Brady Aiken made headlines last year when he and the Houston Astros failed to come to terms on a contract after they selected the lefty with the first overall pick. After initially agreeing on a $6.5 million dollar contract, the Astros rescinded their offer when they began to have concerns with Aiken’s health after their doctors checked him out.
Needless to say that didn’t go over well and the Astros were raked over the coals nationally for what seemed like shady business practices. Fast forward to the present and now Brady Aiken is recovering from Tommy John surgery and it now seems that Houston’s concerns were legitimate.
Pitching prospect Brady Aiken, the first overall pick in the 2014 draft who failed to reach an agreement with the Houston Astros, underwent Tommy John surgery on his left elbow.
Aiken left his start for IMG Academy last Thursday after throwing less than 15 pitches.
“In my first game for IMG Academy last week, I threw a pitch and something felt a little wrong,” Aiken wrote for The Players’ Tribune website. “When I visited the doctor’s office and got the news I had torn my UCL, I can’t even begin to express how I felt. … [M]ostly it’s disappointment.”
In a controversial negotiation that resulted in the Astros failing to sign Aiken, Houston reduced its offer to the young left-hander from $6.5 million to $3.1 million after a physical revealed concerns in his ulnar collateral ligament. At the last minute, the Astros reportedly increased their offer to $5 million, but Aiken didn’t sign.
“When I decided not to sign, I knew injuries were always a possibility,” Aiken wrote. “Two other pitchers drafted after me in the first round last year were picked by their teams despite just having undergone Tommy John surgery. This is just a temporary setback.”
Aiken is attending IMG rather than a four-year college so he can remain eligible for the 2015 draft, in which he has been considered a strong contender to be the first overall pick again.
While initially the Astros looked horrible for low balling Aiken during the negotiation process, it now looks like their suspicions have been confirmed by Aiken having to go under the knife. The last thing you want to do as a franchise is to invest in a high draft pick, then promptly have to watch him sit out for a year due to a serious surgery.
By turning down the Astros offer, Aiken was betting on himself by enrolling into IMG Academy and taking another shot at the draft in 2015. It will be very interesting to see how teams approach him now that he has a TJ surgery on the resume. I think it is safe to say that he won’t sniff the kind of signing bonus that Houston was offering.