Twins right-hander Anthony DeSclafani will miss the entire 2024 season and at least some of the 2025 season after undergoing a flexor tendon surgery, chief baseball officer Derek Falvey told The Athletic’s Dan Hayes (X link) and other reporters. The surgery comes with an estimated recovery timeline of 13 months.
DeSclafani developed a forearm strain in Spring Training, and a long-term absence of some kind was expected after the Twins placed him on the 60-day injured list to begin the season. While this flexor tendon procedure technically represents a better-case scenario than the 13-15 month timeline associated with recovery from a Tommy John surgery, that is probably very small consolation to DeSclafani as he enters into yet another extended injury absence.
Another right flexor strain already ended DeSclafani’s 2023 campaign last July, and he only pitched 19 innings in 2022 due to ankle surgery. The righty also didn’t pitch at all in 2017 due to a UCL strain, though he was able to avoid surgery in that case.
All of these health woes have marred what has been a pretty solid career for DeSclafani when he has been able to actually pitch. He has a 4.20 ERA over 942 2/3 career innings with the Marlins, Reds, and Giants over parts of nine Major League seasons, relying on strong control and a plus slider to achieve success. A 3.17 ERA over 167 2/3 innings for the 2021 Giants represents DeSclafani’s best performance over a full season, and that nice year paid off in the form of a three-year, $36MM free agent deal to return to San Francisco.
Unfortunately, DeSclafani will end up tossing only 118 1/3 innings over the life of that contract. The Giants moved DeSclafani and Mitch Haniger to the Mariners this offseason for Robbie Ray, and DeSclafani was then flipped again from Seattle to Minnesota as part of the Jorge Polanco trade. The latter transaction also included $8MM in cash considerations from the Mariners in order to help cover the majority of the $12MM owed to DeSclafani in 2024.
More to come…
