Joe Palumbo has a torn UCL, according to Evan Grant on Twitter. Palumbo is one of the Texas Rangers’ top pitching prospects, having coming out of pretty much nowhere last year to establish himself as a consensus top 10 guy in the system.
Palumbo was pulled from a game earlier this week mid-batter after grabbing his elbow. I wrote about it here, and I’ll suggest you go read that again so I don’t have to depress myself by re-writing this here.
A torn UCL is generally addressed with Tommy John surgery, which would mean Palumbo would be out until mid-2018. It is worth noting that a decision on how to handle this apparently hasn’t been made, and partially torn UCLs are sometimes addressed with rest and rehab or, more recently, with platelet-rich injections (which Garrett Richards pursued last year, and Chi Chi Gonzalez is doing this year).
Still, this is bad news, and disappointing for one of the real bright spots on the farm.