I hope you find the topic of Tommy John surgery, who it’s
happening to and why it’s happening so frequently in today’s game an
interesting subject because it’s going to be the only subject we really talk
about today on the blog. I put a lot, and I mean a lot, of research into this
blog post and rather than have it buried in the masses here in a couple of
hours and pushed to the second page I am going to give this post the time on
the front page it deserves. All day long. It may take you all day long to read
it so take your time and really let the information soak in as we take a look
at the pandemic facing Major League Baseball right now. Tommy John surgery.
For the sake of this post we took the last 100 Tommy John
surgery recipients and pooled our data from that. I felt like 100 ulnar
collateral ligaments not only gave an ample sample size for any conclusion we
could draw but it’s also a nice, even number that didn’t require a $400
graphing scientific calculator to spit out the numbers I wanted. Lazy, yet efficient.
After pooling the last 100 Tommy John surgery victims we looked at certain
criteria listed below in the excel spreadsheet in order to see if we could find
a pattern, common denominator or something that may lead to figuring this whole
thing out. Do I expect to change the world with this post? No, but I’m hoping
that maybe I can spark the mind that does and that would be payment enough for
me.
MLB Player Analysis has a Google Doc that you can reference
online and that is where most of the information below both in the chart and
written in this blog post came from so kudos to them. I included certain things
in the chart like average fastball velocity, build/frame and other materials as
well that I thought may piece together the puzzle as well so if you want to see
the original document you can find it HERE. Without further ado here is the
last 100 Tommy John surgery victims (at the time of this writing) and some
pertinent information that we will dissect below.
Here are a few bullet notes from what we found that I think
really can help us figure out what is going on here and why this is happening
at such an alarming rate:
84% of the pitchers were born in the United
States while 8% were from the Dominican Republic, 5% were from Venezuela, 2%
were from Japan and 1% were from Australia.
82% of these pitchers were age 30 or younger
while 18% were above 30-years old. 
Now this raises an interesting question. 84% of the last 100
pitchers to get Tommy John surgery (at the time of this writing) were born in
the United States. Now Major League Baseball, a sport that thrives on being
culturally diverse, has players reach the big leagues from all over the country
so why are mainly American born pitchers having the surgery and not players
from Mexico, Canada, Korea and other parts of the world having this pandemic
with their arms? Why have only two from Japan, one from Australia, 5 from
Venezuela and 8 from the Dominican Republic had the surgery?
Is it the throwing at such an early age? Is it the throwing
of breaking balls as early as Little League? Is it pitching once every five
days in the Major Leagues where Japanese pitchers for example throw once a
week? Every pitcher not named Mariano Rivera throws breaking stuff so is it
fastball velocity? Or is it merely a coincidence? It’s hard to call 84% a
coincidence but let’s keep delving into this and see what we find out.
The final thing I wanted to look at was a pitcher’s frame
and how fast they throw a fastball. Some say mechanics may have a lot to do
with it but when I see a fluid delivery like Chase Whitley and Ivan Nova
undergo the surgery while in Yankees uniforms while pitchers like Aroldis
Chapman and Tim Lincecum not going under the knife for elbow ligament
replacement surgery I tend to think the windup and delivery has little to
nothing to do with it as well. For every Carter Capps on this list you have
another 10-20 Nathan Eovaldi’s who simply rear back and throw. Is it velocity?
Is it frame? Is it both? Or is there simply no common factor here? Let’s look.
The average height and weight for a man in the United States
according to a simple Google search is 5’10” and 195.5 pounds. Common sense
would tell you that the higher above that average, up to a certain extent of
course, the more “durable” you would be assuming conditioning and such being
comparable across the board. Well as you can see there is no rhyme or reason to
the pitchers frame either. You have big build undergoing the surgery, where
stereotypically the bigger framed pitchers are thought to be more durable,
while you also have some, albeit less, smaller framed pitchers undergoing the
surgery as well. For the longest times the Johan Santana’s and Pedro Martinez
type frames were considered to be a walking time bomb but this excel
spreadsheet shows that to not be the case anymore, at least when it comes to
Tommy John surgery.
And as you can see, and probably already know without me
listing it, you have examples from every part of the velocity map here as well.
You have your hard throwers like Nathan Eovaldi and the recently deceased, your
soft tossers like Bronson Arroyo and Chase Whitley (and remember Jamie Moyer
when you consider whether velocity has any bearing on Tommy John surgery) and
about everything in between. They are all throwing off the same mound
dimensions, using the same ball, etc. etc. etc. You also have players who have
had duplicate Tommy John surgeries, Tim Collins, and players who never spent a
day on the disabled list throughout their careers, Bronson Arroyo, on the list
showing it’s also not a durability issue. It seems like these things simply
just happen. And when you replace the ligament these things can still happen.
And happen again.
Onward to the “probably useless knowledge but I wanted to
include anyway because I found it interesting” portion of the program ladies
and gentleman. Carry on.
72% of the pitchers were right-handed while just
28% were left-handed.
46% were from American League teams while 54%
were from National League teams.
28% of players never returned to the Major
Leagues after their Tommy John surgery while 19% are still under that 12-15
month window which signifies they are still recovering.
If 12-15 months is the general and average time
to be out after a Tommy John surgery then 25% of pitchers missed that mark
(again keeping in mind that 19% are still yet to be determined and 28% never
returned). Only 28% of pitchers had the surgery and were back in the Major Leagues
in 15 months or less.
44% of these pitchers had Dr. James Andrews
conduct the surgery.
So there you have it folks. Are we any better off or more
knowledgeable than we were 20 minutes ago? Maybe not but like I said I don’t
expect to change the game or the world with this post but maybe, just maybe, I
can spark the mind that does with it. One can only hope. I hope you enjoyed
reading and I hope this post wasn’t too awful long. If it was I at least hope
you learned something from it. Have a great day everyone.
Oh, and please pass this post along to anyone and everyone
you think may be interested in it. I put a lot of work and research into this
and I want this post to touch as many people as possible. Thank you.
