The Nationals placed left-hander Mitchell Parker on the 15-day injured list yesterday with elbow inflammation. It seems he is slated to miss far longer than 15 days, however. Manager Blake Butera told reporters today that the lefty has a Grade 3 sprain of his ulnar collateral ligament and will mostly likely require Tommy John surgery. Mark Zuckerman of Nats Journal was among those to relay the news. Parker should be transferred to the 60-day IL as soon as the Nats need his roster spot.
It’s obviously rough news for both the Nats and Parker. The lefty was in the Washington rotation throughout 2024 and 2025. The first of those two seasons was better, as Parker posted a 4.29 earned run average with a 20.6% strikeout rate and 6.7% walk rate. Last year, he only punched out 14.2% of opponents as his walk rate ticked up slightly to 8%. That led his ERA to jump to 5.68.
Coming into 2026, the Nats added Foster Griffin, Zack Littell and Miles Mikolas via free agency. That pushed Parker down the depth chart and he was optioned to the minors to start the season. He was recalled in the middle of April and has been serving in a long relief role for the Nats since then. He has posted a 6.58 ERA in 39 2/3 innings across 22 appearances.
It now seems like there’s a strong chance he won’t be able to change those numbers. Not all UCL sprains lead to surgery but it appears this one is significant and surgery is the most likely outcome here. Even if he doesn’t require surgery, he would be looking at months of recovery regardless. If he does go under the knife, Parker would miss the remainder of this season and a good chunk of 2027 as well, given that the procedure usually takes 14 months or more of recovery time.
Parker racked up exactly two years of service time while in the rotation over the previous two seasons. He will continue to collect service time while on the IL but will come up short of the three-year mark because of spending the first few weeks of this season on optional assignment.
He will qualify for arbitration after this season as a Super Two guy but the Nats will have to decide whether or not to tender him a contract. As mentioned, he may be looking at missing the entire 2027 season. He would still be under club control for three additional seasons after that but his results have been rough for a couple of years now, so the Nats may not want to keep him on the roster throughout the winter. There’s no IL in the offseason, so he would need to be back on the 40-man if the Nats are keeping him around.
Photo courtesy of D. Ross Cameron, Imagn Images
