FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas right-handed pitcher Jaxon Wiggins will miss the 2023 season with an elbow injury that will require Tommy John surgery.
Wiggins, a junior who has been projected as one of the top prospects in this year’s MLB Draft, missed his scrimmage start last weekend due to what coaches referred to as soreness in his throwing arm. An MRI on Wednesday revealed a torn ulnar cruciate ligament, or UCL.
Wiggins will have surgery performed by Texas Rangers team physician Keith Meister at a date to be determined.
“We feel bad for Jaxon,” Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said in a statement. “He worked incredibly hard over the offseason and was prepared to lead our rotation. While we are certainly disappointed that he won’t be able to see the results of his hard work on the mound this season, our priority is his health and recovery.”
This marks the second consecutive year the Razorbacks have lost one of their front-line pitchers just before the season was set to begin. Right-hander Peyton Pallette tore his UCL during preseason practice last year and missed the season after requiring the same surgery.
Pallette was a projected first-round draft pick at the time of his injury. He was drafted by the Chicago White Sox in the second round of last year’s draft and signed for a reported $1.5 million.
Wiggins was recently ranked the No. 61 prospect in this year’s draft by Baseball America. He appeared in 34 games with 19 starts during his freshman and sophomore seasons, and recorded a 9-4 record with a 6.17 ERA in 89 innings. Wiggins has 110 career strikeouts and 57 walks.
Wiggins showed improved consistency during fall practices after a summer of working with former MLB pitcher Dustin Moseley.
“Jaxon has been as good as we’ve got, and that’s saying something, I think, on this pitching staff,” Arkansas pitching coach Matt Hobbs said last October. “He’s been very good.
“He throws way more strikes — like a ton more strikes with every pitch. All of a sudden, Jaxon is becoming…who we want him to be. It’s not because he started throwing harder and it’s not because his breaking ball got significantly better. It’s because those pitches are now inside the zone more often.”
With Wiggins set to redshirt, redshirt junior right-hander Will McEntire and junior left-hander Hunter Hollan appear most likely to join returning left-handed sophomore starter Hagen Smith in the Razorbacks’ weekend rotation.
Arkansas has not announced its starters for next week’s College Baseball Showdown in Arlington, Texas, where the No. 6 Razorbacks are scheduled to play No. 24 Texas, No. 17 TCU and No. 8 Oklahoma State in consecutive days.
"It sucks," Smith said of Wiggins' injury. "This whole season will be for him. Since he can't do it, we've got to do it for him."
Van Horn has called this year's pitching staff his deepest in 21 seasons as Arkansas' coach.
"We’ve got depth," Van Horn said last month, "but what you see on paper, we’ve got to get it done on the field.”