Left-hander Patrick Sandoval has been through a lot in the past year and recently discussed the twists and turns he’s been through with the MassLive Fenway Rundown podcast, as summarized by Chris Cotillo of MassLive.
The southpaw underwent surgery on his ulnar collateral ligament in July of last year and perhaps the most notable thing he mentioned this week is that he had internal brace surgery and not a full Tommy John procedure. When his surgery was reported last summer, it wasn’t 100% clear if he would require a full UCL reconstruction or the internal brace alternative.
Some in the media just use “Tommy John surgery” as a blanket term to cover any kind of UCL surgery but the distinction can be notable. The internal brace surgery can sometimes allow a player to return to play a couple of months quicker than with a full reconstruction. That’s often not a huge difference but it could make an impact in Sandoval’s case. A full Tommy John surgery usually takes about 14 months to recover from, a timeline that would have pushed Sandoval to a return around September. But since he had the internal brace alternative, it seems he and the Red Sox are a bit more optimistic about what he can contribute in the second half this year.
That timeline also reflects back on the curious decision by the Angels to non-tender him, which was a bit of a surprise when it happened. They could have retained Sandoval via arbitration through both 2025 and 2026. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected him for a salary of $5.9MM this year. Since he wasn’t going to be able to pitch much in 2025, that would limit his ability to raise his salary in 2026, meaning he probably could have been retained for the two years for a total of $12-15MM.
That wouldn’t have been a bad price for a pitcher as talented as Sandoval, even if his recovery eventually hit a snag and it was mostly just for his 2026 contributions. Over the 2021 to 2024 seasons, Sandoval tossed 460 innings, allowing 3.80 earned runs per nine. His 22.6% strikeout rate, 10.2% walk rate and 47.3% ground ball rate were all pretty close to league average.
But the Angels decided to just move on instead, not tendering Sandoval a contract and sending him to free agency, which caught Sandoval off-guard. “I wasn’t expecting it at all,” he said. “I got a call like two minutes before the tender deadline. My agent had let me know that they decided not to tender me. I didn’t really know how to feel. I understood, me coming back from injury, they might not want to pay me that money to just sit and rehab for a year. And they have the right to do that.”
Though the Angels were apparently not keen on the idea of paying for Sandoval’s recovery, other teams were. “The whole free agent experience was insane,” Sandoval says. “You’re not expecting it. I’m thinking I still have two more years until I get that opportunity to choose which team I want to play for. The whole recruiting process or whatever you want to call it, it kind of brought me back to like the high school days of having colleges come and talk to you.”
Sandoval reportedly received some interest from the Phillies but ultimately signed with the Red Sox, a two-year deal that guarantees him $18.25MM, in the form of $5.5MM this year and $12.75MM next year. That’s likely a few million more than he would have made if the Angels just kept him around, so it seems to have worked out for the lefty, though it may have been initially disorienting.
The Red Sox seem to be going into 2025 with a number of wild cards on the pitching staff. Garrett Crochet and Tanner Houck both had breakout seasons in 2024 but pushed their respective workloads to new heights. Walker Buehler came back from a lengthy surgery absence in 2024 but with middling results. Lucas Giolito and Liam Hendriks missed all of last year due to their own surgeries. Garrett Whitlock missed most of it for the same reason.
They figure to open the season with a rotation mix of Crochet, Houck, Buehler, Brayan Bello and Kutter Crawford. Giolito will jump in there, perhaps as soon as Opening Day, with Sandoval likely a few months behind him.
Sign bregman or Santander and let’s stop worrying about half ass pitchers coming off TJ
Santander does nothing to help this team. He isn’t great against lefties and he plays a position where they don’t have space.
He didn’t have Tommy John surgery. Can you read
Rumor is Toronto was high on his list though.
An absolute dog act to non tender a TJ injured pitcher. It needs to be fixed in the next cba.
Good on the RS for giving him a chance. They seem to do it a lot, maybe it helps their rep among the players.
I guess. Would you willingly pay an employee that couldn’t do their job out of the kindness of your heart? Reality is way different than your feelings.
Dodgers have paid Andrew Toles health insurance for years out of the kindness of their heart because of his mental health issues. Maybe being empathetic doesn’t go against reality/profitability.
I get that you hate other people, but you should probably think before you type. Every company in the world pays its employees when they injure themselves on the job. Especially when there is a real possibility that they will be just as effective on the other side of their recovery.
It was just a standard non tender at the end of the day though. Comparing a standard employee to a sports player where free agency and arbitration is involved isn’t a good comparison. Players get non tendered every year. Should teams not be allowed to non tender a player if they are injured? Is that really a rule we want to implement? And it’s not just that Sandoval was injured, he’s also been kind of mid.If he was Paul Skenes then he wouldn’t have been non tendered even with the injury. And teams more frequently are doing deals like this where you sign a guy to multiple years for when he’s back from TJ. Red Sox were willing to pay, Angels weren’t. Really not that big of a deal.
Cyber, the teams need the roster spot(s), so I get it.
There should be another IL for long term injuries.
The league should be looking after these guys, like with the rookie scale. Pitchers make up nearly half the players. They have the biggest risks health wise, so look after them.
No they don’t. Not every company in the world has Dodger money. The majority of entitled Americans don’t seem to understand that.
Patrick Sandoval had an ERA of 3.71 in 417 innings between 2020 and 2023. Robbie Ray had an ERA of 3.70 in 437 innings in the same time frame and Nathan eovaldi had an ERA of 3.78 in 484 innings. Ray had a 5 year contract with 115 mil and eovaldi just signed a 3 year 75 mil contract. You’d be surprised how rare “mid” is among major league starters. Especially for a team like the angels who’ve struggled to put together a solid rotation for a decade now. As for your first point though. I don’t think teams need to roster injured players in general, but an investment in a pitcher coming off TJS is a sensible move, and one made by every team in baseball
Wanna bet on that?? Because if I blow out my back lifting a box at my job you can be damn sure their paying for the rehab till I’m back to work. And they definitely don’t have dodger money as would most companies because they get their value from the people working for them. Most companies know that and they make every effort to offer those kind of incentives to attract quality employees. As you said Facts don’t really care about your feelings.
60-day IL
Trespada – Players who have long-term injuries during the season can be on the 60-day DL. That is NOT the case in the off season. There are plenty of cases that an organization needs a roster spot, and it is better served to non-tender a player. Businesses do not exist for the benefit of employees, and the minimum wage in the MLB is around $750,000.
Ranger, I get what you’re saying. It’s still a dog act. The league should look after it’s players. I’m sure it’s happened to a 20th round, 2nd year player (that is, one that got a tiny bonus, then prorated league min) then it’s “sorry you had your TJ in September, you’re non tendered now, see ya”.
If I were a free agent, I wouldn’t be signing with said dog act teams. I’m sure it happens. Although, I wouldn’t sign with half the league for other reasons anyway…
As much as I’d like to think the Red Sox signed Sandoval out of the kindness in their heart, they saw the potential value which the Angels didn’t. The prudent move would’ve been to tender him and then try to trade him. Sandoval didn’t get $18M because only the Red Sox wanted to sign him.
I concur…..
-Lucas Giolito
brisbane you must be unfamiliar with sandoval. he has temper tantrums every outing and the worst attitude i’ve ever seen on the field. he was not a good example for younger players on the team. the angels traded for him and gave him every opportunity possible.
Snow, I couldn’t care less. My stance isn’t about feelings toward any player.
Non tendering a long term injured player is a dog act. That’s it.
I’m saying these players should be looked after until they can rehab properly & hopefully make it back. Like virtually every other job in every civilised country.
@Darragh McDonald
Good noting how often the ‘internal brace procedure’ is misreported as TJ surgery, but I think you’re understating the difference between the two. With TJ surgery (for pitchers) it’s typically a 12-18 month recovery time, with the 18 months typical for a pitcher taking-on a full starters workload again. With Internal brace, those numbers are typically 6-12 months (although there’s less of a sample size). So you’re looking at a near 6-month difference which is often the difference from a pitcher missing 1 season or 2 seasons.
Sandoval has already started a throwing program and is ‘slowly ramping up’ (his words).
I predict the Angels having a tough time beating Sandy in the future as he’ll find that extra grit that he so often missed with a halo on his hat.
Red Sox need one more dependable, resilient, reliable starting pitcher. And I have just the pitcher for you…his name is Luis Castillo and all it would take is your first baseman Casas. Simple and easy!!! Should my people call your people??