Yankees pitching prospect Chase Hampton underwent Tommy John surgery this morning, reports Greg Joyce of The New York Post. He’ll miss the entire 2025 season and part of the 2026 campaign as well.
The news doesn’t come out of nowhere. A few days ago, manager Aaron Boone relayed that Hampton had a right flexor strain and “something going on in the UCL.” He was sent to New York for more testing. It appears that further examination of his ulnar collateral ligament revealed the necessity for surgery. It’s obviously an unfortunate development for Hampton, who will now miss at least a year of development time. For the Yankees, it’s more of a long-term concern than a short-term one.
The Yanks have a loaded rotation right now. Marcus Stroman is reportedly on the trade block because the five starting spots are taken by Gerrit Cole, Max Fried, Carlos Rodón, Luis Gil and Clarke Schmidt. The club also has depth options like JT Brubaker, Will Warren and Yoendrys Gómez on the roster.
Hampton, 23, was selected with a sixth-round pick in 2022. He made 20 minor league starts in 2023, logging 106 2/3 innings with a 3.63 earned run average. He struck out 33.1% of batters faced against an 8.4% walk rate. Going into 2024, Baseball America ranked him the #6 prospect in the club’s system. Last year was a bit of a struggle for him. Various injuries, including a flexor strain, limited him to 18 2/3 innings.
The righty will hopefully be healthy by the end of 2026, but by that point, he will have thrown very few innings over the 2024-26 period. He will be eligible for the Rule 5 draft in December of 2025, so the Yanks will have to make a decision at that point about whether to give him a roster spot or leave him exposed.
Geoff Pontes of Baseball America reports that Thatcher Hurd, another Yankee pitching prospect, will also require Tommy John surgery. Hurd, 22, was selected with a third-round pick in 2024 and has yet to make his professional debut. BA had Hurd listed as the club’s #12 prospect going into the season. Like Hampton, he will miss the 2025 season and part of 2026 as well.
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This is why you don’t prospect hug. Between injuries and guys just not panning out, if you get a good deal to improve your team now, move ’em.
Well that escalated quickly. Speedy recovery, kid! Come back better than ever!
Maybe he will do the internal brace??
Does the former pitcher Tommy John get any compensation for people always using his surgery? Maybe he should have at least signed a licensing deal beforehand.
Check out the three seasons before his surgery and the three seasons after his surgery.
It’s pretty amazing how similar they are considering it was the first time they tried the procedure.
mlb fan: It’s not so much “his surgery” as him being the namesake as the first patient. I wonder if there are or could be royalties based on revenues like with actors and syndication of their performances.
Cue the expert analysis.
This must be either Boone or Cashman’s fault right guys ? Or Hal’s ? lol
I blame the high egg prices
I was going to blame Jersey drones, but Craven is right.
Gwynning,
The uptick in Tommy John procedures was the true reason for the fall of the Roman Empire. Gladiators were losing on average 8mph on their spear throws.
Samesies for the downfall of the Mayan civilization. They lost control of the atlatl once SpiderTak was outlawed by the high priests.
On that note if you have gopuff delivery service in your area eggs are only $2 a dozen best deal on the planet is what they’re calling it
hope this kid has a speedy recovery and has a chance to come back better than ever
It’s because the sport pressures pitchers to throw abnormally hard
More than the body was designed to handle
This could have all been avoided if they changed the beard rule a month ago instead of today
Why does Dave Roberts get a free pass all of a sudden?
Because somebody threatened his life by soft tossing a warm-up ball to the Dodger’s dugout…
Dr. Boonedoggle: “something going on in the UCL.”
Can I run baboon over with my car, while dragging Cash from the exhaust pipe?
Good thing you weighed in with that gem.
What a bummer
So sad for him
Cease is a must now. They’ve invested too much to come up short again. The Cash Man needs to make the move today.
They lose a minor league pitcher, and your answer is they should go after Cease when they need a proved 3B and another LH bat?
Arenado, Nootbar and 15 million for Dominguez makes sense. They can offload Stroman in the package to San Diego for Cease. Perez, Stroman and Jones gets Cease.
San Diego will take Stroman if you send them Perez and Jones. You get nothing back.
Here we go
This is a big problem for the sport
Here is a list of recent surgeries
500 players since January 2021 !!!!!
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gQujXQQGOVNaiuwSN6…
That’s the whole shooting match. My nephew is on there. There was an article in The Athletic about him. He had two TJ’s plus a submuscular ulnar nerve transposition. He believes his problems are more anatomical and thus unavoidable. It’s kind of scary to think you can destroy a part of your body by trying to be a major league pitcher. But that’s probably always been true, it’s just there’s more science now, which isn’t all bad. But I wish that control and command were what was treasured by the talent evaluators instead of raw velocity and spin rate. They have turned pitchers into commodities.
whyhayzee: What’s the difference between that and football players destroying their brains by trying to play and actually playing in the CFL and NFL?
Those players are self destructive !
Raw velocity and spin rates must have more to do with a pitcher’s future effectiveness then, if that’s what is more treasured by the talent evaluators.
Boomer Yankee fans still want him to shave though
They’re gonna try and shave him like the scene in the 1st Rambo movie at the cop station
What’s a Boomer to you? 30?
That’s just a stupid outdated rule put in by George Steinbrenner years ago. I doubt your average Yankee fan cares if they have a beard or not.
Not if they looked like Damon the cave man
yes , in your little world only a “boomer” would want to shave.
Enjoy your shift serving the coffee at the drive through, if you can tear yourself away from your ps5
Pitch clock ruining the sport.
No it isn’t.
Chasing excessive velocity is blowing elbows.
Sigh
Bro I just went to Saverio’s and consumed an absolute absurd amount of pizza today. It’s good to be back home on Strong Island.
What’s up with that deep dish pie… how good is that shizz? All their Napoli-style pies look bomb dot com!
Haha yessir my Friars faithful friend!
dang it
will warren you’re our only hope
First I’ve heard of Hurd, though definitely heard it was a rough start for Hurd.