Rangers' Jacob deGrom to Undergo Tommy John Surgery on Elbow Injury; Out 2023 Season

Mar 31, 2023

Jacob deGrom is done for the season.

The Texas Rangers ace will undergo Tommy John surgery to repair a partial tear of the ulnar collateral ligament in his injured elbow, general manager Chris Young told reporters Tuesday.

"We have gone backwards. The MRI revealed damage that was significant," Young said, per Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. "I'm glad we have clarity. Everyone being in the dark was not good. Now we have a course of action and we will attack it."

Grant first reported the news, noting DeGrom is expected to be sidelined until the middle of 2024.

"This stinks. It's not ideal. But at least we know what it is now," deGrom told reporters Tuesday of the diagnosis. "I want to get it fixed and will set a goal to be back before the end of next year."

The news is a tough blow for the Rangers, which sit first in the American League West with a 39-20 record and 3.5 games ahead of the second-place Houston Astros.

DeGrom hasn't pitched since being pulled from an April 28 start against the New York Yankees after 3.2 innings with what was described as "forearm tightness." The Rangers placed him on the 15-day injured list on April 29 with elbow inflammation after an MRI revealed no structural damage.

The 34-year-old began throwing bullpen sessions roughly two weeks after being placed on the IL, the most recent of which came last Wednesday, before he returned home to Florida for the birth of his third child.

When deGrom returned to the Rangers on Monday, the team announced that he had been transferred to the 60-day injured list.

"These things aren't linear in terms of recovery," Young said Monday, per MLB.com's Kennedi Landry. "You test it, you deal with an element of soreness or discomfort and you determine how much that impacts the next steps. With arms, they're just hard because of this, that is not perfectly linear in terms of the recovery. I think that there have been good days and bad, as with most recoveries."

DeGrom's follow-up MRI on Tuesday revealed the partial tear of the UCL in his elbow. The franchise will now be tasked with navigating the remainder of the 2023 campaign without him.

Texas signed deGrom to a five-year, $185 million deal in free agency this winter after the veteran opted out of his contract with the New York Mets. The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal highlighted in May that a major challenge was the pitcher's previous health issues:

"Insuring his five-year, $185 million contract would have been prohibitively expensive, according to sources who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The premiums might drop if he stays healthy for an extended period, but the way deGrom's option year is structured, it gives the Rangers a measure of insurance on the back end."

In six starts this season, deGrom went 2-0 with a 2.67 ERA, 0.758 WHIP and 45 strikeouts in 30.1 innings. He averaged about five innings per start.

When healthy, deGrom is arguably the best pitcher in baseball, having won two National League Cy Young awards and an ERA title during his nine-year career with the Mets.

However, deGrom hasn't been fully healthy since he made 32 starts during the 2019 campaign. He has missed a significant amount of time over the last four seasons due to various ailments, including forearm tightness and a shoulder injury that sidelined him for 13 months.

This will mark deGrom's second Tommy Johny surgery. He also underwent the procedure in 2011, three years before he made his major-league debut.

Given deGrom's injury history, his contract with the Rangers will almost certainly be put under the microscope as the club attempts to return to prominence after missing the postseason in each of the last six seasons.

With deGrom sidelined, Nathan Eovaldi, Martín Pérez, Jon Gray and Andrew Heaney will be tasked with holding down the fort on the mound.