On Saturday afternoon, Orioles General Manager Mike Elias officially announced what has been anticipated for some time. In October, Félix Bautista will have Tommy John surgery. Due to a partial tear in his ulnar collateral ligament, he will miss the postseason this year and the entire 2024 campaign (UCL).
The Orioles had been trying to see if Bautista could heal the partial tear sufficiently to be able to pitch for the team in postseason, according to Elias. Tommy John surgery was always going to be required, according to Elias. In October, the only doubt was whether Bautista could be of use to the squad. The crew did not feel confident enough to try that after a month of building up the throwing progression, which culminated in a sim game earlier this week. Thus, surgery is required.
There wasn’t much damage in the Orioles trying to persuade Bautista to be able to pitch in October, as far as the baseball season calendar was concerned. When he is able to take the mound for the club again, it shouldn’t be significantly affected by whether he has surgery on September 7 or October 7 (or any other day of the month).
It was inevitable that Bautista would miss the 2024 season, and the goal was always to have him return during spring training in 2025. It will be roughly 17 months following his surgery.
It will be a while before then and the Orioles will need to devise a new strategy quickly. The fact that the UCL rupture ended his supremacy in 2023 is undoubtedly a major factor in the Orioles’ victory in the American League East. These are large shoes for the man known as The Mountain to fill, both physically and figuratively.
In his 121 games with the Orioles between the previous season and this one, Bautista has struck out 198 batters in 126.2 innings. Over his career, he has a 0.929 WHIP and 1.85 ERA. In 2023, the strikeout rate increased even further as he struck out almost half of the batters he faced with a K/9 of 16.2. This year, batters were only hitting.142 against Bautista. Both the material and the outcomes were absurd.