Padres right-handed reliever Keone Kela underwent Tommy John surgery on Wednesday, AJ Cassavell of MLB.com tweets. Kela will miss the rest of this season and a sizable portion of 2022 as a result. However, because he underwent a TJ procedure, Kela will have an $800K club option for next year kick in.
Formerly with the Rangers and Pirates, the 28-year-old Kela joined the Padres on a one-year, $1.2MM guarantee in the offseason. Kela wound up throwing 10 2/3 innings of eight-run (six earned) ball with 13 strikeouts against three walks before the Padres placed him on the injured list on May 8 with a right forearm strain.
This will go down as another injury-shortened season for Kela, who hasn’t thrown more than 29 2/3 frames in a campaign since 2019. Kela has recorded a rather impressive 3.33 ERA in 227 1/3 innings, but it will unfortunately take quite some time for the 28-year-old to return to a major league mound.
Is that 5 or 6 Padres now with TJ in the past 6 or so months?
4 if you are counting Clevinger. (Castillo, Kela and Morejon)
Michel Baez?
Jacob Nix too around same time as baez and castillo. Perdomo was right before clev also.
Forgot about Nix. That dude has really had it ruff.
Yeah. He’s been in the doghouse the last year.
Dang, how did I forget Baez and Nix. Nice puns on the doggy door though gentlemen!
The angels south. Yikes!
Welcome to the Tommy John turnstile
Hey curly….. You must be the dumb troll
Ghost of past prostitutes, Please explain yourself. My post was pertinent to the article presented. Your post was ignorant, unrelated & actually the only mindless comment in this thread. You sir are the troll.
@kevro…While it seems you’re intentionally exaggerating, it does seem like their often be speculation about how the training and medical staff of SDP handles injuries ever since the shenanigans with Boston over not disclosing medical info. Bringing back Tatis soon and risking further damage to his labrum only added to that.
Pardon my typos and run-on, I really need to stop commenting via my phone.
I was just asking a question, and based on the facts I may have actually been low balling how bad the Tommy John issue has been. As for the Red Sox thing, Pomeranz seemed to be just fine, since you know, he has played every year since the trade for double tj Espinoza. As for Tatis, I think he has proven that he is just fine. How many homers has he hit with his injured shoulder since coming back? 8? 9?
This dude’s been on watch lists his whole career. Every year he has sneaky closer potential. Here we go again.
Neftali Feliz 2.0
Man padres injuries are stacking up. Most injured team in the MLB
Crazy enough but there is a few teams ahead of them in games lost
No. 1. Padres 502 games lost
No 2. Brewers 422
Brewers are second in projected WAR lost as well, Padres not in top 5. Giants number one.
AKA – Padres have had a ton of injuries, but to mostly low-impact players … mostly.
I wish they would find a way to normalize these lists though. We all know the 10-day IL is being used for ‘rest’. MLB just needs to create a new designation for R&R.
In addition, I wish the 10-day would just go away. It was initially abused by the Dodgers with their SP’s and fake crap just to rest players without options. While everyone has started to follow suit, it greatly benefits teams that can afford depth over teams that can barely field a competent starting lineup. I am sure fans of those teams will state otherwise, but if MLB is really trying to keep integrity in the game without the PA allowing a hard cap, then they should do something about the 10-day IL.
Interesting. Concur with your last 2 paragraphs
Ummmmm Dodgers???
Padres have 502+. No one has more
Dodgers are not yet in the top 5 on list of games lost to injury, but they’re moving up the list
Thought Kela was going to have TJ surgery las season when he had arm problems after only 3 appearences. The Padres and Kela must have though he could still pitch without it. Started out well but……
Not a huge risk to sign him for that amount. Worth a shot, now move on to the next guy.
The fact he had a very specific “if TJS required, my deal extends one year 800K”
I’d say the Padres were not super sold on his arm health either
Pain…
Tj counter: 1 (starting now)
2 today with Romero
Tj Counter: 2
What happened to Sal Romano? Was he outrighted? Seems like worth a shot to trade for him and give the Reds cash considerations and try him out of the pen once the team works with him.
he elected free agency. easy sign for league minimum although they could take Jeremy Jeffress instead
Interesting that his contract had a clause for an option to kick in if he needed Tommy John. Never heard of that before but it’s a pretty reasonable safeguard for both team and player I think.
Yeah I didn’t know teams could do that but it makes sense for Kela because he had elbow issues last year and a lot of people though the would need TJS this year.
Lester had a clause (that was activated) where he pitched a year for League minimum after his. Sabathia had a pretty specific clause about arm injuries with the Yankees too, which never came into play (can’t remember how that one went exactly).
So they do occur.
Sure. But those were both on very large long term deals for SP. not a 1 year, 1M flyer on a reliever
Yeah, those certainly were much different contracts, uh?
Hadn’t really considered that.
So very broadly speaking Kela’s deal is not unprecedented. But specifically…naw. Can’t think of another one.
The Padres have recently become a TJ rehab team, guys having a 2 year contract with TJ this year. Richards last year and Clevinger, Morejon, Castillo and Baez next year.
bummer for Kela and the Pads, another electric arm goes down. Not mentioned in the article is fact that Keone played an enforcer roll for an otherwise laid back fun-loving Padres team. And for that reason he could be missed during the next series against LA