Padres’ Dinelson Lamet will have Tommy John surgery

Padres right-hander Dinelson Lamet will have Tommy John surgery, as AJ Cassavell of MLB.com reported on Friday. Lamet, who tore his UCL during spring training, initially sought to rehab the injury but now has opted for the ligament replacement procedure instead.

Lamet started 21 games for the Padres last season, posting a 4.57 ERA and 1.24 WHIP in his first taste of big-league action. He really settled into a groove after the All-Star break, particularly during a dominant August in which he posted a 2.54 ERA while holding hitters to a .149 average.

Many believed that the 25-year-old Lamet had the most upside of anyone in the Padres’ projected rotation heading into the season. With the intriguing right-hander now likely on the shelf until the second half of next season, Padres fans seemingly will have to wait for the arrivals of former first-rounders Cal Quantrill and Eric Lauer to see a young starter with front-of-the-rotation potential. San Diego has plenty of quality pitching prospects, of course, but four of their five starters on MLB Pipeline’s top 100 prospects list are currently in the lower minors and aren’t exceptionally close to being major-league ready.