Brandon Woodruff stood in front of reporters and said the thing no pitcher wants to say: he’s going back under the knife for the same shoulder, and he knows what that means.
The Milwaukee Brewers right-hander told CBS 58’s Darius Joseph and other reporters that he will undergo capsule surgery on his throwing shoulder, ending his 2026 season. The recovery timeline will cost him at least part of 2027 as well. Woodruff, 33, said he does not plan to retire, telling reporters he will “attack this rehab with the goal in mind of pitching again.”
This is the second capsule repair on the same shoulder. The first came in October 2023 and wiped out his entire 2024 season. His 2025 return was pushed back twice — ankle soreness, then an elbow contusion — during minor league rehab assignments, delaying his first start until July 6 of that year. A lat strain then sidelined him for the Brewers’ postseason run. The man has not had a clean calendar year since 2022.
The 2026 season followed the same grim pattern. Woodruff landed on the injured list twice with shoulder discomfort, both times traced to a cyst forming in his labrum area. He last pitched July 4. When the Brewers moved him to the 60-day injured list last Sunday, the writing was on the wall.
And here’s the brutal arithmetic of consecutive shoulder capsule surgeries for a starting pitcher: the first one cost Woodruff 14 months. The second one starts a clock that likely runs longer, not shorter, on a joint that has already been repaired once and is now 33 years old. Woodruff was sitting 92–93 mph this season, down from the 94–95 he touched in his prime, and still generating swings-and-misses with four pitches and elite command. Fangraphs valued his abbreviated 2026 output at $9.9 million in performance value — a reminder that when he is on a mound, he remains one of the better pitchers in the National League. The problem has never been the pitching. It has been getting to the mound and staying there.
Woodruff’s contract situation adds another layer. He signed a qualifying offer deal with Milwaukee, and the Brewers now face a decision on a pitcher who has produced when available but has been available for roughly half of the last four seasons. A cheap one-year deal with incentives — the kind of “rehab dart” that teams throw at damaged arms — is the most likely outcome if Woodruff wants to stay in Milwaukee and the Brewers want to keep the door open for a second-half 2027 return.
For now, the Brewers lose a frontline starter in the middle of a division race they currently lead, and Woodruff begins another long rehabilitation with no guarantee that the shoulder will hold a third time. He said he is not done. The shoulder will have the final say.
Sources
- MLB Trade Rumors — Brandon Woodruff To Undergo Season-Ending Shoulder Surgery
- CBS 58 — Darius Joseph (original report, via MLBTR attribution)