Nice knowing you Cappy...

...good luck with all your future endeavors.

Assuming he opts for surgery, Chris Capuano has likely thrown his last competitive pitch for the Milwaukee Brewers. After his subsequent Tommy-John surgery, he will most likely fall into the Cal Eldred territory of pitchers: bouncing around from a couple teams having maybe a few decent years as a reliever.

He will be 31 by the time he is ready to start pitching competitively again 1 year from now. I know Capuano is very athletic and well-conditioned, but it will most likely then take him another full year to build back to being able to pitch a full starter's season again. He will be 32 and a free agent at that time. The odds (and time), don't appear to be on his side.

Baseball's a funny game. He appeared to be on the trading block the entire off-season, though Melvin never pulled the trigger with some possible deals (the Rolen deal comes to mind). It's tough to decipher the legitimacy of any of those deals in hindsight, but it's worth noting.

Teams can't cut guys because of injury, so the Crew is on the hook for his 3.8 millionish salary this year, and he's going to wind up on the 60 day DL. I'm guessing they are going to designate him for assignment (effectively releasing him) at the start of spring training next year. If he makes it through waivers, then we can resign him to a minor league deal possibly. Most likely though, he's gone.

Capuano was a good/adequate pitcher that worked hard and was very likable in Milwaukee. His 2005 season was one of the main reasons the Crew had their first non-losing season in 13 years. While his productivity slipped the next two years and his inability to win last year (although it wasn't entirely his fault) was one of the main reasons the Brewers missed the playoffs, it's too bad to see him go down again with the same injury.