The Diamondbacks announced today that right-hander Taylor Rashi and infielder Connor Kaiser have been recalled from Triple-A Reno. In corresponding moves, they have optioned Juan Burgos to Reno and placed outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. on the 10-day injured list with a torn right ACL.
It was apparent that Gurriel was injured last night. He and center fielder Blaze Alexander were both chasing a ball in the gap. Gurriel hopped to avoid his teammate but then collapsed on the ground in obvious pain. He eventually had to be carted off, unable to properly put weight on his leg.
Today’s diagnosis is obviously awful for both Gurriel and the Snakes. They haven’t announced an expected timeline but a torn ACL can often require something close to a year of recovery before the player is back to full strength. Gurriel will certainly miss the remainder of this season and a notable chunk of 2026 as well.
Gurriel was initially acquired ahead of the 2023 season alongside Gabriel Moreno, as part of the trade which sent Daulton Varsho to the Blue Jays. Gurriel was an impending free agent at the time but re-signed after one good season in Arizona. He returned via a three-year, $42MM pact with a club option for 2027 and an opt-out chance for him after 2025.
Triggering the opt-out wasn’t especially likely. He is only hitting .248/.295/.418 this year, with that line translating to a 94 wRC+. However, he does have 19 home runs and it’s possible the overall lack of production is due to a .254 batting average on balls in play. That’s well below this year’s .291 league average and Gurriel’s personal career rate of .305.
His decision would have effectively come down to whether he felt he could beat one year and $18MM. His current contract pays him $13MM next year, with a $5MM buyout on the $14MM club option for 2027. Perhaps a hot finish could have made him think about walking away from that money but it’s a moot point now. Since he’s going to miss some amount of next year, he’ll surely forgo his opt-out chance.
For the Diamondbacks, this adds to their 2026 body count well before the season has even begun. Corbin Burnes required Tommy John surgery in June and will therefore miss most or perhaps all of the upcoming campaign. Tommy Henry, Blake Walston, A.J. Puk and Justin Martínez also underwent UCL surgeries this year and are facing lengthy absences. Now Gurriel adds another name to the list.
Those other names are all pitchers while Gurriel subtracts a key part of the club’s outfield mix. Without him, the 2026 outfield consists of guys Corbin Carroll, Alek Thomas, Jake McCarthy, Jorge Barrosa and Alexander. Carroll is a star but it’s a questionable group after that. Thomas is in his fourth season and has good defensive grades but he hasn’t hit. McCarthy has shown occasional flashes of competency at the plate but his good seasons may have been fuelled by BABIP luck and he’s been awful this year. Alexander is having a nice run right now but he strikes out a lot and has only recently moved from the infield to the outfield. Barrosa has just 58 big league plate appearances and hasn’t impressed yet.
Going into the winter, the Diamondbacks have a lot to do. Given their injuries, deadline trades and impending free agents, they need to remake almost their entire pitching staff. They have question marks at the infield corners after trading Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suárez at the deadline. Those spots could be filled by guys like Jordan Lawlar and Tyler Locklear but neither is a lock yet. Gurriel could have been a solid regular on next year’s team but now there’s one more thing on the to-do list.
Photos courtesy of Charles LeClaire, Arianna Grainey, Imagn Images
That sucks…might not see him till 2027
Sorry to hear. Was hoping for just a bad knee sprain that would fully heal by the end of the calendar year.
In other news Gurriel has announced that he’ll be opting in to the third year of his contract with AZ for 2026.
Even if the article speculates that he could opt out, he won’t and shouldn’t. He’d be leaving good money on the table for what will essentially be a lost 2026 season.
“Gurriel hopped to avoid his teammate but then collapsed on the ground in obvious pain. ”
Awful
Heal up soon man
The Snakes got dealt 10 years of bad luck, all crammed into this one 2025 season.
Hopefully, that means they’ll win the World Series in the next one or two years.
Not sure if the Corbin Burnes deal was bad luck. I think Burnes may have Burned them. Do you think it’s ever happened before that a pitcher knew something “wasn’t quite right” with his arm but kept schtum about it because it was the offseason when it was time for teams to fight for his big money FA contract?? And then he forces himself on his hometown team, basically begging the Snakes to sign him. He gets his 7 grams of silver then BOOM elbow pops and has this sheepish stupid look on his face (.i.e.) Guilty As Hell as he walks off the mound for the last time with Luvello. It all just seems kind of unseemly in retrospect.
That’s tinfoil hat territory. Interested teams look at medicals (which Boras probably provided) and then perform their own independent physical before signing. If they want to insure the deal, insurance companies do their due diligence. When players report to S.T. camp, they each take another physical. You can’t just hide a pre-existing injury.
The Snakes weren’t even Burnes’ highest offer. Boras set his market earlier with various teams and then called them up.
I definitely agree that post should be filed under “speculative reasoning with conspiratorial undertones” but I still didn’t like how it went down. Also yes, the Diamondbacks did not have to lavish him with that contract. But they definitely weren’t going into last offseason with any plans to…seemed so rash.
Oh Lord!
The baseball gods seem to dislike the Dbacks for some reason.
They are certainly the baseball Gods punching bag, at least for this year.
The Braves have entered the room…. say again?
The Braves have just been bad. Nearly everyone on that team is having a bad year.
Didn’t help that 4/5 of the SP were out most of the year injured, coupled with all of the others and down years performance wise. The dbacks aren’t the only team who have been worse than expected, was my point.
Ugh, maybe the Diamondbacks will be better off only adding the bare minimum of talent in free agency this offseason and waiting until 2027 to try to compete again.
Most ACL’s I can ever remember in 40+ years.
When bad things happen to the wrong brother…
Where are we on the Varsho trade?
Looking like a mega win for Toronto unless Moreno develops any ability to hit for XBH.
@Ted what metrics are you using here? Either WAR system favors a win-win or Arizona value win. Arizona made the World Series. And that doesn’t even count Gurriel’s most recent two years since the trade was only for his contract year (opinions will vary on whether or not to include those extra two years – personally I say no because they weren’t traded for, but to each their own). Plus Arizona upgraded the biggest position of need for themselves while Toronto sold from an area of strength. I miss Varsho a lot, but this isn’t some Shelby Miller type trade unless you’re putting a lot of emotional context into the evaluation.
Looking back I think both teams still do that trade. It was a win for Arizona by making the World Series. Whatever Guiriel did after the first year really doesn’t count towards the outcome of the trade as he was a free agent.. but Toronto is not unhappy with the way, Varsho has turned out. Nobody is talking about Mereno anymore with the emergence and 5yr signing of Kirk. So Toronto wins too. A good baseball trade both fan bases should be happy about.
I blame the more days off.
cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/news/diamondbacks-l…
2021 he played a bunch of games, 2022, he didn’t play many and got injured. 2023 & 2024 he played a bunch of games and no injury but this year, he played less and is injured. My cherry picked data suggests players need to play even more games to prevent them from being injured.
There, I just solved your MLB injury problem…