The Philadelphia Phillies received discouraging news ahead of Friday's game against the Pittsburgh Pirates when the team announced that pitching prospect Moisés Chace will require Tommy John surgery, per The Philadelphia Inquirer's Lochlahn March. The right-hander who was acquired in a three-player swap with the Baltimore Orioles at last summer's trade deadline had shown a concerning drop in velocity over six starts with Double-A Reading this season.
The 21-year-old Venezuela native entered the season ranked as the Phillies' No. 5 prospect by MLB Pipeline and was added to the team's 40-man roster last fall. While Chace looked impressive during four starts with the Reading Fightin Phils after being acquired last summer, a drop in velocity and poor control contributed to a 3.24 ERA and a 1.62 WHIP in 16 2/3 innings in six starts this year.
Concerned after being lifted during the second inning of his latest start, the Phillies sent Chase to have his elbow examined, and the problem is now known to be far worse than the organization originally expected.
Top prospect Moisés Chace's surprising downturn had Phillies searching for answers before Tommy John news
The announcement of Chace's Tommy John diagnosis comes on the heels of a recent report from The Athletic's Matt Gelb suggesting that team officials were less than impressed by his physical conditioning (subscription required) at the outset of spring training. Gelb doubled down with a critical overview of the Phillies' impressions of Chace after he arrived in spring training out of shape.
"The Phillies were concerned when Chace reported to his first big-league spring training not in the best pitching shape," wrote Gelb. "It’s unclear how much he threw in the offseason, or if he threw at all from a mound while at home in Venezuela. The organization does not believe he is hurt, so it has continued to pitch him."
Things obviously took a turn for the worse in the six days following Gelb's report, with Chace's elbow health now viewed as the prime factor in his alarming drop in velocity. At the very least, it helps explain why Chace's fastball dropped from 94.4 mph last year to 90.8 mph this season. While it remains unclear how much Chace's conditioning played into his injury, it's a disappointing development for a young pitcher who the Phillies view as having MLB potential.
Moisés Chace (@Phillies) dominates with a career-high 13 strikeouts!
— Minor League Baseball (@MiLB) September 1, 2024
He becomes the first @ReadingFightins pitcher to rack up that many K's in a start since 2001 😱 pic.twitter.com/SB1D6aSJEs
As the biggest return the Phillies received in the Gregory Soto trade last summer, Chace's addition to the 40-man roster last fall was a good indication of how important he had become to the team's future plans. With a big league debut now out of the question for 2025, an optimistic timetable of 10–12 months of recovery and rehab could see Chace return to the mound in some capacity next summer.