Mick Abel was recommended for arthroscopic surgery on his right elbow Wednesday after a second opinion from Dr. Keith Meister, turning what had looked like a near return into an open-ended shutdown for the Twins. Abel will undergo the surgery and is out indefinitely, with no timetable for his recovery until after the operation.
The timing matters because Abel had been close to getting back to the majors. He had looked sharp in two rehab outings for Triple-A St. Paul and was tentatively set to make his MLB return last Sunday in Arizona before discomfort flared after a Friday bullpen session. That setback sent him for more evaluation, and the medical answer changed quickly.
On Monday, Derek Shelton said Abel's MRI showed no ligament damage and that the Twins would seek another opinion from Meister. That detail made Wednesday's recommendation harder to reconcile on first pass, but it also points to the kind of elbow problem arthroscopic surgery is used to address: joint damage that can linger even when the ligament is intact. Arthroscopic surgery is a minimally invasive procedure on a joint, and it is generally less severe than Tommy John surgery, which repairs the ligament itself.
There is still a practical reason the club has to move carefully. With only three months left in baseball's regular season, a recovery window of any real length would make it difficult for Abel to help again in 2026, and the early read is that he is likely to miss the remainder of the season. The comparison everyone will make is Tarik Skubal, who had a NanoScope procedure on his pitching elbow in early May and was back on an MLB mound around five weeks later, but Abel's case is not yet settled enough to know whether his path will match that one. His next step is the operation itself, and only then will the Twins learn whether his elbow can be cleared on a short timeline or if the wait will run past the season's end.
