Padres’ Manny Machado Undergoes Elbow Surgery, Four-to-Six Month Recovery Timeline
A disappointing 2023 season will now also feature several months of recovery for San Diego Padres All-Star third baseman Manny Machado, who endured an injury-riddled fifth campaign with the organization.
The 31-year-old played through a right elbow injury for much of this season, which required surgery to repair an extensor tendon on Tuesday, per a club announcement. It was performed by Dr. Neal ElAttrache – the Los Angeles Dodgers and Rams’ team physician.
Machado is expected to be sidelined for four to six months, though the Padres hope he’ll be fully recovered by Spring Training 2024.
The six-time All-Star’s offensive results saw a massive plunge due to his nagging ailment, leading to his lowest AVG (.258), OBP (.319), SLG (.462) and wRC+ (114) since his inaugural campaign with San Diego in 2019. He did, however, blast 30 home runs across 138 games.
It was the seventh time – second consecutive – in his 12 professional seasons that he recorded at least 30 round-trippers in a single year.
Machado’s right elbow limited him exclusively to the designated hitter position down the stretch, which kept the right-hander in the Padres lineup over the final few weeks. While that usage led to a strong finish, it wasn’t enough to boost his 3.5 fWAR – his lowest rating since 2019 (2.2), excluding the 2020 campaign.
“We were trying to avoid it as much as we can,” Machado told reporters on Sep. 19 of his attempt to avoid surgery. “But unfortunately, [the injury] has just put us in that situation, and you know what, it’s probably going to make me better, going to make us all better. Just get it done, get ready for next year, come back and be healthy.”
The Padres exited last winter largely viewed as one of the off-season winners, causing many experts to place astronomical expectations on their performance. And understandably so, given that they entered this year with baseball’s third-highest projected payroll ($255 million).
Rather than build off last year’s NLCS berth however, San Diego missed this season’s playoffs by finishing just two games above .500 at 82-80, placing third in the NL West Division. Despite a late season push, they couldn’t overcome their first-half woes and landed two games shy of the third NL wild-card seed.
Enduring a playoff-less October undoubtedly wasn’t the outcome president of baseball operations and general manager A.J. Preller envisioned when he acquired shortstop Xander Bogaerts via free agency last off-season.
Adding Bogaerts to the mix was supposed to catapult the Padres to at least a second straight postseason berth. Instead, it resulted in one of baseball’s most disappointing seasons for a star-studded roster that also included Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Blake Snell – the NL’s leading Cy Young candidate.
Things may have played out differently had Machado been healthy, considering he finished second in NL MVP voting while nearly leading San Diego to its third World Series appearance last season.
The Hialeah, Fla., native hit .298/.366/.531 with 32 home runs and 102 RBIs across 150 games with the Padres in 2022. He also posted career-bests in wRC+ (153) and fWAR (7.5), enjoying one of his top statistical performances in his age-29 season.
That stellar showing earned Machado a historic payday last February, with both sides agreeing to an 11-year, $350-million contract extension that includes a full no-trade clause.
Now however, the 6x All-Star will have plenty of time to replay what went wrong over the course of his recovery. The club hopes that Machado will be ready to resume baseball activities during Spring Training if his rehab goes according to plan.
-Thomas Hall
Twitter: @ThomasHall85
Photo: Ryan Casey Aguinaldo. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.