Marlins’ Eury Pérez Will Have Tommy John Surgery; Out for 2024 MLB Season with Injury

Scott Polacek@@ScottPolacekFeatured Columnist IVApril 4, 2024

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Eury Pérez’s 2024 campaign has reportedly ended before could make a single regular-season appearance for the Miami Marlins.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported Thursday the right-hander will undergo Tommy John surgery and miss the entire campaign. The 20-year-old made 19 starts for Miami in 2023 but will not get a chance to build on that in what would have been his second major league season.

Pérez was one of the top prospects in baseball prior to making his debut with Miami.

MLB.com ranked him as the No. 13 overall prospect in the league and best prospect in the Marlins’ system ahead of the 2023 campaign.

“Pérez’s combination of size, stuff and polish is tough to top, starting with a fastball that parks at 94-97 mph and peaks at 100 and plays even better than its velocity thanks to its shape, running action and induced vertical break,” the outlet’s scouting report said.

“His deceptive upper-80s changeup is just as nasty, generating an outstanding 61 percent swing-and-miss rate in 2022 thanks to its fade and tumble. After featuring an upper-70s curveball in the past, he added a tighter mid-80s slider last season that grades as plus more consistently than his bender.”

He made his highly anticipated debut last season and posted a 3.15 ERA, 1.13 WHIP and 108 strikeouts in 91.1 innings. The strikeout total in that sample size of innings stood out and suggested he would only become better with more experience.

That’s what makes this setback so concerning for the Marlins, as they surely envisioned him becoming one of the rotation’s anchors in the near future. Instead, he will be sidelined for a significant stretch and have to ramp back up to his previous form when he does return.

It is yet another blow for a Miami team that looks nothing like a contender in the early portion of the 2024 campaign.

Miami is 0-7 after series against the Pittsburgh Pirates and Los Angeles Angels and will look to turn things around starting Thursday against the St. Louis Cardinals.