Lance McCullers' Surgery Hurts the Astros in the 2023 AND 2024 Season
The Astros now have two holes in their rotation for this season and next season. McCullers' season-ending surgery changes how Dana Brown will approach the 2023 trade deadline.
The Astros announced on this afternoon that Lance McCullers “underwent surgery on Tuesday evening on his right forearm to repair the flexor tendon and remove a bone spur.” The surgery means that McCullers will not pitch in 2023 and will return “during the 2024 season.”
The surgery puts a cap on the long struggle of McCullers to get healthy after suffering a flexor tendon strain in the 2021 playoffs. McCullers spend much of 2022 season recovering from that strain, finally coming off the IL in August. He made eight regular season and three playoff starts for the World Champions.
On the first day of Spring Training this year, McCullers announced that he had suffered “a small muscle” strain in his forearm during a bullpen session. But, with this typical optimism, said his goal was to pitch “150, 160 innings” in 2023. So close.
With McCullers being out for the rest of 2023, attention turns to the trade deadline and the need to acquire another starting pitcher. In a quick assessment of the McCullers injury, Chandler Rome of The Athletic wrote that “McCullers’ absence only amplifies the Astros’ need for a veteran starting pitcher at the Aug. 1 trade deadline.”
McCullers joins Luis Garcia in going from pitchers expected to be in the playoff starting rotation to out for the season. After Garcia’s injury, I wrote that
“a big question that Dana Brown will have to address in evaluating the trade market as the calendar gets closer to the trade deadline is whether a pitcher is better than his current top 4 in the rotation. Because the current projected playoff rotation—Valdez, Javier, McCullers, and Brown—is pretty good.”
That analysis no longer applies. Brown moves to the #3 starter in the playoff rotation, and Jose Urquidy would take the 4th spot, assuming he recovers from his own injury. These two injuries compromise the Astros chances of winning in the playoffs. Frankly, the imperil their chances of getting to the playoffs.
I have long thought that Dana Brown could focus on the offense at the trade deadline. But with McCullers out for the rest of the season, getting a starting pitcher better than Urquidy becomes a bigger priority than fixing the offense.
A Hole for 2024 As Well.
But there is an another important element to the story of McCullers undergoing surgery. The Astros press release says that he will return “during the 2024 season.” The emphasis is mine, because during means, in all practical terms, after opening day.
How long will it take for McCullers to recover from his surgery and get back on the bump. In discussing the flexor tendon surgery that Matthew Boyd would undergo in September 2021, Chris McCosky of the Detroit News wrote “The typical recovery time from flexor tendon surgery is nine months.”
Nine months would make McCullers available to pitch by the end of March, making him available for Opening Day 2024. There is just one problem. McCosky estimated that Boyd could conceivably be back throwing competitively by June 1, 2022. Boyd wasn’t. He made his 2022 debut on September 1, and it was as a reliever. That’s just under 12 months.
A similar fate has befallen Tarik Skubal. He had flexor tendon surgery in mid-August of 2022. He has yet to debut in the 2023 season, but is in a rehab assignment. So assuming he comes back soon, that’s 10 months of recovery.
The worst case scenario is that of Drew Pomeranz. The Padres reliever had flexor tendon surgery in August 2021. Twelve months later he went on a rehab assignment, but continued soreness shut down his 2022 rehab. This Spring Training, he had more soreness, and eventually had “clean up” surgery in May. He has not pitched on a major league mound in two year.
The point of these examples is not to scare Astros fans or marinate in the worst case scenarios. It is to make the case that the Astros cannot assume that Lance McCullers will be back for Opening Day 2024. And based on the words “during the 2024 season” in their press release, they are not making that assumption.
Luis Garcia will also not available for Opening Day. Recovery from the Tommy John surgery he had is longer than that for the flexor tendon surgery Lance had. Garcia may be able to make a return in the middle or end of the 2024 season.
In short, the Astros need help in the starting rotation for 2024 as well. And that may change the calculations for Dana Brown as he contemplates a trade deadline move. Previously, he could have simply considered rental pitchers to help the team make a playoff run in 2023 before free agency this off-season. Now, it may behoove Brown to consider players with multiple years of team control. He needs a starter next year as well.
Or, if Brown gets a rental (they cost less in terms of prospects), he will need to make starting pitcher a priority this offseason. He will have a hole there. Obviously, one solution is to increase the payroll to sign a free agent pitcher this off-season. That would require more of Jim Crane’s money, which should not be an insurmountable obstacle.
Regardless, the Astros are now down two starters for both the rest of 2023 and, one has to assume, significant amounts of 2024. Addressing this has become a much more important priority for the front office than it was before Lance’s setback and surgery.