The Angels have received devastating news on injured Tyler Skaggs; the promising left-hander is out for the season and all of 2015, as he will undergo Tommy John surgery Wednesday, reports the Orange County Register’s Jeff Fletcher. The rehab time for Tommy John surgery is 12-18 months and Angels GM Jerry Dipoto told reporters the club won’t rush Skaggs back until 2016 because “the great likelihood is if you remain conservative, you make better decisions.”
The Angels were already known to be pursuing rotation help on the waiver wire, but presumably, the definitive loss of their No. 4 starter for roughly one calendar year will cause their search to accelerate. Dipoto, however, says that pursuit will focus on back-end starters.
“I don’t know too many circumstances where your young starters gets hurt and you are compelled to go chase the top of the market. We’ll stay focused on the type of model we set up. We do feel like we have enough depth to absorb the loss right now.“
The Halos selected Skaggs with the 40th overall pick in the 2009 draft but eventually traded him to the D’Backs in a trade for Dan Haren, only to reacquire him this offseason in the Mark Trumbo trade (Dipoto was on the acquiring end of both of those deals, as he was Arizona’s interim GM for the Haren deal).
Skaggs, who only recently turned 23, was enjoying his return to the Angels organization. In 113 innings of work this season, the top prospect had begun to deliver on his potential, posting a 4.30 ERA with 6.9 K/9, 2.4 BB/9 and a 50.1 percent ground-ball rate. ERA estimators such as FIP (3.55), xFIP (3.67) and SIERA (3.75) all felt that Skaggs was better than his ERA.
Skaggs had emerged as a solid fourth option behind Garrett Richards, Jered Weaver and C.J. Wilson, with Matt Shoemaker and Hector Santiago serving as internal options for the fifth spot. Those five arms will now comprise Scioscia’s primary rotation now, however, and given Wilson’s tremendous struggles of late, that creates a great deal of uncertainty. At this point, I’d be surprised if the Angels didn’t acquire an additional arm to add some stability to the middle or back of the rotation.
Edward Creech contributed to this post.
Ughh…another Tommy John they could clam A.J Burnett.
He won’t play for a west coast team because apparently his wife is afraid of flying.
Joooooohn Daaaaaaanks
Too much money.
And is terrible
That too.
Why did I have this eerie feeling this whole time that Skaggs would go under knife as well? This is sad. Really sad. This kid was on his way to becoming an important piece of the Angels rotation. He was already learning how to gut out 7 innings. That makes three pitchers this season out of the Angels system to have TJ (Corbin, Hellweg, Skaggs). Sad. Good kid. Bad break.
Cannot wait for the Mets to put Colon through waivers and see how many teams come a calling now. Someone has to be getting pretty desperate with all these injuries happening after the deadline.
Kyle Kendrick for a bag of balls.
At this point, that’s too much for KK.
Although Kevin Correia was just traded for a PTBNL – and he’s been as bad as (if not worse) than KK this year. So anything is possible.
Angels will be in the market for Lester this winter.
And shields
Cue “Another one bites the Dust” by Queen
Cubs to save the day, Edwin Jackson to the Angels for a bag of kale.
Apparently a Garrett Richards is scratched from his next start because of forearm tightness. Same thing Skaggs felt when he went on the DL.
This might not be true though. Someone posted it in a forum but there’s nothing anywhere else.
Terrible news. I hope Skaggs has a swift and safe recovery.
A sad day for us all.
Oh wait, when I read this I assumed he was traded to the Padres, since basially all our good young pitching prospect get TJ surgery…phew, that’s a relief!