman does not believe, however, that the Mariners had any inkling of an idea that anything was wrong with Michael Pineda at the time of the trade.

"In no way do I or the New York Yankees believe the Mariners knew about this injury," he said. "Michael was a fully healthy player when we got him."

If there's anything Yankees fans can take heart in, it's that the St. Louis Cardinals lost their Ace, Adam Wainwright, last season before he threw a big league pitch, and the Cards went on to win the World Series. 

Andy Pettite is not far from being ready to give it a spin on a big league mound, but an already thin Yanks rotation just got a heck of a lot thinner, both in the short-term, and, potentially, in the very long-term as well.

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Follow Bison Messink on Twitter: @BisonMessink
Follow SportsOlogy on Twitter: @OlogySports 

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