The Padres announced that pitchers Reggie Lawson and Andres Muñoz had Tommy John surgery.
The #Padres have announced that RHP’s Reggie Lawson and Andres Muñoz underwent successful ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction surgery (Tommy John) today on their right elbows.
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) March 20, 2020
Muñoz broke into the big leagues last year at age 20 and provided 23 innings of reasonably effective relief work. He threw gas before this injury and figured to have a relatively large role to play in San Diego’s excellent bullpen. Having guys like Kirby Yates, Drew Pomeranz, Emilio Pagan and others around makes the loss much easier to absorb, but it would have been fun to see Muñoz get a full shot at truly establishing himself in the majors.
Both MLB Pipeline and Baseball Prospectus rank Lawson as the Padres’ 16th-best prospect, which is no small achievement given the organization’s embarrassment of riches in their farm system.
The two right-handers will miss fewer games than they normally would because of the delayed season, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s usually somewhere around a year-and-a-half recovery timeline for Tommy John surgery, so they could be ready to go for next year’s stretch run.