Two gamers on the Guardians’ injured listing underwent surgical procedures that may finish their 2025 campaigns. (MLB.com’s Tim Stebbins was amongst these to report the information.) Outfielder Will Brennan had a Tommy John surgical procedure to repair his broken left UCL, and right-hander Andrew Walters had surgical procedure to restore his proper lat tendon. The TJ restoration timeframe for place gamers is normally round 6-8 months, so Brennan ought to be able to go for Opening Day 2026, whereas Walters might miss a while initially of subsequent season given his projected timeline of 8-to-10 months. Walters is already on the 60-day injured listing and Brennan can be shifted from the 10-day IL to the 60-day each time Cleveland wants some room on its 40-man roster.
Brennan was a daily in Cleveland’s outfield in 2023-24, hitting .265/.303/.370 over 808 plate appearances (all however 121 of them in opposition to right-handed pitching). The platoon protect didn’t a lot assist Brennan produce on the plate, and his very strong glovework in proper area additionally took an enormous dip from 2023 to 2024. The Guardians’ acquisition of Nolan Jones simply previous to Opening Day indicated that the workforce was transferring in a brand new course with its outfield platoon, and Brennan was certainly optioned to Triple-A to start the season.
Known as up on Might 12, Brennan appeared in simply six video games with the Guards earlier than he was positioned on the 10-day injured listing with what was initially deemed to be left forearm irritation. Subsequent testing revealed the far more extreme UCL harm, and it’ll now be a protracted whereas earlier than Brennan is ready to play in his subsequent Main League sport. He entered the season with two years and 15 days of official MLB service time, and so his earlier stint within the minors implies that Brennan received’t acquire a full third yr at the same time as he continues to amass service time on the Guardians’ large league IL.
As a lot as Brennan had change into a backup plan for the Guardians, dropping him for the rest of 2025 will rob Cleveland of a depth possibility for its long-struggling outfield combine. Steven Kwan has once more been the Guardians’ solely productive outfielder, so including some assistance on the grass would once more look like a precedence for the membership heading in direction of the commerce deadline.
Lane Thomas can hopefully present some assist from inside, as Cleveland activated the outfielder from the 10-day IL at present. Thomas has hit solely .119/.169/.136 over 65 PA whereas lacking many of the season because of two separate IL stints for a bone bruise in his proper wrist and for plantar fasciitis in his proper foot.
Walters was a second-round choose for the Guardians within the 2023 draft, and he made his MLB debut simply over a yr after his draft date when he made 9 appearances for Cleveland final September. He began this season at Triple-A Columbus and spent simply shy of three weeks on the minor league IL because of elbow irritation, so he banked solely 12 minor league innings this season to go together with his 1 1/3 innings in two appearances with the Guardians. Walters’ damage arose within the second of these appearances on Might 30, when he left the mound in apparent discomfort after throwing a pitch to Mike Trout through the Guards’ 4-1 loss to the Angels.
The one slight silver lining right here for Walters is that he’ll earn large league service time whereas on the IL, but the lat surgical procedure is clearly a tough setback for the 24-year-old righty. Considerably of a uncommon case of a pitcher who has been nearly completely a reliever each in faculty and within the execs, Walters has a 2.17 ERA and a 36.3% strikeout price over 62 1/3 innings within the Guardians’ farm system. A 13% stroll price is a priority, but when Walters can handle his management, his stay fastball and strikeout potential makes him a really intriguing candidate for high-leverage reduction work as soon as he will get wholesome.
