Orioles weighing 2 options in the wake of disappointing Jordan Westburg update

Jordan Westburg did not want to admit defeat when he was diagnosed with a partially torn ligament in his throwing elbow. Had he gotten the Tommy John surgery back in February when the injury was discovered, he would have been guaranteed to miss the rest of the 2026 season, but could have returned close to fully healthy for the 2027 season. Instead, he opted to get the PRP injections to try to get back on the field sometime in late May or early June.

It had been all quiet on the Westburg front for the last few months as the Orioles were their usual guarded selves when it comes to injury updates. Until yesterday, when the Orioles announced that Westburg had been shut down from baseball activities due to lingering pain in his injured elbow.

A full shutdown in the same month when the Orioles were hoping to get Westburg back does not bode well for him returning to big league action anytime soon. It would also appear to indicate that the injections did not work the way the Orioles and Westburg hoped when they opted for that plan.

How the Orioles and Jordan Westburg decide to approach his injury will impact this season and next

So now the Orioles are at a crucial decision point for Westburg's recovery. They can try to give him a break until his elbow stops barking and then try to ramp him up to join the team in late June/ early July. Or they can just rip the band-aid off and have Westburg get the surgery that he pretty clearly is going to eventually need.

The benefit of having Westburg try to join the team at some point this season is that they could really use another good player to put in their lineup. If he's even 75% of himself, he'd be a massive upgrade over what Coby Mayo and Blaze Alexander have given the Orioles at third base this season.

The downside is that there's a good chance that he just won't be able to return this season, and if that's the case, then by delaying getting the surgery even longer, you'd be costing him the first half or maybe more of the 2027 season. Basically, you could lose two Westburg seasons in an effort to save half of one. That seems a little lopsided from a risk-reward perspective.

The fastest a position player has returned from Tommy John surgery was Bryce Harper, who came back just under six months after getting the surgery. That was as a DH, though, and the Orioles don't have a ton of room on their roster to just give Westburg the DH position, and with all due respect to Westburg, he's not quite the level of hitter that a team would want on their roster as a pure DH and nothing else.

It's also a bit irresponsible to only look at the shortest possible time a recovery could take, 9-12 months is a much more realistic and fair expectation for a full recovery, and so the longer Westburg waits to get the surgery to more of 2027, the more he's going to lose.

If Westburg gets the surgery in the next few weeks, there's a good chance he could play most of the 2027 season even with a slower recovery, but the clock is ticking. Unless the pain in his elbow miraculously resolves this week, they should strongly consider doing what's best for the players’ and the team's long-term interests.

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