Hong-Chih Kuo has no plans to retire despite fifth surgery

Hong-Chih Kuo‘s agent told Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times that the injured left-hander has no plans to retire despite battling anxiety issues during the season and needing a fifth elbow surgery.

Kuo is scheduled to go under the knife tomorrow, but the surgery is a relatively minor removal of “loose bodies” from his elbow and the recovery timetable is expected to be just 6-8 weeks. Or as Dodgers trainer Stan Conte put it: “It’s a minor surgery for anyone other than Kuo.”

Assuming the Dodgers tender him a contract for next season Kuo will be in line for at least $2.75 million via the arbitration process and while his health has always been a huge question mark he’s still just 30 years old. And even while struggling with extreme control problems this season Kuo racked up 36 strikeouts in 27 innings after posting a 1.96 ERA and 201 strikeouts in 170 innings from 2008-2010.