2:00pm: The Pirates announced that Jones has undergone a repair of his UCL with a projected return to full competition in 10 to 12 months.
11:00am: Infielder Enmanuel Valdez also underwent season-ending shoulder surgery this week, Tomczyk tells the Pirates beat (via the Post-Gazette’s Colin Beazley). Valdez hit the 10-day injured list due to inflammation in his left (non-throwing) shoulder on May 10. He was moved to the 60-day IL a few days later with minimal updates on his outlook. He’s now expected to be sidelined for roughly six months.
10:52am: Pirates right-hander Jared Jones will undergo season-ending surgery to address his ailing right elbow, senior director of sports medicine Todd Tomczyk announced to the Pirates beat this morning (link via Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).
Jones has been out all season with an elbow injury. Evaluations back in spring training did not lead to a recommendation of surgery, but Jones recently met with Dr. Keith Meister — an orthopedic surgeon who’s performed dozens of Tommy John procedures for MLB players — after his return to throwing in late April seemingly did not go well.
It’s not yet clear what type of surgery will be performed, but since Jones has been dealing with a UCL sprain, Tommy John surgery and an internal brace procedure are both presumably on the table. Jones is going under the knife today, so more information on the nature of the surgery and his timetable for a return should be available within the next few days.
Jones, 23, entered the 2024 season ranked as a consensus top-50 prospect in the sport and broke camp in the Pirates’ rotation. He wound up pitching 121 1/3 innings and more than holding his own, logging a 4.14 ERA with a 26.2% strikeout rate and 7.7% walk rate — both a good bit better than league-average.
Those numbers are skewed a bit by a rough finish to the season. Jones was sporting a much stronger 3.56 earned run average through 91 innings with comparable rate stats. A lat strain suffered in early July cost Jones six weeks of his rookie season. When he returned in late August, he limped to a 5.87 ERA over his final six starts.
Even with that slow finish, the stage seemed set for Jones to team with Paul Skenes and Mitch Keller to form the nucleus of an outstanding rotation for years to come. That trio, with top prospect Bubba Chandler looming in Triple-A, gives the Bucs an enviable core of high-end pitching around which to build. That’s still the case, but Jones’ inclusion in the group will be delayed into at least early 2026 and perhaps all the way into the latter stages of next season, depending on what type of surgery he ultimately requires.
Pittsburgh isn’t short on promising young arms even beyond the names listed thus far. Righties Thomas Harrington and Braxton Ashcraft are both highly regarded. Twenty-five-year-old Mike Burrows was just recalled after a strong start in Triple-A this season and will start tomorrow’s game in place of righty Carmen Mlodzinski, who’s been optioned back to the minors after a rough stretch to begin the season. Generally speaking, the Bucs are deep in young, high-upside arms but lack that same type of talent on the position-player side of things. Oneil Cruz and Joey Bart are the only above-average hitters on the Pirates’ big league roster this season, and the bulk of the bats on whom they’ve staked their hopes on throughout this rebuild have not developed as hoped.
As for Valdez, he came to the Pirates in a December swap with the Red Sox. Boston had designated him for assignment and flipped him to Pittsburgh in exchange for minor league righty Joe Vogatsky. Valdez started the season decently, hitting .227/.329/.424 (108 wRC+) in April while holding a part-time role. He spent time at first base, second base and (very briefly) in right field along the way. The 26-year-old tallied just four hits in his next 26 trips to the plate before landing on the injured list, however. His season will end with a .209/.294/.363 line (82 wRC+) in 102 plate appearances.
Both Jones and Valdez will spend the remainder of the season on the 60-day injured list, accruing major league service time and pay along the way. Both players entered the season with one-plus years of big league service and will cross the two-year threshold while rehabbing from surgeries. They’ll both be under team control for an additional four seasons, although as an offseason DFA pickup, Valdez’s standing with the team is obviously more tenuous than that of Jones — a former second-round pick and top prospect who’s viewed as a foundational piece of the team’s future.
Valdez will have a minor league option remaining beyond the current season, but it’s possible he’ll be removed from the 40-man roster at season’s end to give the Bucs some more roster flexibility heading into the winter.
See ya in 2027 get well
Lockout after the ‘26 season, not certain we’ll see him in ‘27.
you keep saying that and there’s no evidence that shows what you’re saying is true
Contract with MLBPA is up after ‘26 season. Owners and players are both convinced they’re not getting a big enough share of the pie, and Manfred is already saying he likes the NFL and NBA salary cap models. Owners will lose ESPN money after this year, maybe some of that gets replaced maybe not. Regardless, owners will cry cost certainty, and players won’t budge on a cap. I hope I’m wrong, but it seems like an inevitability to me.
Lockout after the ’26 season seems almost inevitable. Both sides seem to be anticipating it. The question is whether a new CBA will be hammered out in time to avoid missing games in ’27.
At least, the ’27 season will start late and be shortened. And this might just be the time a whole season is banged by the owners–certain as always and wrong as always that THIS time the players will cave
If they lockout or strike, I hope they lose the whole season. Screw ‘em both.
RIP
X on Valdez
Pirate fans will invent a way to blame the evil Nutting for Jones’ injury – and celebrate.
Half will. The other half will imagine a way to blame Trump for his injury.
They demand that Nutting sell the team. Imagine their reaction when when he turns it over to Elon Musk.
Trump is the eternal blamer. Nice job gaslighting reality.
@MLBF – You say “nice job” gaslighting; you are being very, very kind. But we should try to be nice to those special children, I guess. Teaching them to read, and perhaps even to think would be nice for everyone.
The TDS is strong in this thread Luke.
Valdez swung a good bat.
With Valdez out for the season, it will either be Triolo or Endy as the backup first baseman when the latter comes off of the IL
But that leads to another conundrum
Davis has been catching Skenes all season, will they carry 3 catchers on the roster?
Davis can play RF and Endy has played 1B/2B/LF as well as Catcher in the minors so there is enough versatility to carry both along with Bart on the MLB roster
Davis can’t play RF. They can throw him out there and he can bumble around.
If Endy can hit he can play somewhere. If not he is just a back up catcher.
I’ll take Mark Canha on his minor league deal for the 1b platoon .367 .429 .400 .829
Endy has yet to show that he can hit major league pitching
When will the pain end?
Hopefully
When we die
There is good news for us Pirate fans. Steelers training camp is only 2 months away!
Oh great, I get to replace watching a mid team with another mid team.
What a time to be alive as a Pittsburgh sports fan.
You have a really nice city and stadium. I don’t know what else to say…
Time to bring back the Condors/Pipers.
Hey, it could be worse. We could be Cleveland fans.
Who had the great Connie Hawkins as the prime player.
And the mysterious John Brisker.
Mid team? Yeah, the Steelers are in the mushy middle. The Pens at least have decided to rebuild with youth
The Pirates are no mid team
They’re easily one of the worst teams in MLB right now and in almost 60 years of fandom, I can say this team is among the worst I’ve ever seen in this town
I know you’re an optimist, but really, I’d be thrilled with a mid team that hustles and plays balls out each night
This ain’t it. Instead, a bunch of guys who look like they’ve been going through the motions for weeks now
Naw. John Brisker. International man of mystery
Brisker was actually a pretty good player but not exactly dependable.
Brisker was a good player but is more known for his 1978 disappearance in Uganda.
John Brisker aka “the heavyweight champion of the ABA”!
Didn’t he die as a mercenary in an African civil war? Big time scorer
Former Hero, That’s the story, although no one knows for sure.
The Condors weren’t a good team, but were entertaining thanks to the scoring exploits of Brisker and George Thompson. I was a New York Nets fan and the two teams had some all-out wars during the Rick Barry years.
Oh, you had Doctor J, too!
As much as I love basketball—the sport I played—and as much as I love college and pro ball, I don’t think this town would ever support a pro team
Shame. I was just a tike when the Condors were around. But I was an extra in The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh. A little dot in section C22
@FormerHero Once a hero, always a hero. No “former” about it. Cheers!
Yeah, another Pittsburgh sports franchise that hasn’t won a playoff game in 8 years, don’t know who the QB is yet and has a coach that talks a good game but can’t deliver
Sounds like Ben Cherington
Some Pirate fans are hoping that Bob Nutting moves the team out of Pittsburgh and MLB then grants an expansion team to a new owner in Pittsburgh.
Why in the world would MLB grant an expansion team to a market like Pittsburgh that has miserably failed to support its team – even when it was one of the best in baseball?
Why would any potential owner of an expansion team want to put that team in a market that could not sell out National League Championship Series games?
If the Pirates won the World Series, they would still be in the bottom half of attendance in the National League.
I’ve not heard fans say this, but if they are, it is just wishful thinking. I still maintain that it is entirely possible that if Nutting sells it would be to a person who does want to move the Pirates to a new city. Not because of the lack of interest by the city–there are few environments like a playoff game in PNC Park and a culture of winning would only increase fan engagement–but because it’s easy to look at an emerging market as a more certain growth strategy and to “start fresh.” Even though this hasn’t worked out for Miami which should be one of the biggest markets in the NL, you have owners and potential owners still viewing this as a way to grow their investment.
Nutting himself is getting a return on his investment. That’s why he doesn’t sell or spend money. Where is the incentive to do so?
No way do the Pirates move out of PNC Park. At least unlike John Fisher, Bob Nutting regularly rennovates PNC Park. They’ve put ina ton of new things in the 2020s, including a new team store, new bars in CF, a new jumbotron, new kids area. Keeping the park nice is about the only positive thing you can say on Nutting. Plus, if Nutting is so cheap it wouldn’t make sense to put in millions of $ in rennovations this decade if they plan on moving out in about 10 years. He’d just not add in a bunch of new things.
The Pirates aren’t leaving Pittsburgh any time soon
Yeah why would a league with 30 teams want a team in one of the 30 largest tv markets with 150 years of history and one of the best stadiums? They’d have to be idiots!!!!!!!!!!!!
Richard- You are like a broken record.
It was said today on a Pittsburgh sports blog, and its been said there before.
Pittsburgh is now, and always has been, a bad market for baseball.
Nutting couldn’t sell the team if he wanted to. NOBODY wants to buy it.
Pirates attendance history. Since 1962, just four years (barely) above league average (1971, 1972, 1990, 1991). Dreadful.
baseball-almanac.com/teams/pitatte.shtml
pirate fans are already aware of the attendance struggles of this franchise. We don’t need to be reminded.
And again, the attendance note is the faux retort that comes from Nutting apologists (I can think of one such clown here)
Again, attendance revenue is a mere pittance of the windfall Nutting has flowing in. I’ll again point to the PG expose a couple years ago that attendance revenue paid all salaries easily. The rest of the income—-which is substantial—is the icing on the cake.
I’m not going to devolve into discussing what constitutes being “ultra rich” etc, but while he’s no baseball man, Nutting in a professional sense is a carpetbagging scumbag
The Pirates ranked 26th in total revenue in 2023, LOST money in 2024, and rank 26th in payroll this year.
They are the team that a bad market for baseball, like Pittsburgh, deserves.
dkpittsburghsports.com/team/site-stuff/feed?page=0…
Thank you for the reminder of the Pirates dreadful attendance.
When the Pirates won the World Series in 1979, they ranked Tenth of the Twelve NL teams in attendance..
A bad market gets a low payroll.
Attendance is great.
El-Comparing attendance figures with 29 other teams is folly unless all teams draw from the same amount of people.
Of thirty teams a team is in the lower half if it’s #16.
The top markets will easily beat any of the small markets.
That means that your team would not only have to be at the top of the small markets but also beat out six other mid market teams.
Do those facts mean that the attendance records are dreadful?
Or that your statement is a dreadful one to make?
Tell you what, Kabong, when they decide to relocate, I’ll be the first to volunteer to help load the moving vans. I find it fascinating you note “league average” when PNC has a capacity of 39K and is likely not in the top half of average stadium capacity for MLB stadiums
But gee, what does that matter, right?
I was around for the drug trial years, for the Russell/McClendon era, for a Pirates reliever who had “relations” with an underage girl and for the train wreck of the Nutting era. While it’s no surprise that fans came out in the years you note, I’d bet ‘79, ‘80 and the Hurdle glory days afforded nice turnstile numbers
But other than those years, tell me how fans in a working man’s town are dreadful for not coming out to see a franchise that has gone out of its way to continually kill interest.
Working man’s town? That’s a gross misrepresenation of the neighborhoods and diverse nature of modern-day Pittsburgh. The team generally draws fewer people than other Central Division interest killers like the Reds, Tigers and Brewers. Beautiful ballpark and relatively inexpensive tickets, yet the people don’t show up. And it’s not because they’re all working backbreaking jobs in the steel mills.
Wait a minute. You quoted stats going back to ‘62. Steel all but died here in the early 80’s
Industry was still here much of your time period.
Look, if you wish to recite slanted stats, tell the whole story, otherwise, it might as well be politics
Agree about PNC. How many times do I need to see it to satisfy you while supporting a pathetic franchise?
In 1979, when the Pirates won the World Series, they ranked Tenth out of the Twelve NL teams in attendance.
In the early 1990s, they could not sell out National League Championship Series games.
In 2015, when they went to the playoffs for the third straight and had the second most wins in MLB, they ranked Ninth out of the Fifteen NL teams in attendance.. The Brewers, who won 68 and lost 94 that year, had a higher attendance than the Pirates.
Pittsburgh is now, and always has been, a bad market for baseball.
They are the team that the Nutting-haters deserve.
@el, Mendoza is correct that it is rather unreasonable to compare average attendance for teams when the metro areas are so radically different in size. It is reasonable to expect teams in metro areas with larger population to draw more. Not rocket science. If you look at a crude measure of market penetration (attendance divided by population), the Pirates do well.
Gee, I thought I wrote as much two hours before when these stats were self indulgent gobblety gook, at best
So what? Low attendance means low revenue, means low payroll, no matter what the reason for the low attendance.
The reason doesn’t matter. Pittsburgh is now, and always has been, a bad market for baseball.
The team ranked 26th in revenue in 2023 and LOST money in 2024..
In 1979, when the Pirates won the World Series, they ranked Tenth out of the Twelve NL teams in attendance.
In the early 1990s, they could not sell out National League Championship Series games.
In 2015, when they went to the playoffs for the third straight and had the second most wins in MLB, they ranked Ninth out of the Fifteen NL teams in attendance.. The Brewers, who won 68 and lost 94 that year, had a higher attendance than the Pirates.
I go to nearly 30 Bucs games a year. I love the low attendance. I usually get 3 sections all to myself.
Maz-I have to ask you a question.I have been going to ML baseball games since 1962 but have never got a foul ball.
Are you in an area where you get a lot of foul ball baseballs?
What a bizarre post. Here are the attendance figures for the last NLCS in Pittsburgh: 56,610, 57,164, 52,929. The Pirates outdrew the Braves. Are the Braves miserably supported? Bizarre. Why we are discussing games from 1992 in a football stadium? What a strange and odd hill to die on. The Wildcard and NLDS in Pittsburgh were sellouts.
Because of the cubs fans for rhe wild card game
Get well soon JJ and EV.
Jones has a future in Pittsburgh. Valdez will be DFA’d after the season.
Scott- Jones may have a future but a limited one.AI( née Dream) GM was the first poster that I saw to note his relatively small physical frame.Not sure how this affects his arm condition but it may make sense that he is more prone to arm injury than the giants that are now dominant in the ML’s.
Should have traded him to the Red Sox this off-season like all the rumors alluded was on the table.
This and only this. Only the pirates could screw this up. Then when they trade Skenes they’ll remind everyone we still have the remaining parts of J Jones
Jose-I thought that too but inasmuch as he has not played this season the Red Sox may very well have claimed damaged goods.
just curious bc i see this all the time, and its disappointing bordering on outrageous… but the last pitch jared jones threw at any level was sept 27, 2024. it is now may 21, 2025. it took 8 months to realize he needs surgery that will take him out for the next 12 months?
Excellent point other than he pitched in spring training.
Chandlerbing
And why did they wait months to decide on surgery after his symptoms?
We may have to wait months to see another doctor for a second opinion but these guys can probably get in to see someone the next day.
He most likely won’t be ready for the start of next season now.
bru i hate being a pirates fan, but yet i stick with them
Bases loaded no outs, instead of waiting for a pitch he can drive, Bart hits into a double play and on the first pitch thrown to him
Down 3 runs already in the third and having only one hit ( Cutch), it’s unlikely that they will come back
Whoever said that Horowitz would give this team an offensive boost should have his head examined
Pham back to doing what he does best
Strikes out looking
Cutch on third, Reynolds on second, two outs and Bart strikes out swinging
Bart should not be batting cleanup