Rockies Achieve Encouraging Ranking in Pitchers with Tommy John Surgery

The Colorado Rockies had an awful season in 2025, but baseball’s most important surgery wasn’t to blame.

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The Colorado Rockies had their worst season ever in 2025. But Tommy John surgery wasn’t to blame.

The surgery is baseball’s most famous and important surgery. The operation, now more than 50 years old, helps extend the careers of pitchers that suffer a tear of their ulnar collateral ligament in their throwing arm. Pioneered by Dr. Frank Jobe and named for the first pitcher that excelled after the surgery, Tommy John, it is now ubiquitous in the game.

The thing is, teams like the Rockies would love nothing more than for all of their pitchers to avoid the surgery entirely. But, that's not how things work in baseball anymore.

Recently, baseball writer and analyst Jon Roegele combed every MLB pitching staff in 2025. His question? Find every pitcher that was used in the season that, at some point, had Tommy John surgery. That surgery could have been at any time in their life, from youth baseball to the Majors. What he found was startling.

Last season, 39.1% of all Major League pitchers had the surgery at some point in their career. The Rockies, fortunately, didn’t play a huge role in that in a season where they were the worst team in baseball.  

Colorado Rockies’ Tommy John Ledger for 2025

Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images

By Roegele’s research, seven Rockies pitchers last season had Tommy John surgery at some point in their career. That list included Seth Halvorson, Jaden Hill, Bradley Blalock, Lucas Gilbreath McCade Brown, German Marquez and Antonio Senzatela. Their seven pitchers with the surgery were fourth-best in baseball, with the Milwaukee Brewers (five), the Cleveland Guardians (four) and the Sl. Louis Cardinals (four) with fewer pitchers.

Marquez, who pitched for the Rockies for 10 years and is currently a free agent, had his surgery in May of 2023 and had to miss most of the 2024 season between rehabbing the injury and suffering a stress reaction in the elbow. Before that, he was a reliable starter. He won 10 or more games in four seasons, including a 14-11 record in 2018.

Brown was a unique call-up in August. The Rockies promoted him straight from Double-A to face the Pittsburgh Pirates and Paul Skenes while on a road trip. Brown was a second-round pick in 2021, but his Tommy John surgery had limited him to less than 200 minor league auditions. Colorado’s move not only allowed him to get a taste of the Majors but protected him from December’s Rule 5 draft, so the Rockies believed at the time he was part of their future.

With young pitchers coming up the pipeline, new leadership is hoping that they can avoid the surgery and remain on the field, even if recovery is now expected and not just hoped for.

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