Guardians left-hander Sam Hentges underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right knee, reports Tim Stebbins of MLB.com. That comes with a 3-4 month rehab timeline that’ll delay his offseason. Hentges was already out for the entire 2025 season after undergoing shoulder surgery in September ’24.
The 29-year-old Hentges was a solid reliever for the Guards before the shoulder injury. He combined for a 2.93 earned run average across 138 appearances from 2022-24. The former fourth-round draftee punched out 27% of opponents while holding them to a .220/.282/.312 batting line. He hasn’t thrown an MLB pitch in more than 14 months.
Cleveland will need to activate Hentges from the injured list at the beginning of the offseason. They’ll decide whether to carry him on the 40-man roster throughout the offseason or non-tender him. Hentges made $1.337MM this year in his second season of arbitration as a Super Two player. He’d make the same amount next year if Cleveland offers him a contract. He’s under club control through 2027.
The Guardians’ bullpen is stronger from the right side than the left. Erik Sabrowski is their best lefty reliever. He has plus stuff and bat-missing ability but has walked nearly 18% of opposing hitters. Sabrowski has turned in a 1.86 earned run average across 29 innings, yet that’ll be hard to maintain while issuing free passes at that rate.
Tim Herrin has had a rough year. After posting a 1.92 ERA a season ago, he has allowed nearly five earned runs per nine while walking 15.5% of batters faced. Kolby Allard has provided the club 63 innings of 2.71 ERA ball. He’s working with a 90 MPH fastball and has a career-low 15.4% strikeout rate. The Guardians ran him through waivers in July before re-signing him to work in low-leverage situations.
Everytime I see this guy’s name I think of Pat Hentgen and how I had like 1500 of his cards during the junk wax era
Best of luck in recovery, dude.
Same here. Those were the days
Can we turn the clock back?
And sealed junk wax is still plentiful and inexpensive. Some cheap nostalgia.
Not-so-fun fact about sealed junk wax boxes: about 18 years ago i bought a jumbo box of 1995 Fleer Baseball cards (the ones with the mostly horrific different designs based on each MLB division), maybe because the cards had been sealed in the packs so tightly for so long the UV coating on the cards essentially fused the cards together into solid bricks of cards. It was a very delicate process to separate the cards and many cards were damaged in the process until i got it down. So any collectors out there be aware if you buy sealed boxes from that era with UV coating that this is a possibility
Appreciate the write up but that is the wrong Hentges in link Mr.Franco.
I clicked the link myself to find out. What are the odds of two left handed relief pitchers named Sam Hentges existing at the same time lol
When this guy is healthy, he looks really solid out of the bullpen. I was a little surprised they tendered him a contract last year but I think they really like his stuff.