Pirates lefty Marco Gonzales will undergo surgery to repair the flexor tendon in his left elbow, the team announced to reporters Wednesday (X link via Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).
Additionally, right-hander Hunter Stratton already underwent knee surgery to repair the ruptured patellar tendon he recently suffered.
Gonzales’ procedure will be performed in early September and comes with a recovery timetable of nine months to a year, while Stratton’s procedure was completed today. He’s projected to need seven to ten months to be ready for a return to a big league mound.
Pittsburgh acquired Gonzales in a trade with the Braves this offseason, taking on $3MM of the veteran lefty’s $12MM salary in the process. (Atlanta had taken on Gonzales’ contract as part of their deal to acquire Jarred Kelenic from the Mariners.) A pair of forearm injuries will ultimately limit Gonzales to only seven starts for the Bucs — the first five of which were quite effective. The 32-year-old notched a 2.70 ERA over 26 2/3 frames in that stretch, fanning 17.3% of his opponents against a 5.5% walk rate. In his final two starts with the Pirates, however, Gonzales yielded nine runs on 15 hits and five walks in only seven innings.
The Bucs technically hold a 2025 option on Gonzales, but that’s priced at $15MM and comes with no buyout if the team opts to decline it. Given Gonzales’ recent injury troubles and the now lengthy rehab period he’ll face following surgery, it’s a foregone conclusion that the team will decline the option and make Gonzales a free agent. He’ll likely be ticketed for a minor league deal in free agency.
Injuries have held Gonzales to only 17 starts and 83 2/3 innings over the past two seasons, but prior to that the lefty was a fixture in the Mariners’ rotation. Seattle acquired him from the Cardinals in a straight-up swap for then-prospect Tyler O’Neill, and Gonzales quickly cemented himself in Seattle’s rotation thereafter. From 2018-22, Gonzales started 131 games for the Mariners, tallying 765 2/3 innings of 3.94 ERA ball with a 17.6% strikeout rate and 6% walk rate.
While Gonzales’ injury likely ends his tenure with Pittsburgh, that’s decidedly not the case for Stratton. The 27-year-old will finish the current season with just over one year of big league service time, meaning he’s controllable for five seasons beyond the current campaign. Given the solid nature of his results in 2024, Stratton has likely pitched his way into a future role with the team, so long as he can make a full recovery from his knee injury.
Dating back to last year’s MLB debut, Stratton has pitched 49 2/3 innings for the Pirates, during which he’s turned in a 3.26 ERA with a 21% strikeout rate, 4.9% walk rate and 41% ground-ball rate. He’s averaged 95.6 mph on his heater, done a nice job at dodging hard contact and recorded a hearty 12.6% swinging-strike rate that suggests some growth in his strikeout rate remains possible.
If Stratton is able to return on the short end of the team’s provided timetable, he’d be ready for game action near the end of spring training next year. That might ticket him for an early stint on the injured list, but a return in April would be feasible. If he skews closer to the lengthier end, a summer return would still be in the cards.
