Matt Allan’s wretched run of injuries has continued, with the Mets announcing their pitching prospect underwent UCL revision surgery last month. The recovery typically has a similar timeframe to Tommy John surgery, which Allan was just recovering from, meaning he’ll likely miss the entire 2023 campaign and possibly some of the 2024 season as well.
It’s been a brutal run for Allan, 22 in April, since being drafted out of high school in the third round of the 2019 draft. The 10 1/3 innings he pitched in 2019 mark the only innings he’s thrown as a pro, meaning he’s now set to go four straight seasons without throwing a pitch in a game.
First, the 2020 minor league season was cancelled due to the pandemic, then Allan underwent Tommy John surgery at the start of the 2021 season – a year in which he featured on a number of publication’s top-100 prospect lists. That sat him out for the remainder of the season and most of 2022, and while he was recovering well from Tommy John surgery, he underwent ulnar nerve transposition surgery in January of 2022 to further setback his recovery.
He did indeed miss the entire 2022 season, and now will miss the entire 2023 season as well. Baseball America still had him as their tenth-ranked prospect in the Mets system this winter, and their third-ranked pitcher.
Sucks to start a career like that. Hopefully he’ll be able to overcome this hurtle.
Since he’s not a turtle, it’s more of a HURDLE.
No. It’s a hurtle because he’s hurting from his injuries
Wish the man speedy and full recovery. NYM excellent pitching coach Jeremy Hefner also had to have second TJ and was unable to make it all the way back. Unrelated – NYM farm has greatly improved last few drafts. But upper levels SP is pretty barren and they need to fix
Can’t see how he will ever be protected on the 40 man roster before the Rule 5 draft, but I also can’t see how a team would take him knowing they’d have to keep him active.
Any Mets future is fuzzy at best
Phillies just grabbed Noah Song from Boston and he is active military with an unknown ETA. If my Tigers grabbed him and gave him Edwin Uceta’s 40 man roster spot I sure wouldn’t complain.
i believe the rule is if they are on injured list for the year the rule 5 drafting team drafts him, he would have the same rules for the following year where they would have to keep him on the active roster for year when he comes off injured list. Since he is on the 60 day it wouldnt matter until next offseason.
I think you have to put a player on your 40-man roster before you can place him on your 60-day IL. So, if you don’t already have an open roster spot, you would have to either DFA someone and expose him to waivers or place someone else on the 60-day before you can sign the new player to the 40-man then placing him on the 60-day.
To be drafted in the rule 5 draft, you had to already have an open 40 man spot. Cant draft for a spot that doesnt exist and i think the roster has to be locked before the draft starts but not 100% sure on that. No one is on the injured list at that point though so you would have to hold him on the 40 man until IL comes back into play.
Just looked. 2.5m 3rd round bonus. Probably cost a huge chunk of what the NYM had for that draft allotment, so personal cost (himself) team cost, no development. Huge all around loss.
Sure, and every team has MANY players who they drafted with the same results.
Wipeout
No college degree as a fallback career
That is not always true as many teams will help players go to school while in the minors. Clearly not the same quality of school they would have gotten if they had accepted a scholarship.
Then I guess it’s too bad he’s currently banned from attending college and working towards a degree while he recuperates.
Explain, please.
Well he signed for $2.5 million as an 18 year old. I’m sure he has the resoruces that if he wanted to attend classes, in-person or online/remote, he could easily.
The average salary for a college degree is 55k. It would take someone 45 years to make what he already has. I think he made the right decision to forgo college when he did.
Dynamite drop in, Monty.
Sad. Sometimes it just isn’t meant to be. I wish him luck but at this point it’s a real long shot.
At least he got paid several million thus far. Many prospects don’t get that kind of money up front.
As much as I dislike the Mets I would never wish harm on any player (unless clevingers allegations of child abuse are real.) I hope Mr Allen has a full recovery and maybe some good luck to finally go his way.
The Mets have no high value pitching in their farm system and they are relying on two 40 yo’s to carry them deep into a postseason run. Is this any way t0 run a $ 350 MM roster? LOL
Those aren’t just any two 40-year-olds and they’re not even 40 yet. Verlander has a couple weeks left to his 30s and Scherzer won’t get there until after the All-Star Break next year. I’m not extremely worried about their rotation right now. The pitchers who would be 6-9 – Peterson, Lucchesi, Megill and Hernandez – could make a hell of a rotation for Syracuse then come in on the Queens shuttle as needed.
Lucchesi & Megill were injured last year and Scherzer had alot of down time. Carlos Carrasco is also on the back nine. Farm system is barren of ML ready SPs. Be worried
“Be worried” LOL. You should be worried about Fried joining the Mets once those two SHORT TERM CONTRACTS are up.
I should have known you were a Barves fan just by your negative attitude. Way to go, champ.
Odds are Ohtani is in the rotation next year and a combination of Burnes, Woodruff, Bieber and/ or Fried the year after. Not to worried about a franchise willing to spend $500 million plus a year in payroll.
Is there a reason you come to every single Mets article to rip them and talk trash?
And just to indulge you: their rotation is currently one of the best in the majors. Top 10 and probably top 5. One of the 40 year olds is the reigning Cy Young winner and the other is coming off a 5 WAR season with 10 K/9, 169 ERA+, 2.62 FIP, and 0.908 WHIP. Then they have Senga, Carrasco, and Quintana with Peterson and Megill on the back end. They’ll be fine. Stop being so hysterical and hate-fueled on every one of these articles.
This isn’t the Mets I grew up with that were loaded with pitching developing Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan two unanimous 1st ballot HOFs.
Over 50 years ago Grandma. Half their top 20 prospects are arms.
Sdubs,
Of the 20 how many of them are front of the rotation SPs?
Of course the Mets have Kumar Rocker ( oh wait )
Rocker is trending towards reliever and Parada is one of the top C prospects in all of MLB.
“BACK IN MY DAYYYY”
Mets didnt develop nolan ryan. He was a scrub reliever with them.
Not true. I watched him start quite a few Mets games with high Ks.
baseball-reference.com/players/r/ryanno01.shtml
Ryan made 74 GS for the Mets averaging about 20 per season.
Postseason 1969 he had one win and one save.
He also missed game starts with the Mets because he was required to serve military reserve duty which I also remember.
I’m a known Mets hater and I still think they are in better shape now than they have been for awhile. Their rich owner can help fill holes in the pipeline through FA
Negative RR…..he “averaged” 12 starts for them and was not a true K or W pitcher until he was traded. Your memory is waning….maybe you were remembering Tom terrific
@birdman…..100% Ryan was a reliever that the Mets did not evaluate correctly (rare for the time/ and also proving that RR wasn’t alive back then.
You mean the same team that also developed deGrom, Harvey, Syndergaard & Wheeler (latter 2 not drafted but acquired in trades, one for a Cy Young award winner) and rode those horses all the way to the 2015 pennant?
Also, neither Seaver nor Ryan were unanimous HOFers. They should have been, but they weren’t.
So you’re saying Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander aren’t 1st round ballot Unanimous Hall of Famers 1st year eligible? lmaooo
Silly boy there is a difference between watching young developing Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan perform vs. Max and Verlander in the twilights of their careers.
“When I was your age we walked to school in the snow barefoot…FOR 5 MILES! Then we worked at the plant after we got out for 10 hours with no breaks or lunches!”
@rob…DeGrom?
This is part of the reason why I don’t begrudge players their money. You never know what’s going to happen, whether it’s freak accident or a physical breakdown. Conversely, there’s a point to early-career team control (it’s too long but there’s a basis for some of it).
Career over before it ever really started. Sad, but it happens. Brodie vanWagenen was an awful GM but drafted well. Unfortunate that this kid is the best of what’s left of his drafts. But that’s how fickle the draft process can be sometimes.
86mets think you’re overlooking Baty who was also drafted by Brodie.
Eric Orze could still contribute in the bullpen, though he has a lot of work to do.
The good thing I’d say is Allen still has time on his side. He’s not yet 22. Also, from my reading, there is still very little information about the long-term success of UCLR revision, so it would be even more encouraging for Allan to succeed and show it can be done.
Hello tommy John my old friend.
Under the knife I will again.
A year of healing
It will be very depressing
Another Boras client who pulled a fast one. Kumar Rocker is next
Situations are completely different?
Bad news, he had a big future but this is a huge setback. Wish him well, that he can throw soe next year and go from there. Just hard to be optimistic about his chances to make it to the bigs. Would be quite a story if he can, and Mets need soe if their prospects to contribute….soon….
Allen might be one of the bigger “what ifs” in recent years
Shades of my nephew. Drafted by the Angels out of high school in 2017. Two innings of pro ball that summer. Then Tommy John, then another Tommy John, then a third elbow surgery. Finally throwing off the mound early this year and his elbow still couldn’t take it. He was resilient as all heck but finally had to give it up.
Sorry to hear. That is really rough.
Unfortunately, the arm isn’t meant to be put in the position it is in while throwing the ball overhand. Just look at any pitcher about to release the ball. It’s just abnormal. They used to pitch with an underhand wind-ups in the very early days of baseball. That’s how Cy Young was able to pitch over 800 games in his career. Bring the knuckleball back and there would be a lot less tj surgeries.
I don’t disagree on the throwing the ball overhand. I was a pitcher, too. But not on that level. To me, the bigger problem is focusing on one sport year round. The growing body is not meant to be put through the same motions over and over again with no interruption. In my day, we all played as many sports as possible, each in their season, and focused on the skill sets for those sports. Soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, baseball in the spring. Bowling in the winter, golf in the spring and summer, hiking and bike riding most of he year. Engage as many parts of your body as possible and also spend some time on aerobic exercise and strength building and stretching and balance. BUT, not everything should be specific to one sport. And definitely not specific to one activity of that sport.
Good luck to the young man in his recovery. Not an easy thing to recover from.
Good thing we let Kumar Rocker walk away
He’ll be a bust. So will Leiter.
Both seem to have a pretty decent floors as MLB relievers IMO.
For two first round picks, that’s what you call a BUST Sgt Crumbles
I concede 🙁 for their draft position and all that comes with it, it sounds harsh but the term “bust” rings true. …but I’m I’m hoping for success for both of them.
Crazy that he will not have thrown a pitch in five years by the time he’s back on the mound
Wow, terrible news. He had such a bright future and was looking great coming into 2021 and all downhill with serious injuries since. I had high hopes for him, but doesn’t look likely at this point.
Cy Young did not pitch underhand.
It is time, for now, to stop labeling him as a top prospect.
A failed draft for the Mets as they had to sign all cheaper, money saver seniors to offset the well over budget $$ they gave Allen.