White Sox righty Mike Vasil will undergo Tommy John surgery and miss the entire 2026 season, the team announced Tuesday. Vasil exited his most recent Cactus League outing due to elbow soreness and had been sent for imaging.
It’s as unwelcome a birthday present as one could imagine for Vasil, who’ll turn 26 on Thursday. The former Mets farmhand made his big league debut with the South Siders in 2025 and carved out a big role on the staff, piling up 101 innings of long relief over 47 appearances (three of them starts). He notched a sparkling 2.50 ERA, and while his pedestrian 19.4% strikeout rate and poor 12.3% walk rate led metrics like SIERA (4.58) and FIP (4.32) to view his work more harshly, Vasil looked like a strong candidate to make the club because of his ability to provide bulk relief behind a generally shaky rotation.
Instead, Vasil will spend the entire season on the injured list. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that he’ll accrue a full year of major league service and pay while rehabbing from the forthcoming UCL reconstruction. Vasil picked up a full year of service in 2025 as well, so he’ll be controllable for at least four more years upon his return in 2027. He’ll still have a full slate of minor league options remaining as well.
If not Vasil, the White Sox could look to free agent signees Sean Newcomb and Erick Fedde as long relief/swingman options, though Fedde at least appears ticketed for a rotation spot with the recent announcement from manager Will Venable that Newcomb will begin the season in the bullpen (via Kyle Williams of the Chicago Sun-Times). Southpaws Chris Murphy and Tyler Gilbert are also candidates to serve as long relievers out of Venable’s bullpen. Both have had solid spring showings, and both have minor league options remaining.
