Remember Anderson Espinoza, the highly regarded pitching prospect the Boston Red Sox traded to the San Diego Padres in 2016 for left-hander Drew Pomeranz?
Well, he underwent a second Tommy John surgery Monday, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Espinoza, 21, hasn’t pitched since the 2016 season, as he underwent his first Tommy John surgery in 2017 after experiencing forearm tightness. The latest procedure is another tough blow for the Padres and, more importantly, Espinoza, who was considered one of the top pitching prospects in Major League Baseball at the time he was traded.
“It’s brutal,” Padres general manager A.J. Preller said, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. “He’s put in a ton of time and effort. He put a lot work into it and obviously having to redo the surgery and potentially miss another year … he’s handled it as good as you can. I’m proud of him. He’s staying positive. He knows he’s got a long road in front of him and he’s going to work hard at it again.
“We’ve had a lot of conversations explaining the belief we have in him. It’s not an easy process.”
There’s still time for Espinoza to bounce back, seeing as how he just turned 21 in March. He’ll miss all of 2019 and perhaps a good chunk of the 2020 season, though, potentially creating a four-year gap between pitching in live games.
Espinoza, a native of Venezuela, initially turned heads in the Red Sox system thanks to his electric stuff, which was highlighted by a fastball nearing triple digits. The hard-throwing right-hander entered 2017 as baseball’s No. 21 prospect, according to Baseball America.
The Red Sox caught some flak for trading Espinoza, especially as Pomeranz struggled in 2018. But Pomeranz had a very good 2017 season and the Red Sox are coming off a World Series victory, whereas Espinoza’s future remains unclear on the heels of more disappointing news.
Espinoza hasn’t pitched above Class-A to this point. He went 6-11 with a 4.49 ERA, a 1.39 WHIP and 8.3 strikeouts per nine innings in 25 appearances (24 starts) spanning 108 1/3 innings with Greenville and Fort Wayne in 2016.
