Second Tommy John surgery knocks Hunter Greene out for all of 2027 season

We knew the news on Hunter Greene’s troublesome right elbow wasn’t likely to be good. The odds were always long that the doctors would get in there and find something, anything to salvage, and that a less-invasive procedure could be put together that would get him back on the mound for the Cincinnati Reds in shorter order (relatively speaking).

Internal bracing was reportedly on the table, at least, following last week’s MRI. But when the surgeons got a better look at things yesterday in California, it was revealed that a full UCL replacement was going to be needed.

So, for the second time since being drafted by the Reds back in 2017, Hunter Greene required Tommy John surgery. Wednesday’s procedure means that he’ll need 12-18 months to recover, per The Enquirer’s Gordon Wittenmyer, and that timeline effectively knocks him out for the entirety of the 2027 Cincinnati Reds season.

It’s a brutal, albeit predictable blow to the Reds at this juncture. We’ve effectively seen what this team looks like without Greene for the entirety of this season, and the results have simply not been anywhere good enough. Turns out it’s hard to replace guys capable of putting up 6.0 WAR seasons, as they just simply do not grow on trees.

Greene’s due a raise up to $15.333 million for the 2027 season. So far, I’ve not seen whether or not the Reds carry insurance on that, or to what amount, so it’s hard to say exactly how much this news decimates their ability to spend to build a team without him. Still, there’s almost no chance they can replace his talent and peak production for just that amount elsewhere, meaning a 2027 roster that already needed copious improvements now must find a way to procure one of the rarest types of players on the planet.