Tejay Antone did everything a comeback candidate could ask for this season. He got back on a major league mound after three Tommy John surgeries, held down a meaningful role in the Cincinnati Reds bullpen and put up the kind of numbers that usually force a team to take notice.
That apparently still wasn’t enough to get him named a finalist for the Players Choice National League Comeback Player of the Year Award.
Instead, the three finalists announced for the honor were Sandy Alcantara, Martín Perez and Zack Wheeler. Antone was left out, and it’s hard to make sense of that omission after the season he put together.
Antone finished with a 3.11 ERA across 58 appearances, striking out 57 batters in 55 innings. For any reliever, that’s a solid line. For someone returning from everything he’s been through, it stands out even more.
Just making it back after three Tommy John surgeries would have been a comeback worth recognizing. Antone went further than that, becoming one of Cincinnati’s most dependable arms out of the bullpen and proving he could still handle a full major league workload.
This wasn’t a short stint or a feel-good handful of outings. He appeared in 58 games and showed he could still be an above-average big-league reliever.
There’s no need to knock Alcantara, Perez or Wheeler to make the point. Each has a comeback case of his own.
But there should have been room for Antone, too.
Jonny Venters won MLB’s NL Comeback Player of the Year award in 2018 after returning from three Tommy John surgeries with a 3.67 ERA in 50 appearances, and that only sharpens the question around Antone’s exclusion. He posted a better ERA, worked in more games and came back from the same kind of long road.
Antone had the story and the production. At minimum, that should have earned him finalist status.
Being left off the list doesn’t erase what he accomplished for the Reds this year. It just leaves you wondering what more he could have done to get the recognition.
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