cardinals oath Alex Reyes Staring at another injury-related relapse, he is due to have surgery on his shoulder later this month. Tweets Katie Wu from The Athletic. MLB.com’s John Denton first reported that Reyes will need surgery to repair his right shoulder (Twitter link).
Reyes met with renowned surgeon Dr. Neil Al-Atrash on Monday, and confirmed the team’s recommendation that surgery would be required. The Cardinals did not announce the exact nature of the procedure. Wu adds that while the surgery will likely end his season, there is at least a slim chance that Reyes will be able to return later in the year.
It will be Reyes’ third major surgery in the past five years. Right underwent Tommy John’s surgery again in spring training for 2019 and has since undergone surgery to repair a torn tendon in his latissimus dorsi. Reyes also missed some time with a shoulder problem back in 2020, although he didn’t need surgery at the time.
The expected shoulder action, then, is the latest in a long line of physical ailments that have combined to disrupt what appeared to be one of the sport’s most promising young talents. Reyes, for years, was billed as an ace of potential, frequenting the highest potential ratings throughout his minor league run. Heading into the 2017 season, Baseball Prospectus ranked it a #1 prospect in all of baseball, while Baseball America ranked it fourth and MLB.com ranked it sixth.
At the time, Reyes barely held onto his junior and expected status after making his MLB debut in 2016, when he played 46 rounds of 1.57 ERA balls. However, Reyes underwent surgery for Tommy John before he had a chance to follow up on that debut. That surgery, combined with the shoulder and streak issues previously mentioned, combined to limit Reyes to just 87 runs from 2017-20 (the Big and Minor Championships combined). He made 72 1/3 high-profile runs with the Cardinals in 2021, it all came as a savior, and he led the team with 29 saves. Reyes punched more than 30% of his opponents, but also released walking clips at an untenable 16.4%.
The hope that was headed into the 2022 season was that Reyes would like him Jordan HicksIt can either be extended to serve again as a start or to provide a multi-role option in highly leveraged positions. However, this last bout of the shoulder problem eliminated that possibility before it really started. Now, Reyes’ future in the organization may be in question.
At 27 years old (August 28), Reyes has only 145 major league runs under his belt. Despite that paltry sum, he’ll be up to five years of Major League service this season, largely due to the significant amount of time he’s been on the Major League injury roster. It will likely add another full season of IL time to this ledger. The cards will be able to keep him by arbitration this winter, and given he’s unlikely to advance at all, he’ll likely be in line to repeat this year’s $2.9 million salary. It’s a modest sum, but the cards will still need to decide whether to stick to that commitment for a player who averaged 29 runs per year over the first five MLB campaigns.
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