Hunter Dobbins had elbow surgery Wednesday, and the timeline is brutal: 12 months, according to the Cardinals. That puts him on track to miss the rest of 2026 and likely all of 2027, a gut punch for a 27-year-old who'd only just carved out a rotation spot in St. Louis.
Hunter Dobbins had elbow reconstructive surgery Wednesday and will require a 12-month recovery, #stlcards official says. It’s his second surgery of his right elbow.
This isn't Dobbins' first rodeo with this elbow. He already had Tommy John surgery once, back in his junior year of college in 2021, performed by Dr. Keith Meister. When he landed on the injured list in mid-August with forearm discomfort after exiting a start against the Phillies mid-at-bat, Dobbins reportedly insisted it felt different from the tear that ended his college season. He went to see Meister again for a second opinion this week anyway.
Turns out he needed to. Derrick Goold followed up with more precise language on exactly what got repaired, and it matters: this wasn't a redo of the full Tommy John procedure. It was a repair of the same ligament plus the flexor tendon around it. Same elbow, second operation, same 12-month clock.
Some additional clarification/reporting on Hunter Dobbins: This surgery was a repair of ligament, which he previously had addressed with Tommy John surgery, and tendon. This is a second elbow surgery, not a second full TJ. Still 12 months. Explained here: t.co/VfzDzH8S1P
The distinction is more than semantics. A full second Tommy John tends to carry worse odds and a longer road back than a targeted ligament-and-tendon repair, so the fact that Meister didn't have to go back in and rebuild the whole thing from scratch is the one piece of good news buried in an otherwise ugly update.
Dobbins had been a legitimate midseason story for St. Louis. He came over from Boston in the deal that sent Willson Contreras the other way, opened the year rehabbing from ACL surgery, then bounced between Memphis and the majors four separate times between May and August before finally sticking. In 54 innings, he'd put up a 3.67 ERA — solid production from a guy the Cardinals weren't counting on for saves-the-rotation duty.
Now that arm is shut down for a year, and St. Louis is dealing with it in bulk — Andre Pallante went down with elbow inflammation the same week Dobbins first left his start. For a rotation already scrambling for innings, losing Dobbins for essentially two full seasons on the same elbow is the kind of setback that reshapes offseason plans, not just a next-man-up shrug.