Cody Glenn-USA TODAY Sports
As the baseball world hopes it will have a season, Tyler Beede has accepted he will not.
The 26-year-old will undergo Tommy John surgery on Friday, Farhan Zaidi said over a Thursday conference call, ending a promising season before it began (or before it would have begun).
Beede, whose stuff had seen an uptick in his few spring appearances before elbow tightness forced him from an outing early this month, had been optimistic that he would be able to avoid the operating table following his first consultation, in which he said the doctor found three-quarters of his UCL looks “totally fine.” After a few more second opinions in the weeks that followed, the “increasing consensus,” Zaidi said, was it was unavoidable.
The fact the cononavirus has pushed this season back and is threatening to cancel it altogether was not a factor.
“Rehab continues to be an option but for somebody at his age, [but] the feeling was even if he was able to rehab successfully, might only be a matter of time before he starts having symptoms again,” the Giants president of baseball operations said. “… I think it was headed for that way even independent of the layoff we’re in right now.”
The surgery, with a usual timetable of about 18 months before a return, will be done by Dr. Keith Meister in Dallas. Beede had been touching 98 mph in camp and was pumped for a season that felt like it could have seen his breakout. The 2014 first-round pick, who showed flashes but not consistency last season, looked close to putting it all together and was excited about the new baseball minds around him. He was penciled in as the Giants’ No. 5 starter, a slot that is fairly wide-open if and when the season picks up.
“I think it reinforces that we’re fairly deep,” manager Gabe Kapler said of his options after the initial diagnosis. “It’s not deep with established veteran players with a lot of success, but deep with starting-pitching possibilities.”
Trevor Cahill and Logan Webb looked to be the clubhouse leaders before the layoff.