Kinney's Elbow More Than Barking

[jim]

You are asking if pitchers have come back from Tommy John? It's getting hard to find a pitching staff that doesn't have a pitcher who has come back from it. It's not routine, but the success rate is very high on the surgery and is certainly not a death sentence to a career.

I'm asking about breaking balls in particular after Tommy John. I don't think Kinney can make it back to the Bigs without his slider. His other stuff isn't that great...
Will it be the same when he comes back? I don't know... but that's what I'm pessimistic about.

I don't think any pitcher is the same. David Wells relies on his breaking stuff, he came back ok. Odalis Perez is another guy, Chris Carpenter has nice breaking stuff. Izzy has a nice slider. It goes on and on.

There is never a guarantee, but if you are looking for guys who had TJ and came back with good breaking stuff the list is pretty long.

[TAZ]

You are asking if pitchers have come back from Tommy John? It's getting hard to find a pitching staff that doesn't have a pitcher who has come back from it. It's not routine, but the success rate is very high on the surgery and is certainly not a death sentence to a career.

I'm asking about breaking balls in particular after Tommy John. I don't think Kinney can make it back to the Bigs without his slider. His other stuff isn't that great...
Will it be the same when he comes back? I don't know... but that's what I'm pessimistic about.

I don't think any pitcher is the same. David Wells relies on his breaking stuff, he came back ok. Odalis Perez is another guy, Chris Carpenter has nice breaking stuff. Izzy has a nice slider. It goes on and on.

There is never a guarantee, but if you are looking for guys who had TJ and came back with good breaking stuff the list is pretty long.

THANK YOU! That's what I asked for, I'm feeling more optimistic

Nice job dude. I should send you a beer or something!

[GeddyWrox]

You are asking if pitchers have come back from Tommy John? It's getting hard to find a pitching staff that doesn't have a pitcher who has come back from it. It's not routine, but the success rate is very high on the surgery and is certainly not a death sentence to a career.

I'm asking about breaking balls in particular after Tommy John. I don't think Kinney can make it back to the Bigs without his slider. His other stuff isn't that great...
Will it be the same when he comes back? I don't know... but that's what I'm pessimistic about.

I don't think any pitcher is the same. David Wells relies on his breaking stuff, he came back ok. Odalis Perez is another guy, Chris Carpenter has nice breaking stuff. Izzy has a nice slider. It goes on and on.

There is never a guarantee, but if you are looking for guys who had TJ and came back with good breaking stuff the list is pretty long.

THANK YOU! That's what I asked for, I'm feeling more optimistic

Nice job dude. I should send you a beer or something!

Carp didn't come back from elbow surgery though, IIRC. Wasn't it a serious shoulder injury?

[Leroy]

Whatever it was, it wasn't Tommy John.

bark

[haltz]

David Gassko has a pretty lengthy piece on TJ surgery in the Hardball Times Annual this year, and he identified 182 pitchers who have had the operation, 74 pitched in the bigs pre and post-procedure. To paraphrase a really lengthy article, he basically demonstrates that Tommy John surgery helps pitchers very slightly in performance, using 11,000 "weighted" IP as a sample against normal aging patterns. As far as specific pitches are concerned, he doesn't go into much detail, but he does say this:

Of course, on the other hand, the surgery has other effects as well. It forces pitchers to adapt their repertoires--Wood had to drop his nasty curveball for a slurve that puts less stress on the arm, but moves less well. Many pitchers can't make the recovery, or if they do, the don't come back the same. Can it be that Tommy John surgery hurts pitchers then?

Luckily, this question can be examined by looking at my database...

He goes on to describe the conclusions that I mentioned above. The detail of the one-hour surgery and one-year rehab is pretty fascinating.

Tommy John surgery is indeed a medical miracle; it doesn't just repair the pitcher, it makes him good as new.

And, according to my database, Tommy John surgery has given us around 40,000 innings from pitchers whose career would have otherwise been done.

re: Carpenter, I thought it was a bone spur in his elbow and scar tissue in his shoulder.

[Phyrkrakr]

IIRC, Matt Morris had TJ in 1999, then in 2001, he went 22 and 8 with 216 IP. And he still had that nasty curve working well.

It wasn't until his shoulder went wonky that he really started going downhill and lost his ace caliber stuff.

His Tommy John was at age 24, though, and Kinney is already 27. That might make the difference. Also, I asked this in the original post, but didn't Kinney have surgery on his elbow already?

[Jmodene]

3 lefties? Heck, if Cate or Narveson have a solid spring, and given the health of our righties, we could wind up with *four* lefties!

[Michael]

I merged Hungary Jack's thread.

[jim]

Carp had shoulder surgery as well as two TJ's (2000,2003).

[Hungary Jack]

Carp had 2 TJ's? Don't believe so. That would have meant that he missed essentially 2 full seasons. He's only missed one (2003), and that was due to his shoulder problems.

According to Wikepedia, Carp has never had TJ:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:P ... hn_surgery

This list is not exhaustive, but I think Carp would be on it if he had the procedure.