Daysbel Hernandez underwent Tommy John Surgery, per report

Baseball might be on hold as labor negotiations take center stage (or, well, don’t take center stage given their glacial pace), but that doesn’t mean there aren’t updates in the wide world of Braves baseball. This update, though, isn’t a great one. In short, Braves farmhand Daysbel Hernandez has apparently undergone the sometimes-dreaded Tommy John Surgery:

Hernandez isn’t young for a prospect, as he turned 25 in September, but he had a fine season in relief at Double-A before getting plastered in 10 late-season appearances after he was promoted to Gwinnett. While Fangraphs hasn’t posted their most-updated list for the Braves, their pre-2021 list had Hernandez as an unranked “other of note” that was floated as a middle relief arm on the basis of his hard fastball, if a breaking pitch could be improved to pair with it.

In any case, Hernandez’ potential path to the majors has now experienced a bit of a setback. He’s not the first and won’t be the last to undergo Tommy John Surgery, but it’s still kind of a bummer. We’ll see what happens in 2023.

Hernandez was occasionally mentioned as a potential selectee in the major league portion of this offseason’s Rule 5 draft, as he was left unprotected by not being added to the 40-man roster in November. Now, that seems like a pretty unlikely scenario, although I suppose a team could grab him, stash him on the Injured List, and use up the Rule 5 roster restriction later. We’ll see what happens, though.