Right-hander Dedniel Nunez will undergo Tommy John surgery, according to multiple Mets beat writers. Nunez was placed on the 15-day IL on July 3 with a right elbow sprain, and said at the time that surgery was a possibility. Subsequent tests confirmed that Nunez will have to go under the knife, and he’ll now miss the rest of the 2025 season and possibly the entire 2026 campaign.
This will be the second Tommy John procedure of Nunez’s career, which cost Nunez the entire 2021 season and (in combination with the canceled 2020 minor league season) resulted in almost a three-year absence from game action for the right-hander. That surgery took place during Nunez’s brief time in the Giants organization, as San Francisco selected Nunez away from the Mets in the 2020 Rule 5 Draft, but he was returned to New York following the 2021 campaign when Nunez was still in the midst of his rehab work.
Upon finally getting back on the mound in 2022, Nunez’s high strikeout totals drew some attention, and he got his first MLB look in 2024 when he posted a 2.31 ERA over his first 35 big league innings. Combined with a 35.5% strikeout rate and 5.9% walk rate, Nunez turned plenty of heads in his rookie year, and his sudden emergence in New York’s bullpen was one of the many factors that led to the Mets’ big surge to the playoffs over the final four months of the season. Unfortunately for Nunez, forearm problems cut short his participation in the playoff race, as he pitched only once after July 23.
Nunez wasn’t as effective this season, as he posted a 4.66 ERA and a 14.6% walk rate over 9 2/3 innings, and his strikeout rate dropped to (a still solid) 26.8%. Though opposing batters have only a .217 BABIP against Nunez, he has been allowing a ton of hard contact, so even those relatively few balls that are landing for hits are causing significant damage in his small sample size of playing time. His Triple-A numbers were also shaky, and it is fair to wonder if the arm troubles Nunez faced last year and his current elbow issues contributed to the lack of production.
The usual 13-15 month period for Tommy John rehab means that Nunez might be sidelined until Opening Day 2027 if he runs into any setbacks in his recovery process. Given that this is his second TJ surgery, it is perhaps more likely anyway that Nunez’s rehab will be on the longer end of a timeframe. Nunez will continue to collect MLB service time while on the Mets’ injured list, though that is small consolation as the 29-year-old is facing yet another extended career hiatus.
The Mets weren’t necessarily counting on Nunez as a high-leverage arm, but his absence removes another arm from an injury-ravaged pitching staff. New York is already expected to heavily target rotation and bullpen help in advance of the trade deadline, and multiple new hurlers may be required to help the Mets reverse their slide over the last month of play.
