TODAY: Kuhl underwent TJS, meaning he’s slated for a year or more or rehab before he’ll be expected to return to action.
YESTERDAY: Pirates right-hander Chad Kuhl underwent surgery on his right elbow earlier today, team director of sports medicine Todd Tomczyk announced to reporters (Twitter link via MLB.com’s Adam Berry). The team hasn’t provided further details just yet, so it’s not clear whether the operation was Tommy John surgery or a less severe procedure. Kuhl hadn’t pitched since late June due to a forearm strain and tightness in his elbow, and he’d recently suffered a setback upon trying to ramp back up for a September return.
The 26-year-old Kuhl has started 61 games for the Bucs across the past three seasons, emerging as a useful and cost-effective back-of-the-rotation arm for manager Clint Hurdle. Through 313 big league frames, the former ninth-round pick (2013) has worked to a 4.37 ERA while averaging 7.9 K/9, 3.6 BB/9 and 1.09 HR/9 to go along with a 41 percent ground-ball rate. His timetable for a return, obviously, won’t be known until the club divulges further details.
[Related: Pittsburgh Pirates depth chart]
If Kuhl’s surgery allows him to return in time for Opening Day 2019 or early in the season, he’ll figure to be in the mix for a rotation spot alongside Jameson Taillon, Chris Archer, Ivan Nova, Joe Musgrove, Nick Kingham and Trevor Williams. Pittsburgh has a fairly deep stock of MLB-ready rotation pieces, though, which could potentially push Kuhl to the ’pen — especially if the team intends to be conservative in terms of his workload following a season in which he was limited to 85 innings.
It’s not the way that Kuhl or the Pirates were hoping his season would end, but he’ll have ample time to work his way back into the fold for the team in future seasons. Kuhl will finish out the year with two-plus years of Major League service but fall well shy of Super Two status, meaning he won’t even be arbitration-eligible until after the 2019 season. Pittsburgh currently controls him through the 2022 campaign.
This seems like an awful quick decision in that there was no warning of this much severity of a problem from the Pirates.
It is also seems to be in secret in that they did not mention the type of procedure immediately.
When he got shut down in rehab because of forearm tightness, it wasnt much of a secret what was going to happen next.
Honestly I don’t really think he’s in their rotation plans anymore so they just wanted to get it over with. Archer, Taillon, Williams, Musgrove, Nova, Kingham, Keller, Brault, others… he’d be in the bullpen or trade bait if he was healthy.
They were trying rehab first. He went down in june before the Archer trade. They must have thought he was a better option than Kingham or Brault because neither took his spot to start the season and neither pushed to take it in July before Archer was acquired. Keller is not quite ready for prime time yet so if they could have rehabbed him and could get him ready for 2019 it was a better option as if they did the surgery quicker, he still would have missed the entire 2019 season anyway. Hope he comes back strong and at least gives them a quality arm in the Pen.
I think TJ is the last resort.They were just hoping that he did not need it,
He was always in the starting plans as he has done so for two years since he came up,never pitching in relief.
Kingham had just returned from TJ last year so they knew he needed more seasoning in AAA at the start of this year.Brault started the year in the rotation,and for the third straight year did not succeed.Musgrove was hurt for the first month.
Ohtani should do the same. For every Masahiro Tanaka there are at least a dozen Garrett Richards.
Unfortunately,steelparrot was right.
That’s too bad.Maybe his revamped upward velocity put it over the edge.
He may not have been in the rotation plans but he could have taken Glasnow’s spot as the long man.Also,there is no guarantee that Kingham is the real deal,and Brault cannot go more than 3 or 4 good innings.
Keller is not ready and I doubt will be so without a full year of AAA under his belt.
This does lower the backlog of ML pitching candidates next year though.They would have had to make some tough decisions.
I hope that it turns out for the best for Kuhl as he has ML talent.
I like Kuhl but I wish he would control his emotions a little more on the mound.