White Sox righty Mike Vasil will undergo Tommy John surgery and miss the entire 2026 season, the team announced Tuesday. Vasil exited his most recent Cactus League outing due to elbow soreness and had been sent for imaging.
It’s as unwelcome a birthday present as one could imagine for Vasil, who’ll turn 26 on Thursday. The former Mets farmhand made his big league debut with the South Siders in 2025 and carved out a big role on the staff, piling up 101 innings of long relief over 47 appearances (three of them starts). He notched a sparkling 2.50 ERA, and while his pedestrian 19.4% strikeout rate and poor 12.3% walk rate led metrics like SIERA (4.58) and FIP (4.32) to view his work more harshly, Vasil looked like a strong candidate to make the club because of his ability to provide bulk relief behind a generally shaky rotation.
Instead, Vasil will spend the entire season on the injured list. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that he’ll accrue a full year of major league service and pay while rehabbing from the forthcoming UCL reconstruction. Vasil picked up a full year of service in 2025 as well, so he’ll be controllable for at least four more years upon his return in 2027. He’ll still have a full slate of minor league options remaining as well.
If not Vasil, the White Sox could look to free agent signees Sean Newcomb and Erick Fedde as long relief/swingman options, though Fedde at least appears ticketed for a rotation spot with the recent announcement from manager Will Venable that Newcomb will begin the season in the bullpen (via Kyle Williams of the Chicago Sun-Times). Southpaws Chris Murphy and Tyler Gilbert are also candidates to serve as long relievers out of Venable’s bullpen. Both have had solid spring showings, and both have minor league options remaining.
Another White Sox TJ surgery
Sucks. Hope him a quick recovery. Big blow to the White Sox, really good last year.
Yes, definitely not something you want to hear so close to the beginning of the season. He was a bright spot in our BP last year.
While understandably part of the assessment of a player’s makeup, the constant knee jerk need to revert to other analytics such as SIERA and FIP is amusing. His pedestrian this and poor that led Jack and Jill to view his work more harshly. What are SIERA and FIP doing, sitting on the sidelines sighing and tut-tutting like teens embarrassed for dad while he compiles a 2.50 E.RA over 100+ innings? Hardly a small sample size. Would love to see a career retrospective if numbers like that hold up and the commenter notes: “but after 12 seasons of a 3.00 E.RA, SIERA and FIP were still not pleased. Not happy”. Frown emoji.
One of the best comments I’ve seen for a while. The advanced stats fetish is all about fake sophistication.
Outstanding comment DDT! I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Are you in fact Grady Hall- or a fan? If so- Go Cats!
Love the complete misunderstanding of the purpose of the stats. He had a great season, yes. at the end of the day that is a feather in Vasil’s cap. But that was last season and peripherals are used to predict what can be expected this upcoming season based on how he got to those bottom line numbers. A few guys will beat the metrics but they are intended to find what the most common result of someone who walks, strikeouts, and allows homers to players at similar rates to him.
Yes peripherals are important and one should always tread carefully but aren’t we also kinda getting to the tools/scouts assessment of makeup vs actual on field results that was brought up in Moneyball? It’s about overvaluing one vs the other.
Guys like Vasil get overlooked for that reason: old fogey scouts say his stuff just don’t pass the eye test (lower swing and miss, elevated walk rate) while fat Jonah tells Billy but look at the actual results.
Couldn’t lower swing and miss + elevated walk + results over 100+ innings be concealing another story: pitcher who maximizes his stuff by pitching to contact (lower K %) while treading carefully and picking his spots (higher walk rate)? Like the crafty old lefties of yore? Might there be a roster spot for that kind of talent?
The sad thing about these injuries and the cumulative wear and tear: just before he asked to be taken out for soreness, he was cruising for 4 innings through the Dodgers lineup in his finest outing of the spring. Such a fine line. Wonder what former pitchers like Grady Hall would say about this.
Excellent point about alternative explanation for lower swing and miss rate, etc. There’s a place in this world for crafty old lefties, emphasis on “craft”. Maybe someday they’ll be joined by knuckleballers, remember them? I’d only like to add what is only a somewhat related point: there are players who aren’t especially toolsy but who have the knack for hitting. Mattingly looked like your postman but he could hit. On a lesser plane was the very non-toolsy Jeff McNeil who had the knack. If you want to chuckle, read this 2015 assessment of McNeil:
legacy.baseballprospectus.com/prospects/eyewitness…
As happens to most pitchers right after they get good.
Wishing him a speedy recovery and hopefully he returns in 2027.
Oof White Sox fans. I was hoping he can convert to starter successfully.
Golly. Another Tommy John Surgery.
If he had pitched in the World Baseball Classic, people would jump to blame that, while forgetting that pitchers in regular spring training get hurt all the time.
This sucks for Vasil and the White Sox. I hope he comes back stronger than ever next year.
Me too:)
Hey here’s a thought. Instead of focusing on ways to spend money to repair the UCL nerve they spend money on trying to figure out better ways to diagnose the problem earlier and find some way to strengthen it BEFORE it tears completely? How about we give that a try for awhile huh?
You sound angry
I look at Maddux, he threw 5000 innings without a TJ. Randy Johnson big heater, big slider, he threw 4000 innings. Randy Johnson had his best season at age 38, threw 260 innings and racked 334 K’s.
It could be something in the food.
Do you really believe the doctors and scientists that research these things are just choosing not to invest time in figuring out the root cause/early indicators?
I think doctors, players, manager, owners, fans, ballboy/girl, ticket person & the drunk leaning on outside wall of stadium knows what the root causes are. But only 23,615 players have played the game….and they know the reason but partake the risk because it’s Baseball & those 23,615 players don’t care bc, it’s baseball
That’s not how it works.
I sympathize with your sentiment but …First, it’s a ligament, not a nerve. Second, do you propose monthly surveillance MRIs? Weekly?
Maybe he proposes daily MRI!
Sorry to hear this! Tough break for Mike! Seems to happen way too often !
Who is going to have Vasil’s role for the Chisox in 2026? Eisert, Hicks, Mcdougle, FedEx?
Expecting any rookie reliever to pitch 101 ings in 47 games without injury is a reach
Vasil has been playing baseball for what 15-20 years. He knows the risk and frankly everyone on this board would risk it.
And look what happened Dad? Thanks for proving my point. This isn’t football. Stick to what you know
Oh boy!! That sucks
Oh snap….this don’t help at all
Oh boy! White Sox have had 6 winning seasons in the last 20 years. Frankly I think everyone on this board knows he wasn’t the reason.