White Sox pitcher to undergo Tommy John surgery

The White Sox officially announced their previously reported trade with the Cubs, acquiring left-hander Bailey Horn. 

To open a spot for Horn on their 40-man roster, they have moved right-hander Jesse Scholtens to the 60-day injured list with a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. 

James Fegan of Sox Machine was among those to relay that Scholtens will have Tommy John surgery on Friday.

Scholtens, 30 in April, was able to make his major league debut last year. He made 26 appearances, including 11 starts, logging 85 innings in the process. 

He had a 5.29 earned run average in that time, striking out 15.4 percent of opponents while issuing walks at an 8 percent clip. His work in Triple-A was stronger, as he made nine starts at that level with a 4.44 ERA, 23.4 percent strikeout rate and 6.8 percent walk rate.

He was likely going to be serving in a depth role for the club this year, given that he still has a couple of options remaining. The Sox have remade a lot of their pitching staff over the last year. 

They have traded Lance Lynn, Joe Kelly, Lucas Giolito, Gregory Santos, Kendall Graveman, Aaron Bummer, Reynaldo López, Yohan Ramírez and Keynan Middleton since last summer, while pitchers like Mike Clevinger and Liam Hendriks departed via free agency. 

They have also added guys like Erick Fedde, Chris Flexen, John Brebbia, Tim Hill, Michael Soroka, Jared Shuster and others, but there should be plenty of opportunity for a depth arm or two to step up and fill a role this year.

Unfortunately, Scholtens won’t be able to take advantage of that opportunity. He will miss the entire 2024 campaign and likely some early portions of the 2025 season as well, given that Tommy John rehabs generally run more than a year in length. 

He’ll remain on the injured list for all of 2024, collecting major league service time and pay.