Left-hander Patrick Sandoval has been through a lot in the past year and recently discussed the twists and turns he’s been through with the MassLive Fenway Rundown podcast, as summarized by Chris Cotillo of MassLive.
The southpaw underwent surgery on his ulnar collateral ligament in July of last year and perhaps the most notable thing he mentioned this week is that he had internal brace surgery and not a full Tommy John procedure. When his surgery was reported last summer, it wasn’t 100% clear if he would require a full UCL reconstruction or the internal brace alternative.
Some in the media just use “Tommy John surgery” as a blanket term to cover any kind of UCL surgery but the distinction can be notable. The internal brace surgery can sometimes allow a player to return to play a couple of months quicker than with a full reconstruction. That’s often not a huge difference but it could make an impact in Sandoval’s case. A full Tommy John surgery usually takes about 14 months to recover from, a timeline that would have pushed Sandoval to a return around September. But since he had the internal brace alternative, it seems he and the Red Sox are a bit more optimistic about what he can contribute in the second half this year.
That timeline also reflects back on the curious decision by the Angels to non-tender him, which was a bit of a surprise when it happened. They could have retained Sandoval via arbitration through both 2025 and 2026. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected him for a salary of $5.9MM this year. Since he wasn’t going to be able to pitch much in 2025, that would limit his ability to raise his salary in 2026, meaning he probably could have been retained for the two years for a total of $12-15MM.
That wouldn’t have been a bad price for a pitcher as talented as Sandoval, even if his recovery eventually hit a snag and it was mostly just for his 2026 contributions. Over the 2021 to 2024 seasons, Sandoval tossed 460 innings, allowing 3.80 earned runs per nine. His 22.6% strikeout rate, 10.2% walk rate and 47.3% ground ball rate were all pretty close to league average.
But the Angels decided to just move on instead, not tendering Sandoval a contract and sending him to free agency, which caught Sandoval off-guard. “I wasn’t expecting it at all,” he said. “I got a call like two minutes before the tender deadline. My agent had let me know that they decided not to tender me. I didn’t really know how to feel. I understood, me coming back from injury, they might not want to pay me that money to just sit and rehab for a year. And they have the right to do that.”
Though the Angels were apparently not keen on the idea of paying for Sandoval’s recovery, other teams were. “The whole free agent experience was insane,” Sandoval says. “You’re not expecting it. I’m thinking I still have two more years until I get that opportunity to choose which team I want to play for. The whole recruiting process or whatever you want to call it, it kind of brought me back to like the high school days of having colleges come and talk to you.”
Sandoval reportedly received some interest from the Phillies but ultimately signed with the Red Sox, a two-year deal that guarantees him $18.25MM, in the form of $5.5MM this year and $12.75MM next year. That’s likely a few million more than he would have made if the Angels just kept him around, so it seems to have worked out for the lefty, though it may have been initially disorienting.
The Red Sox seem to be going into 2025 with a number of wild cards on the pitching staff. Garrett Crochet and Tanner Houck both had breakout seasons in 2024 but pushed their respective workloads to new heights. Walker Buehler came back from a lengthy surgery absence in 2024 but with middling results. Lucas Giolito and Liam Hendriks missed all of last year due to their own surgeries. Garrett Whitlock missed most of it for the same reason.
They figure to open the season with a rotation mix of Crochet, Houck, Buehler, Brayan Bello and Kutter Crawford. Giolito will jump in there, perhaps as soon as Opening Day, with Sandoval likely a few months behind him.
Sign bregman or Santander and let’s stop worrying about half ass pitchers coming off TJ
Santander does nothing to help this team. He isn’t great against lefties and he plays a position where they don’t have space.
He didn’t have Tommy John surgery. Can you read
Also not a half ass pitcher.
Angel season ticket holder here, he’s had 2 good years and one decent one out of six years. Half ass seems appropriate
He is iffy at best. I don’t think he is going to make a big difference. Breslow signed a bunch of guys coming back from injury like he usually does because they are cheaper. I am so tired of his pauper approach and lower contract high upside guys. Didn’t he learn his lesson with Paxton.
it’s not Breslow, it’s Henry.
Oh please forgive me for incorrectly stating that he had tj when all he had was a different method of surgery on the same damn ligament. Did he not have surgery on his ucl?
What they did to Dombroski was terrible. I had actually called into WEEI after the trade deadline in 2019 and said they were going to fire him at the end of the season. Management clipped his wings at the trade deadline and they made zero moves which I was stunned at. The show host said that there was no way that was going to happen. They fired him and that was terribly wrong after winning the a World Series in 2018. They then hired Chaim Bloom who rode on Friedman’s shirt tails in Tampa who broke up the championship team for prospects. I will never forgive him for that ludicrous Betts trade that all we have is a backup catcher to show for it in Wong.
Greenwell – Did someone pi$$ in your corn flakes?
Dream. if they passed on T Scott as the closer for 78 mil do you think they will spend 200 mil on bregmen? i guess henry thinks we’re all chumps.
Rumor is Toronto was high on his list though.
An absolute dog act to non tender a TJ injured pitcher. It needs to be fixed in the next cba.
Good on the RS for giving him a chance. They seem to do it a lot, maybe it helps their rep among the players.
I guess. Would you willingly pay an employee that couldn’t do their job out of the kindness of your heart? Reality is way different than your feelings.
Dodgers have paid Andrew Toles health insurance for years out of the kindness of their heart because of his mental health issues. Maybe being empathetic doesn’t go against reality/profitability.
I get that you hate other people, but you should probably think before you type. Every company in the world pays its employees when they injure themselves on the job. Especially when there is a real possibility that they will be just as effective on the other side of their recovery.
It was just a standard non tender at the end of the day though. Comparing a standard employee to a sports player where free agency and arbitration is involved isn’t a good comparison. Players get non tendered every year. Should teams not be allowed to non tender a player if they are injured? Is that really a rule we want to implement? And it’s not just that Sandoval was injured, he’s also been kind of mid.If he was Paul Skenes then he wouldn’t have been non tendered even with the injury. And teams more frequently are doing deals like this where you sign a guy to multiple years for when he’s back from TJ. Red Sox were willing to pay, Angels weren’t. Really not that big of a deal.
Cyber, the teams need the roster spot(s), so I get it.
There should be another IL for long term injuries.
The league should be looking after these guys, like with the rookie scale. Pitchers make up nearly half the players. They have the biggest risks health wise, so look after them.
No they don’t. Not every company in the world has Dodger money. The majority of entitled Americans don’t seem to understand that.
Patrick Sandoval had an ERA of 3.71 in 417 innings between 2020 and 2023. Robbie Ray had an ERA of 3.70 in 437 innings in the same time frame and Nathan eovaldi had an ERA of 3.78 in 484 innings. Ray had a 5 year contract with 115 mil and eovaldi just signed a 3 year 75 mil contract. You’d be surprised how rare “mid” is among major league starters. Especially for a team like the angels who’ve struggled to put together a solid rotation for a decade now. As for your first point though. I don’t think teams need to roster injured players in general, but an investment in a pitcher coming off TJS is a sensible move, and one made by every team in baseball
Wanna bet on that?? Because if I blow out my back lifting a box at my job you can be damn sure their paying for the rehab till I’m back to work. And they definitely don’t have dodger money as would most companies because they get their value from the people working for them. Most companies know that and they make every effort to offer those kind of incentives to attract quality employees. As you said Facts don’t really care about your feelings.
60-day IL
Trespada – Players who have long-term injuries during the season can be on the 60-day DL. That is NOT the case in the off season. There are plenty of cases that an organization needs a roster spot, and it is better served to non-tender a player. Businesses do not exist for the benefit of employees, and the minimum wage in the MLB is around $750,000.
Companies don’t do it for private contractors which is what these players are.
The rays, the Marlins, the guardians, the A’s and the pirates are considered the cheapest teams in baseball and all of them have rostered tommy john recipients over the last few off-seasons. Businesses cannot function without employees. Especially in hyper competitive arenas like pro sports. If it was so easy to replace talent why do teams go decades without winning?
Yeah and what was Ray’s strikeout rate? You’re doing some cherry picking if you’re trying to compare Sandoval to Ray and Eovaldi.
@Ranger We have workers comp laws that protect employees for work related injuries. Pro sports teams have been given quite a few exceptions to skirt laws. Sone Minor League players were paid less then minimum wage when factoring in all the time put in against compensation, medical liability as it relates here, and exception against anti trust laws just to name a few.
I don’t think it would be all that extreme to at minimum require teams to cover insurance and league minimum salary to any player non tendered who ended the prior season on IL and has yet to be cleared to play. Allow them to get roster spot back and in the event they sign with a new team to be cleared from all liability associated with the player.
I’m not cherry picking, I’m illustrating. Name 12 teams with 5 starters more qualified than Patrick Sandoval. I chose 12 since that’s the playoffs field now. And look at the average salary of a starting pitcher compared to the 6 mil he would have gotten, and you’d understand my point. Mid level starting pitching is in extremely high demand right now. Therefore it would have been a reasonable investment on the angels part to retain him. Especially if they truly want to compete
Ranger, I get what you’re saying. It’s still a dog act. The league should look after it’s players. I’m sure it’s happened to a 20th round, 2nd year player (that is, one that got a tiny bonus, then prorated league min) then it’s “sorry you had your TJ in September, you’re non tendered now, see ya”.
If I were a free agent, I wouldn’t be signing with said dog act teams. I’m sure it happens. Although, I wouldn’t sign with half the league for other reasons anyway…
Didn’t the article say he got more from Boston than he likely would have if he was tendered? I’d say he was looked out for just fine.
As much as I’d like to think the Red Sox signed Sandoval out of the kindness in their heart, they saw the potential value which the Angels didn’t. The prudent move would’ve been to tender him and then try to trade him. Sandoval didn’t get $18M because only the Red Sox wanted to sign him.
I concur…..
-Lucas Giolito
brisbane you must be unfamiliar with sandoval. he has temper tantrums every outing and the worst attitude i’ve ever seen on the field. he was not a good example for younger players on the team. the angels traded for him and gave him every opportunity possible.
Snow, I couldn’t care less. My stance isn’t about feelings toward any player.
Non tendering a long term injured player is a dog act. That’s it.
I’m saying these players should be looked after until they can rehab properly & hopefully make it back. Like virtually every other job in every civilised country.
@brisbane. 100% agree, but unfortunately it’s been decades since the United States has been a civilized country.
@Darragh McDonald
Good noting how often the ‘internal brace procedure’ is misreported as TJ surgery, but I think you’re understating the difference between the two. With TJ surgery (for pitchers) it’s typically a 12-18 month recovery time, with the 18 months typical for a pitcher taking-on a full starters workload again. With Internal brace, those numbers are typically 6-12 months (although there’s less of a sample size). So you’re looking at a near 6-month difference which is often the difference from a pitcher missing 1 season or 2 seasons.
Sandoval has already started a throwing program and is ‘slowly ramping up’ (his words).
I predict the Angels having a tough time beating Sandy in the future as he’ll find that extra grit that he so often missed with a halo on his hat.
The fact of the matter is Sandy’s performance last year wasn’t good prior to the injury so I understand the Angels not wanting to invest 12-14M on a guy they were ready to demote to the bullpen because of his ineffectiveness!
Red Sox need one more dependable, resilient, reliable starting pitcher. And I have just the pitcher for you…his name is Luis Castillo and all it would take is your first baseman Casas. Simple and easy!!! Should my people call your people??
No thanks. I’d rather the Sox keep the only decent first baseman they currently have, who also happens to be a young on the rise player.
Why would the Redsox want to give you a hitter with lots of club control for a pitcher who if he was a free agent would sign for around what his current contract dollars are?
There is zero plus value with Castillo’s contract it would basically be a salary dump for the Mariners!
That’s silly. People with a full run higher ERA are getting the same money Castillo is locked in for the next 3 years.
Severino?
No thanks, I would not trade Casas straight up for Castillo. They may be similarly talented, but Casas is younger, cheaper, and fills the more pressing need for a team that already is talking about a 6 man rotation at the start of the season.
That last is the killer. The Mariners shoukd try trading Castillo to the Jays.
No way. Casas stays!
Sandoval had much room for improvement. A new venue should help him out. He grew. complacent with the Angels, or maybe it was poor coaching, but he plateaued in Anaheim.
Reading is FUNdamental
If everything falls into place, the Sox will have a team that will compete. Things are looking up for 26, but what about this coming season? Another year of being on the cusp and putting cash in their pockets. Now that’s the ticket.
This information does actually make the Sandoval signing make more sense. I had assumed he would not be playing at all this season since he had what was being described as TJ surgery last summer. My preference would of course be to go after top line starters that are not reclamation projects, but if we can get half of a season from him and he lives up to the potential he has shown it may all work out. As we have seen year after year with the Red Sox, you can never have too much pitching. We always have multiple pitchers go down with injuries, so having Sandoval potentially back by mid-season or sooner could be huge.
If he is fully healthy in 2026, he could easily earn the full deal then. Anything he does this year is gravy. Much like Hendriks.
There is a lot of history on the TJ surgery not enough on the internal brace surgery. We do have two guys who had the internal brace surgery an Giolito and Whitlock. Based on when they had the surgery Whitlock probably wouldn’t be able come back until 2026 with the full TJ surgery and Gio probably not until the midway through the season. It will be interesting to see how soon they actually come back and how they look it’s not unusual for full TJ surgery guys to take some time to get control back. It’s a big reason I expect Buehler to have a big season this year.
All of a sudden, the Angels are in hibernating Arte Moreno is sleep at the wheel I’m sorry I’m a big Angels fan I will not step into Anaheim Stadium until Arte Moreno sells the team with the roster we have right now we cannot win the American League West division
I wish Kutter would not be at spring training with Redsox.