Top 5 Guardians Prospect Placed on Injured List With Elbow Injury

Stephen is widely regarded as one of baseball's most exciting pitching prospects, being involved in a trade with Shane Bieber included in it last season.

Akron RubberDucks pitcher Khal Stephen answers questions from reporters during media day April 1, 2026, at 7 17 Credit Union Park in Akron. | Andrew Dolph / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Injuries to pitchers have popped up out of nowhere recently for the Cleveland Guardians' organization.

After seeing major league relievers Shawn Armstrong and Erik Sabrowski go down with injuries, resulting in them being placed on the injured list, one of the organization's top prospects has ended up on the 7-day injured list now.

On Thursday, June 11, it was confirmed that 23-year-old Khal Stephen was placed on the list due to an injury to his throwing arm, specifically, right elbow soreness. Competing with Double-A Akron this season, he most recently tossed on June 7 against the Chesapeake Baysox.

He was removed after just one inning, finishing with one walk on just 16 pitches.

As of now, it appears this injury scare won’t cause any long-term issues or discomfort and is simply a precautionary measure to ensure it doesn’t become a larger problem.

On the season, he has been relatively efficient. Ranking as the No. 4 prospect in the Guardians' farm system, he has posted a 3.44 ERA with a 1.364 WHIP. Through 12 starts, he has shown a good mix of striking out batters at an elite clip and forcing batters into weak contact.

Just a few weeks ago, while visiting Stephen in Akron, he shared with the BIGPLAY Sports Network and OnSI that he hopes to find consistency this year.

"I mean, I think the biggest thing for me is, as far as, like, arsenal-wise and pitching, is just finding consistency in all my stuff and being able to know and replicate the same spin, the same shape in my spin pitches," he said about the work he has been doing to get better. "So that was the biggest thing for me, and just getting back in the spring training, being able to work with the team and see some numbers, see the iPad and that kind of thing was definitely really good for my development."

"...what I've seen out of myself is that strikeouts are a little higher, which is nice, and it's good to see that when my shapes are on and when I'm being consistent, I'm seeing good results."

With this injury not expected to hinder his development, he is expected to continue climbing through the minor league ranks. If he can keep up his current pace, and the rest of the guys above him keep moving up, there's a chance that he works his way up to Triple-A by the end of the campaign.

For now, though, the goal is to just get healthy.