Martin Perez Undergoes Surgery For Break To Non-Throwing Elbow

Rangers left-hander Martin Perez is set to miss approximately four months after undergoing surgery for a fracture to the radial head in his right arm, the club announced. He is said to have incurred the injury at his ranch in his home country of Venezuela.

Perez, 26, is expected to hold down a starting spot for the Rangers in 2018. Odds are, though, that he’ll miss a bit of time to open the season, perhaps increasing the organization’s need for rotation depth. Four months from today puts the potential return in mid-April, but perhaps it’s wise to build in a bit of extra padding to expectations.

Though Perez limped to a 4.82 ERA in 2017, he enjoyed a second consecutive healthy campaign and has thrown 383 2/3 innings since the start of 2016. Texas decided to pick up a $6MM option to retain him in hopes that he’d again fill up some frames and might also improve his results.

While there’s not much to love about Perez’s peripherals of late, he has long generated good rates of grounders and has been effective in the past when he suppresses home runs sufficiently. He also still delivers a 93 to 94 mph fastball, though his swinging-strike rates are stuck below eight percent.

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In any event, the Rangers now have more reason than ever to seek an additional rotation-capable arm. The team has already added Mike Minor, Matt Moore, and Doug Fister to a unit fronted by Cole Hamels, but the organization is short of established options beyond that.