Detroit Tigers right-handed pitching prospect Franklin Perez will undergo right shoulder surgery Wednesday in Los Angeles, manager AJ Hinch announced Tuesday. The surgery will be performed by Dr. Neal ElAttrache, the head team physician for the L.A. Dodgers and Rams.
Perez, 23, was supposed to pitch for High-A West Michigan in 2021, but he opened the year on the injured list with a right shoulder capsule defect. He went to see ElAttrache last Thursday for further evaluation.
“He will be out a while,” Hinch said Tuesday. “That announcement obviously impacts the rest of his year.”
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Perez, 23, was acquired by the Tigers in the 2017 Justin Verlander trade, along with catcher Jake Rogers and outfielder Daz Cameron. Since the trade, Perez has only pitched nine games and 27 innings because of numerous injuries.
A right lat strain in March 2018 kept him from pitching until June. Then, right shoulder capsular inflammation shut him down after seven starts and 19⅓ innings. In 2019, right shoulder tendinitis limited him two starts and 7⅔ innings. The minor leagues were canceled in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, Perez needs shoulder surgery.
“In spring, we were all looking to see where his velocity was, his strength and how the ball was coming out of his hand,” Hinch said. “We saw little glimpses of improvement, and then a step backward, and then more important, and then a step backward. It just become an endless cycle on a day-to-day basis.
“The symptoms and getting him checked out by doctors developed as the minor-league spring training got underway.”
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Perez appeared in two spring training games this year, allowing two runs on two hits and two walks in 1⅔ innings. His fastball velocity in Lakeland, Florida, sat at 89-90 mph which was a troubling sign for the Tigers. He maxed out at 91.6 mph during his two outings.
“He didn’t look particularly great the entire spring from a heath standpoint,” Hinch said. “He was working hard. He was upbeat. His feedback was mostly positive. But when you go from a guy who was throwing in the mid- to upper-90s before to having to reinvent himself, there was a little bit of red flag that came about during the spring.”
In five minor league seasons, Perez has a 3.56 ERA and 1.239 WHIP in 230 innings across 59 games (45 starts). He logged a 2.35 ERA in 7⅔ innings in 2019.
Evan Petzold is a sports reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold. Read more on the Detroit Tigers and sign up for our Tigers newsletter.