Cody Bradford To Return From UCL Surgery In May

Rangers left-hander Cody Bradford is working back from last June’s internal brace procedure. Reporting from the end of the regular season suggested Bradford could make an atypically quick recovery and be ready for the start of Spring Training, but it seems the Rangers are now planning for the southpaw to miss the first month or so of the season.

Bradford tells Shawn McFarland of The Dallas Morning News that he’s scheduled to throw his first bullpen session this week. He’s hopeful of embarking on a minor league rehab assignment not long after the start of the regular season. That’d put him in line for a return to MLB action sometime in May.

A local product who attended Baylor, Bradford debuted in a swing role in 2023. He struggled as a rookie but showed more promise in year two. Bradford missed the first half of the ’24 season with a back injury but pitched well upon getting a rotation look once he returned. He took the ball 14 times and posted a 3.54 earned run average with a 23% strikeout rate against a 4.2% walk percentage. Bradford has always had elite command, but the solid strikeout stuff came as a little more of a surprise. He sits in the 89-90 MPH range with his fastball and managed to keep hitters off balance by playing the four-seam off his 81 MPH changeup.

Bradford had a good chance to open the 2025 season in the rotation. He reported elbow soreness while ramping up during Spring Training. Initial imaging came back clean but he was eventually diagnosed with UCL damage that required surgery. The internal brace doesn’t come with the same 14-16 month rehab window of the full Tommy John procedure.

Texas will open the season with an excellent top three of Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Jack Leiter. The depth falls off sharply. Jacob Latz pitched well last year in a swing role but has never held a rotation spot. Kumar Rocker battled mechanical issues and spent most of the final two months of the season overhauling things at the complex. No one else on the 40-man roster has any kind of MLB starting experience.

President of baseball operations Chris Young said last week the team is focused on deepening the pitching before Opening Day. Some kind of addition feels inevitable, though there’s a decent chance they’ll wait out the market in hopes of grabbing a fifth starter/swing type for a few million dollars during Spring Training.