Cardinals right-hander Alex Reyes is staring down yet another injury-related setback, as he’s scheduled for surgery on his shoulder late this month, tweets Katie Woo of The Athletic. MLB.com’s John Denton first reported that Reyes would require surgery to repair his right shoulder (Twitter link).
Reyes met with renowned surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache on Monday, and he confirmed a team recommendation that surgery will be required. The exact nature of the procedure has not yet been announced by the Cardinals. Woo adds that while the surgery is likely to end his season, there’s at least a small chance Reyes will be able to return late in the year.
It’ll be the third major surgery for Reyes in the past five years. The righty underwent Tommy John surgery back in Spring Training of 2019 and has since gone under the knife to repair a torn tendon in his latissimus dorsi muscle. Reyes also missed time with shoulder trouble back in 2020, though he didn’t require surgery at the time.
The expected shoulder procedure, then, is just the latest in a long line of physical ailments that have combined to derail what looked to be one of the sport’s most promising young talents. Reyes, for years, was heralded as a potential ace, frequenting top prospect rankings throughout his minor league tenure. Heading into the 2017 season, Baseball Prospectus ranked him as the No. 1 prospect in all of baseball, while Baseball America ranked him fourth and MLB.com ranked him sixth.
At that time, Reyes had barely retained his rookie and prospect status after an electrifying MLB debut in 2016, when he pitched 46 innings of 1.57 ERA ball. However, Reyes had Tommy John surgery before he had the chance to follow up on that debut. That surgery, paired with the previously mentioned lat and shoulder troubles, combined to limit Reyes to just 87 total innings from 2017-20 (big leagues and minors combined). He pitched a career-high 72 1/3 innings for the Cardinals in 2021, all coming as a reliever, leading the team with 29 saves. Reyes punched out more than 30% of his opponents but also issued walks at an untenable 16.4% clip.
The hope heading into the 2022 season was that Reyes, like Jordan Hicks, could potentially be stretched out to either again work as a starter or to provide a multi-inning option in high-leverage spots. This latest bout of shoulder trouble, however, nixed that possibility before it ever even truly began. Now, Reyes’ very future in the organization could be in question.
At 27 years of age (28 in August), Reyes has just 145 Major League innings under his belt. Despite that paltry total, he’ll reach five years of Major League service this season, due largely to the significant amount of time he’s spent on the Major League injured list. He’ll likely add another full season of IL time to that ledger. The Cards will be able to retain him via arbitration this winter, and given that he’s unlikely to pitch at all, he’d likely be in line for a repeat of this year’s $2.9MM salary. It’s a modest sum, but the Cards will still need to determine whether they’ll make that commitment to a player who has averaged 29 innings per year over his first five MLB campaigns.
Not shocking.
How did Alex Reyes go undrafted? One thing I liked about the guy is that after getting busted twice for Mary Jane at least he admitted it and took responsibility where most MLB players do the “I have no idea how that ended up in my body nonsense”.
Reyes went to the Dominican for a year and signed international deal as I recall.
Someone please operate on my brain because I can’t fathom all this cutting on young pitchers as being acceptable. Go into politics, make money, no operations you just have to live with half the population hating you.
Love the guy when he’s healthy, although I think it’s time the cardinals moved on. Wishing a speedy recovery for you Alex.
He’s not making alot and only taking up a 40 spot. Not alot to lose by holding on. If they need a roster spot I’d rather they dump Dickerson lol
Dude has been snakebit by injuries. He’s definitely in the “what could have been” category.
He is the Buxton of the Cardinals.
Minus the tremendous success when healthy.
Not true. His first season was downright fantastic. Small sample size, Buxton has played 100+ games once, and he wasnt downright elite that season, just like Reyes’ one full season was good not elite. Only in some of his many small sample size seasons has he been elite.
Reyes’ first season was 46 IP. I’d love to see him healthy for an extended period, but I don’t see it happening.
One of the most frustrating players in stl history!
carlos martinez
Ankiel
ankiel had a career
And Carlos Martinez didn’t?
Agreed on Martinez and Reyes are the most frustrating players in Stl. History. Add Carpenter’s final years. Add Brett Cecil’s 4 year contract. Holland, etc. etc.,
Who mandated the Cardinals play these people. Who mandated retaining their contracts. Only one person!!! The man that issued all of the contracts. The only man who could terminate a contract??
Or fire a winning coach because he wanted a new hitting coach!!
How long does it take to see the common denominator of all of this?? ————— President of Baseball Operations—— John Mozeliak!!!!
Well there is Curt Flood with the publicity, lawsuits and resulting shift in baseball contracts. Cardinals team HOF now though.
Ugh. Guy just catch a freaking break.
Assuming a season ending surgery, he’s getting into the age range where they may be able to put take him off the 40 man and pass him through the waiver wire after the surgery.
Why wouldn’t they just put him on the IL if that is what the IL is for?
If they put him on the 60-day IL that takes him off the 40-man until the offseason.
I hate seeing this happen to guys that have so much talent. This guy’s arm is electric, but he can’t catch a break to stay on the field.
WAS electric. The future is unknown.
his arm is fine. his shoulder isn’t
Do you not remember the song Hambone? The arm bone’s connected to the shoulder bone. Doesn’t matter how good your arm is if the fulcrum used to generate power is broken.
irrelevant
I’m not sure you know what that word means because it clearly doesn’t apply here.
i’m not sure you understand his arm is fine, his shoulder isn’t, either.
I guess the one silver lining is that Reyes hasn’t appeared to have any recurring issues involving his elbow and/or lat. Hopefully he can get his shoulder right following surgery, and put the injuries behind him.
I wish Cardinals would just simply release him!!
Why would they release him when they can just put him on the IL?
Because maybe they realize they are going to non-tender him this off season and would prefer to just get it over with. I’m not saying that is what they SHOULD do, but it is an option.
So the team your a fan of can claim him?
This is the kind of player Zaidi has picked up in the last few years. Buy low, let them heal, and hope to catch them on the updraft after they heal.
There is zero chance he returns before season ends. He’ll hurt himself rehabbing.
This unfortunately
The end.
Uggh. Elbow surgeries are generally recoverable, with pitchers sometimes even returning stronger than before. Shoulder surgeries, however, are almost all bad, sometimes career ending. Hopefully all goes well.
I hope it isn’t a torn labrum, Not that I’m anywhere near a mlb or even a milb pitcher, but I did have surgery to fix a torn labrum and it’s no fun, just getting back to normal takes a lot of work and rehab and that’s for a regular person, so imagine a professional athlete.
FRA-GEE-LAY.
Time to cut bait. If he does well elsewhere, so be it.
He’s not costing the Cardinals much money, so it’s worth working him through this. The reality is he’s gone from prospect to suspect, and with the insane amount of injuries it’s hard to see a whole lot of upside left.
Im comfortable the Cardinals won’t let him loose unless there’s just to much pitching coming up.
Can they trade guys on the IL?
Shoulder bad.
Alex good.
You wonder if the way he was used last year–69 appearances–was smart. By the time the Cardinals hit post season, he was clearly done.
The way he was used last year was perfect. I don’t believe their is a way to manage him that will keep him healthy. So use him while he’s available and don’t make any long term plans that count on him being healthy.
Surprise, another pitcher injury from that trash franchise. Those young pitchers in that system always seem to get hurt. Overuse? Poor training system? Ignorant front office? They stress using the 2-seam fastball above all else and the injuries pile up. Hate to see a young man injured so often, hopefully they cut him loose and he can get proper rehab and training from a better organization.
The Cardinals are one of the greatest organizations in baseball today. Never tanking always competitive and very successful especially if you look back on the last 25 years. Get a life son!
Your jealousy is oblivious! No other organization has been better the last 25 years.
I agree with your observation of Cardinals pitchers getting hurt far more often than other teams’ pitchers. It’s a recurring theme. They can’t hold a healthy starter in their lineup.
It’s unfortunate that 100mph is the new 90mph. It Used to be that if you could throw 90, you were big league material. Now everyone is throwing high octane gas and getting injured as a result. It seems to me that may have something to do with it too.
Nope not really and pitchers get injuries on all teams.
How is this comment real when the Mets exist?
More like shoulder surgeReyes.
Feel bad for Reyes here, shoulder is never good. He was lights out first half of 2021
Is it going to be necessary to forfeit every five games while Hicks “stretches out”? He’s not a starter. He wouldn’t even make a very good reliever right now. I’m not sure why he’s getting such a long leash. If the answer is, “we don’t have any better options right now”, that is inexcusable. The Cards knew Flaherty was hurt all winter. Maybe the money spent on Corey Dickerson should have went toward something else. If would be easy to say hindsight is 20/20 if even casual fans weren’t pointing this out before the season began.