The top Red Sox pitching prospect Luis Perales will have Tommy John surgery the following week, Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com initially reported. Dr. Jeffrey Dugas of the Andrews Sports Medicine & Orthopedics Center in Birmingham, Alabama, will carry out the treatment.
Since June 9th, Perales has been on Double-A Portland’s seven-day disabled list due to elbow soreness that prevented him from playing the previous evening.
According to Cotillo, the Red Sox were first hopeful that the right-hander, who was in Boston for imaging late last week, was not suffering from a catastrophic injury. However, an MRI revealed that his pitching elbow’s ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) had sustained “significant damage.”
After being signed to Boston’s 40-man roster over the winter and participating in his first big-league camp this spring, Perales, 21, was having a breakout season. He began the 2024 season with High-A Greenville, where in seven starts (26 1/3 innings) he recorded a 3.42 ERA and 2.04 FIP for the Drive, striking out 46 batters against 10 walks.
On June 2, Perales made his Double-A debut after being promoted to Portland in late May. In five innings, he struck out seven and gave up just one unearned run. Six days later at Hadlock Field, he took the mound for the Sea Dogs once more and gave up two runs (one earned) before leaving with one out in the top of the third inning.
Between Greenville and Portland this season, Perales combined for nine starts (33 2/3 innings) and a 2.94 ERA (2.01 FIP) with 56 strikeouts against 12 walks. According to FanGraphs, out of 894 minor-league pitchers who have tossed at least 30 innings this year, his 38.9 percent strikeout percentage ranks seventh.
Perales, a Venezuelan native, signed a $75,000 international free agency contract with the Red Sox in July 2019 after leaving Guacara. Right now, SoxProspects.com ranks the 6-foot-1, 160-pound pitcher as the No. 4 prospect in Boston’s farm system, which is the highest ranking among all pitchers in the club. Perales was moving in the right direction before getting hurt, maybe making the big league roster by the next season. It was the first time he had been in Baseball America’s top-100 rankings. Baseball America recently ranked him as the sport’s No. 57 prospect.
Perales will now miss the most of 2025 and the remainder of 2024 while he recovers and rehabilitates from the difficult Tommy John surgery. The Red Sox have the option to recall Perales and put him on the 60-day injured list in order to make room on the roster for another player, as he is currently on the club’s 40-man roster. But then his big-league service time clock would begin.
Nevertheless, it is important to remember that by the time Perales is prepared to make a major impact in 2026, he will probably have used up two of his three minor-league option years, as noted by Chris Hatfield of SoxProspects.com. In the future, he might be qualified for a fourth option, but that is not certain.