Excellent article. Agree with a lot of the statements in the article, specifically these two:
Yet baseball keeps doing things the same way. It is addicted to the "theater" of having a specialized closer and the "theory" that an arm has only so many pitches in it -- and that everybody's arm will be treated exactly the same way.
Managers are motivated by the save statistic, throwing three-out save chances to their closer like bones to a dog. The game universally has embraced this idea that a closer can't come in to a tie game on the road -- better to lose the game with a lesser pitcher than run your closer out there without a save in hand.
Pitchf/x data is certainly going to provide more information, but I still believe that a full understanding of the problem is a generation away at least.
Also, I didn't realize that the recovery rate for a second TJ surgery was so low