The Texas Rangers’ “gamble” of signing Jacob deGrom to a five-year, $185 million contract with the unfounded hope that his health problems would magically disappear appears to have failed.
“DeGrom will undergo surgery to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow,” the Rangers of Major League Baseball (MLB) announced on June 6 (local time). It is widely believed that he will undergo elbow ligament splicing surgery, also known locally as Tommy John surgery.
The Rangers are owed $30 million (391 million won) for DeGrom, who went 2-0 with a 2.67 ERA in 30.1 innings pitched in six starts this season. He could return in a year at the earliest if he undergoes Tommy John surgery. Given that he’s already had Tommy John surgery once before, in 2010, before his big league debut, and that he turns 35 this month, there’s a good chance he’ll miss the entirety of next year. His salary for next year is $40 million (521 million won).
Worst case scenario for the Rangers, they’d be throwing away the first two years of a five-year, $70 million contract.
According to USA Today, there is no insurance in place to cover an injury exit for DeGrom.
Since debuting with the Mets in 2014, deGrom has become one of the league’s most dominant pitchers, with his average velocity rising to 96 miles per hour (154.5 kilometers per hour) in 2018.
After winning the National League Cy Young Award in 2018 with a 10-9 record, 1.70 ERA, and 269 strikeouts, he followed it up in 2019 with an 11-8 record, 2.43 ERA, and 255 strikeouts, edging out Hyun-jin Ryu (36, Toronto Blue Jays) for his second straight Cy Young Award.
But in 2020, he was plagued by a series of injuries.
Elbow inflammation, forearm tightness, wrist pain, tightness, neck tightness, and a stress reaction in his shoulder blade, among other injuries, drastically reduced the number of times he took the mound. He started just 12 games in 2020, 15 in 2021, and 11 in 2022. From 2020-23, he started just 44 games and threw 254.2 innings.
DeGrom was eligible for free agency after the 2022 season, but his original team, the Mets, who invested aggressively in him, did not offer him a contract. It became the best move of Mets owner Steve Cohen’s baseball career. 먹튀검증
It’s unclear if DeGrom will make a successful return from surgery. His injury history is so storied that there’s no guarantee he’ll stay healthy and in the starting rotation for the remainder of his contract.
On April 28 against the New York Yankees, he left the game in the fourth inning with elbow pain and never took the mound again. Texas’ gamble of spending $24 million in the hopes that DeGrom would stay healthy for five years proved unsuccessful just three weeks into the season.