Renown Surgeon Doubts Texas Rangers Ace Jacob deGrom Surgery Recovery
One of the natural questions when it comes to Texas Rangers pitcher Jacob deGrom and his recovery from UCL surgery is whether he’ll be the same pitcher he was before the injury.
At least one renowned orthopedic surgeon that has performed many UCL surgeries in his career has his doubts.
Dr. Richard Lehman, medical director at the U.S. Center for Sports Medicine in St. Louis, has often performed what is commonly known as Tommy John surgery. He recently spoke about recovery from two Tommy John surgeries on the "Baseball Isn't Boring" podcast.
Dr. Lehman said there are a lot of misconceptions around the surgery, including that it helps pitchers throw harder when they return. deGrom had a Tommy John surgery in 2010 and emerged as one of the league’s hardest throwers post-recovery. But he said those two things are not connected.
Stating the obvious, he said having a second Tommy John is “not a good thing.”
"I mean, deGrom, this guy was throwing 97 – he was unbelievable, untouchable,” he said. “But, again, if you drive your car 200,000 miles as fast as you can, something's going to happen, and that's what's happened.”
Dr. Lehman pointed out that, statistically, 25-30 percent of Major League pitchers are going to have Tommy John at some point. Having a second one is much rarer. The recovery, he said, is harder to predict.
Take Nathan Eovaldi. He’s one of those two-time Tommy John pitchers. He had his first in high school and second while with the New York Yankees in 2016.
In his MLB seasons before his second Tommy John, Eovaldi was 38-46 with a 4.21 ERA.
Post-surgery, Eovaldi is 38-25 with a 3.87 ERA.
Dr. Lehman might look at a pitcher like Eovaldi as an outlier. His numbers have clearly gotten better.
But with a second surgery like this for deGrom, there are no guarantees.
"There's going to be that guy who just lights it up, or changes his pitching pattern, or picks up a new pitch," Lehman said. "And clearly that does happen, but the ability to throw hard and have endurance diminishes after a second reconstruction."
deGrom hopes to return by August 2024, which would be 14 months from his surgery, which was performed by Rangers team physician Dr. Keith Meister.
deGrom is in the first year of a five-year, $185 million deal signed in December.
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