Marlins pitching prospect Jake Eder has been diagnosed with a torn ulnar collateral ligament and will undergo Tommy John surgery to repair the damage, Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald reports. The procedure will quite likely wipe out Eder’s entire 2022 campaign.
Miami has amassed one of the deepest and most enviable collections of young pitching in all of baseball, but the loss of Eder puts a notable dent in that promising bumper crop. The 22-year-old Eder has seen his stock skyrocket since being selected out of Vanderbilt in the fourth round of last summer’s draft, with multiple publications now listing him among the game’s 100 best prospects.
After the canceled 2020 season, Eder jumped directly into Double-A to begin his professional career and has dominated despite an aggressive assignment after a nearly year-long layoff from pitching in a competitive setting. He’s totaled 71 1/3 innings in Pensacola thus far and pitched to a pristine 1.77 ERA with a huge 34.5 percent strikeout rate, a 9.4 percent walk rate and a strong 50.3 percent ground-ball rate. Baseball America ranked Eder as the sport’s No. 68 prospect on its updated midseason rankings, and MLB.com listed the left-hander at No. 81 on its own summer reranking of the game’s best farmhands.
Eder’s immediate success might have made him a candidate for a promotion to the big leagues as early as 2022. Instead, he’ll spend the season rehabbing with an eye toward getting back on the mound to begin his age-24 campaign in 2023. Even with Eder sidelined, however, the Marlins are still deep in young arms who’ve either found big league success or been ranked among the game’s most promising prospects.
Sandy Alcantara and Pablo Lopez have solidified themselves as quality big league hurlers and each can be controlled another three seasons. Left-hander Trevor Rogers has been one of the best pitchers in the National League this season. Jesus Luzardo and Elieser Hernandez have both had some big league success but are seeking more consistency. Sixto Sanchez missed the 2021 season due to injury but is viewed as a key long-term piece of the rotation after a strong debut effort in 2020. Hard-throwing righty Edward Cabrera ranks among the game’s best prospects and impressed in his own MLB debut last week. Twenty-seven-year-old righty Zach Thompson has been an outstanding find for the Marlins on a minor league deal. Righty Max Meyer, the No. 3 pick in 2020, has dominated in Double-A. Lefty Braxton Garrett is viewed more as a depth arm at this point, but he was the No. 7 overall pick back in 2016. Prospects like Dax Fulton and Eury Perez (not to be confused with former big league outfielder Eury Perez) are also well-regarded, but further from the big leagues.
The injuries to Sanchez and now Eder serve as a reminder of the inherent risk associated with any pitching prospect, but there are few clubs that can boast such a deep collection of talented arms. That should serve the Marlins well both in terms of their 2022 pitching staff and also with their approach to the offseason trade market. The Marlins are known to be on the lookout for long-term options both at catcher and in center field, and that impressive stockpile of controllable pitching figures to serve them well in that endeavor, even with some injuries impacting the group.
That sucks, he was having a great season in the minors. Hopefully his recovery goes well!
The marlins should trade Jake Eder for hitting
Looks like your boy Javier Baez is going to need surgery on both of his thumbs.
Baez just looks laughable since he was yapping after that HR against Anthony Bass.
Like I said back then…Javi, don’t think you’re special. Everyone hits Bass. And apparently, everyone can strike you out on bad pitches..
Eder for Baty.
Seems like a weird time to talk about trading him. His value is not exactly going to be at a high level as he is undergoing TJ surgery. The recovery % is good but not perfect. Why would any team want to trade their hitting prospect for a question mark that won’t even take the field again until 2023?
I’m guessing the comment was just meant to be some sort of dig at the Marlins, not really a thought out suggestion.
Consider the source…
Exactly
I wonder if this trade suggestion by @MetsFan22 is going to age well.
Dear gosh, what would we laugh at if it wasn’t for him?
Other than Braves, Marlins probably have the best chance of being the next WS champ from that division. They are at least stockpiling/developing nice young talent that can be supported with decent (not dumb splashy) FA signings maybe in ’23.
With Cohen. It will be Mets
Then Braves
Marlins and Phillies fighting for 3rd place maybe 2nd if Braves don’t pick it up
Marlins can seriously increase their win total if they let go of Anthony Bass.
Marlins aren’t winning anything until they can produce even average offensive players. Bleday has been a disappointment and it’s even worse considering how good Greene and Abrams have looked.
Still very young. Good to get this out of the way now. Still got a bright future ahead of him.
There is never a good time to have surgery. There is no guarantee that he will be the same after the surgery, but there is an even more important reason not to take it lightly. There is an inherent risk to any surgery. There was a college pitcher that died during TJ surgery earlier this year. I think we need to remember that it is not like sending a guy off to vacation for 18 months.
True. As someone going in for “minor” surgery myself in the next month, I didn’t mean to be flippant about such an issue. I was just talking from a baseball career perspective, seeing as such surgery seems inevitable for a huge chunk of professional pitchers.
that’s though. man was killing it in AA.
wolnt lalst forlever
Marlins need to hold onto their young pitching and sign hitters as opposed to trading for them. There were rumors of them offering Max Meyer for Brandon Marsh. Only way I’d trade Meyer is if we’d get a slugger such as Bryan Reynolds or an all star catcher such as Wilson Contreras.
Agreed.
For this offseason, the Marlins should consider one run producing bat – 1B/DH type.
I’m curious to see how the rest of the team performs with the young OFs battling well, and us being set in the IF. Catcher can be improved if we aren’t sold on Jackson.
I’m all in on the marlins trading BA And a young arm for an outfield stud. Then signing Bryant in FA. I like Miggy Ro but it’s time to get more contribution out of his spot in the lineup. The staff is money…the lineup is trash as constructed. The prospects need one more season to prove worth, the vets have not been able to pull them along. It’s time to unload vets and revamp the offense hard in the offseason
Tough blow for Eder. He was definitely on the fast track to the majors. At least by having his surgery now, he should be fully ready for the 2023 season. Thinking of Chris Sale who was pulled in August 2019 and they knew his elbow was junk, but they delayed the inevitable surgery until March 2020 and he missed two years of pitching because of that. As said above, there’s no ‘good time’ for surgery, but when it comes to TJS and its recovery time, getting the surgery in Sept or Oct appears to be the best time to do so. Provided the surgery is successful and the pitcher can rebound, this should only lead to one full year of missed baseball. It still stinks for the kid though. Delays his free agency and earning capacity by a couple of years as well.
Better to get it now while he’s still only 23 and before they put him on the major league roster so he doesn’t accrue service time while rehabbing.
This is exactly what I’ve been talking about. How far does supposed wealth of depth go when 2 guys have significant arm injuries, 1 of the 3 main big league arms is down with a shoulder issue, guys like Garrett and Neidart have lost their fastballs, and command, another guy is down with a knee issue, etc, etc. Trading arms will only bring them back where they were where they needed to start over a few years ago
Anthony Bass building his case for NL MVP. His case is as follows:
Anthony Bass has helped more teams win games than any other player. Of course, the only team he hasn’t helped win a game is the team he plays for.