Cleveland Guardians lose key member of bullpen until 2026

The 2024 MLB season has not gone according to plan for Cleveland Guardians reliever Sam Hentges, and the difficulties he has experienced will last a lot longer.

It was reported on Tuesday that Hentges will be having shoulder surgery and will miss the next 12-14 months. This will not only cost him the rest of the season, an outcome that was already expected but all of next season as well. The next time that Hentges will be on the mound in a major league game will come in 2026 at the absolute earliest. 

Despite missing the first part of this season, first-year manager Stephen Vogt entrusted Hentges to pitch late in games before handing the ball off to closer Emmanuel Clase to shut the door. Hentges would finish his abbreviated 2024 campaign with a 3.04 ERA, 0.972 WHIP, and 10.3 strikeouts per nine while accumulating nine holds in 23.2 innings across 25 appearances, more than justifying Vogt's decision to have him handle these duties.

Losing Hentges for the rest of 2024 puts Cleveland in a position where the only left-handed arms in their bullpen are Tim Herrin and Erik Sabrowski, with the occasional appearance being made by former outfielder-turned-reliever Anthony Gose. While they have been able to manage, for the most part, with these players available to them, this is still a group that would benefit from the presence of Hentges if he were available. It will be interesting to see how Vogt and pitching coach Carl Willis decide to handle their relief corps once the postseason comes.

Looking beyond this season, the Guardians are going to need to look at other options to bring into the fold, considering that Hentges will not make an appearance in 2025. Perhaps they are able to uncover another hidden gem as they have for their starting rotation in the forms of Ben Lively and Matthew Boyd. However, it would the state of the bullpen would be a lot more encouraging if they were to go out and bring a proven arm into the equation rather than hoping to catch lightning in a bottle again.