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The New York Yankees put together an outstanding season which culminated in an ALDS series loss to the Red Sox (which is no mark of shame given how good the Red Sox have been). There were a lot of keys to their success including Luis Severino, Miguel Andujar, Aaron Judge, and Gleyber Torres. However, one of the key pieces to how well the Yankees performed this year, in particular in the early parts of the season, was undoubtedly Didi Gregorius.
Gregorius had an atrocious month of May, but beyond that he was excellent. In 569 plate appearances for the Yankees, Didi belted 27 home runs and slashed .268/.335/.494 at the plate on his way to a 4.6 fWAR season.
Unfortunately for the young Yankees’ star, he received some bad news on the injury front today.
Didi Gregorius will have Tommy John surgery on his right elbow this offseason, the #Yankees announce. They believe he hurt it in the ALDS at Fenway.
— David Adler (@_dadler) October 12, 2018
It is unclear exactly when Gregorius injured his elbow, although it appears as though the team thinks it was during the Yankees’ visit to Fenway in the ALDS. Normally, we think of Tommy John surgeries in regards to pitchers as that is where elbow injuries are the most prevalent. However, it can afflict position players as well (basically any who throws a ball could get the injury) and a position player getting Tommy John isn’t even news to the Yankees in their recent history as young phenom Gleyber Torres required TJS while he was in the minors in 2017.
The good news is that the recovery time for position players from Tommy John surgery is generally significantly shorter than for pitchers. However, with the injury occurring so late in the year, it seems probable that Gregorius will miss at least the first part of the 2018 season.