The Royals have announced that one of their top pitching prospects, John Lamb, will be out for the remainder of this season and will likely miss some of next season as well after it was discovered he needs Tommy John surgery, the Kansas City Star is reporting.
The surgery usually carries a 12-month rehabilitation process.
The injury continues what seems to be a tough year for many of the best prospects in the Royals farm system.
In 2010, it seemed, that every Royals’ prospect had a monster season, which helped the system put a record nine players in Baseball America’s top 100 prospects.
This season has been a completely different story. While a few prospects, such as Eric Hosmer, Danny Duffy and Aaron Crow, have done well enough to get to the big leagues, many of the other top prospects have been injured or struggled.
Outfielder Will Myers, who was ranked the No. 3 prospect in the organization behind Hosmer and Mike Moustakas and the No. 10 prospect in all of baseball by BA, has dealt with a knee injury for most of the season and has just a .749 OPS in 20 games this season.
Pitcher Mike Montgomery, ranked as the No. 19 prospect in baseball, is sporting a 5.18 ERA in triple-A with a 48-34 K/BB ratio.
Middle infielder Christian Colon, BA’s No. 51 MLB prospect, is hitting just .233 with a .605 OPS in double-A.
And now there’s Lamb, the team’s minor league pitcher of the year in 2010, top pitching prospect and the BA’s No. 18 prospect in MLB. Lamb left his start on May 19 in the first inning with elbow discomfort and hasn’t pitched since. For the season, Lamb was 1-2 with a 3.09 ERA at Class AA Northwest Arkansas.
His surgery is scheduled to be performed in Los Angeles on Friday.