Two Tommy John surgeries?

[knuckleballah22]

Has a baseball player ever returned from two tommy john surgeries? successfully?

[SkyBlues42]

Chris Capuano is one that I know of. There are probably more, just not sure who.

[jimmysingh9]

you worried about Kyle Drabek?

[RickRude]

There's only a handful that have had it twice. Capuano is the only one to pitch again, but I'm guessing you're asking about Brian Wilson, Joakim Soria, and Kyle Drabek. They'll all be having it a second time. Will be interesting to keep an eye on.

[GreyMatterStats]

I was at an event a few weeks ago and started up a conversation with a guy who happened to be a surgeon who has preformed this procedure on some notable athletes.

I might be screwing up some of the medical terminology, but the way he explained it to me was that by the time a pitcher is in need of this surgery their abilities have dropped to some percentage of what they were when at their best. That percentage could be anywhere say from 0%-70% of what was their maximum effectiveness.

Generally speaking, the ligament in the elbow can simply "snap" or weaken over time.

In either case if the problem is specific to the ligament that is replaced by the new tendon, the athlete can expect their effectiveness to return to where it was when they were at their best, and the procedure is expected to last the remainder of their career.

If the root cause of the ligament tearing or wearing down is the "surrounding infrastructure" of the elbow, and not the ligament itself, then the prognosis is not nearly as good. He did mention that many times damage to the "surrounding infrastructure" is caused by mechanics that most professionals either struggle to or refuse to change.

I didn't ask any questions regarding multiple surgeries but I would suspect that guys that have this done multiple times fall into that second category of having arm issue outside of the ligament alone.

He did tell me that he has seen some phenomenal outcomes, and in some cases pitchers turning the clock back 5+ years in terms of velocity and location.

[ChiefZilla]

(06-21-2012 11:23 AM)RickRude Wrote:  There's only a handful that have had it twice. Capuano is the only one to pitch again, but I'm guessing you're asking about Brian Wilson, Joakim Soria, and Kyle Drabek. They'll all be having it a second time. Will be interesting to keep an eye on.

This is Soria's second? Wondering how I didn't know that.