St. Louis Cardinals: Alex Reyes Goes Under the Knife

News has broke from Jupiter, Florida that St. Louis Cardinals stud young pitcher Alex Reyes will have Tommy John Surgery. This will end his 2017 season.

Alex Reyes is regarded as one of the best pitching prospects in baseball. In fact, he’s number one on many Pitching Prospect Rankings. This loss will hurt the St. Louis Cardinals pretty badly, and, from the looks of it, they’ll need another guy to fill Reyes’ role as most likely the 6th (in-case-of-emergency) starter.

The St. Louis Cardinals certainly must have a backup plan at this point as the news wasn’t ‘official’ until this morning, but most were pretty sure that Tommy John was case. The Cardinals have always dealt with adversity in their rotations, especially since Matheny took over. This is no knock on Matheny though.

To this end, the Cardinals missed Lance Lynn all of last season. Michael Wacha has dealt with shoulder issues in the last few years. Adam Wainwright, as well, also underwent Tommy John in 2011. Another guy who is no longer with the club but who has been hurt a lot is Jaime Garcia. In other words, the organization is no stranger to this situation.

Reyes could even be compared to Carlos Martinez: they kind of have the same hard throwing style and hail from the same country. Another similarity is that they were both set to pitch in the 2017 World Baseball Classic for the Dominican Republic. Now only Martinez will.

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Alex Reyes will have surgery in Jupiter this week at some point. It will be done by Dr.Paletta, a surgeon in Jupiter who is no stranger to the arms of the St. Louis Cardinals rotation. The team hopes he can rehab well and be ready to go for 2018 when they’ll need him for sure.

In 2016, Reyes threw for an ERA  of 1.57 in forty-six innings. This was very good considering his age and experience. In other words, before the injury things were certainly looking up. He also struck out fifty-two batters last year out of the pen and also had a few starts.

The Cardinals imagine that Michael Wacha will be the 5th starter for this season (now). That said, he’s injury prone, so it feels like the door is wide open right now for Trevor Rosenthal to get his opportunity. Luke Weaver doesn’t seem to be a season-long option either.

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The hope now is that all goes well in his surgery and rehab. Tommy John has proven to not always be the safest option or safe in general. His age helps him a lot, however; if he was older, near 30 maybe, then he would almost be done if something went wrong.