Reds reliever Tejay Antone suffers another setback, will undergo elbow surgery

The Cincinnati Reds announced Monday that right-handed reliever Tejay Antone has been placed on the 15-day injured list. 

Righty Carson Spiers has been recalled from Triple-A to take his spot on the roster. 

While Cincinnati initially announced the injury as “elbow inflammation,” manager David Bell now tells the Reds beat that Antone tore a tendon completely off the bone and suffered a partial ligament tear in his right elbow, according to Mark Sheldon of MLB.com. He’ll undergo surgery Friday. 

It’s a brutal setback for Antone, who previously had Tommy John surgery in 2017 and again in 2021.

The surgery will unsurprisingly end Antone’s season. However, despite the slew of elbow troubles that have plagued him throughout his career, Antone’s intention is to continue pitching once he’s again navigated a lengthy and arduous rehab process, according to Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer.

It’s hard not to feel for Antone, who was quietly one of baseball’s best relievers in 2020-21 before this latest batch of arm troubles surfaced. He pitched 69 innings across those two seasons and recorded a pristine 2.48 ERA with a huge 32.3% strikeout rate and 10.8% walk rate. 

Antone averaged 97 mph on his heater and induced swinging strikes at a hearty 13% clip along the way. His 48% ground-ball rate was well north of the league average. 

It was a brief peak, but it’s easy to see how the Reds felt that Antone could be a major part of their bullpen based on those first 36 appearances of his career.

Antone didn’t pitch in 2022 and got back on a big league mound for only 5 2/3 innings last season. He tossed 9 2/3 spring frames and another two regular-season innings in 2024 before the injury. 

Since making it back from his last Tommy John procedure, Antone has averaged a diminished 94.2 mph on his fastball.

Remarkably, Antone will finish the current season with five years of major league service time despite only having pitched 76 2/3 big league innings. 

It’s possible that this latest injury spells the end of Antone’s time with the Reds. It won’t cost much to retain him via arbitration this offseason, as he pitched just two innings on an $830K salary this year. 

Whether the Reds tender him a contract will depend on how much of the 2025 season he’s expected to miss.

Even if they want to free up his 40-man roster spot over the winter, however, the Reds could non-tender Antone in November and quickly re-sign him to a new minor league deal so he can continue rehabbing in a familiar setting. 

For now, the focus will be on fixing the damage in his elbow and working through the early phases of the rehab grind. He’ll surely have not just Reds fans throughout the sport in his corner, given the admirable level of perseverance he’s displayed as he continues working through his elbow problems.