By: Jacob Zanolla
Cole Mathis underwent Tommy John Surgery recently, as he announced on his Instagram Thursday morning. Mathis is now the Cubs’ 12th ranked prospect according to MLB Pipeline after being drafted in the second round of the 2024 MLB Draft.
Mathis was a two-way player in college, but the Cubs immediately said that their plan was to work with him purely as a hitter. Mathis put up excellent numbers in his last college season, with a .340 average and 1.131 OPS. His wRC+ of 179 is what really sticks out. Sure its only college ball, but not everyone can hit that effectively.
Mathis can play first base and third base, but this surgery basically rules out any third base work for the next year at least. Thankfully, because Mathis is not pitching, he should be able to do some DH and first base work to begin next season, similar to what Bryce Harper did so that a return was sped up. Looking at his stats from college, the exit velocity is absolutely incredible, along with his wOBA, xwOBA, and xDamage. Losing a month of baseball is never ideal, but the positive is that its only a month before the offseason, and this didn’t happen sometime like May or June where even more time would be missed.
The assumption is that Hoyer knew about the injury when drafting Mathis, or at least after completing the physical before signing. As I said above, the surgery isn’t as big of a blow because of his position, but once someone has TJ you always have to worry it will be re-injured. If Hoyer and his front office did indeed know about the injury ahead of time, that means they must be very confident in his skill, even after taking some time off to heal.
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