PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. – The Braves’ spring of misfortune continued Thursday with the announcement that Brandon Beachy would have Tommy John surgery Friday, the pitcher’s second ligament-reconstruction surgery and third overall elbow surgery in a span of just 21 months.
The surgery will be done by Dr. Neal ElAttrache, the Dodgers team physician, rather than Dr. James Andrews, who did Beachy’s previous Tommy John surgery in June 2012 as well as his arthroscopic procedure in September to remove a bone chip. Andrews, considered a foremost practitioner of Tommy John surgery, performed the procedure Tuesday on Braves pitcher Kris Medlen, also the second TJ surgery for Medlen in a span of 41 months.
Andrews has done virtually all arm surgeries on Braves in recent memory, including both Tommy John surgeries for reliever Jonny Venters, who is currently recovering from his May 2012 procedure and hopes to join the Braves bullpen in June.
Beachy is just the 25th pitcher known to have had more than one Tommy John surgery, and the Braves will, somewhat remarkably, have three of those 25 all in various stages of recovery from the second TJ surgery. Fourteen of the previous 24 have come back to pitch in the majors, with varying degrees of success, and three more — Venters, Randy Wolf, Todd Coffey – are nearing possible returns this season.
Only about 20 percent of the pitchers who’ve returned from a second Tommy John surgery have pitched again at their pre-surgery performance level, and the percentage has been higher for relievers than starters.
The announcement that Beachy would have TJ surgery was expected, as the Braves had said earlier in the week that tests showed damage to Beachy’s ulnar collateral ligament, rather than merely biceps tightness as he’d initially believed was the source of his pain when he left a March 10 game after completing only two of his four scheduled innings.
Beachy and Medlen saw Andrews together earlier this week, and Beachy decided to travel to Los Angeles to get another opinion from ElAttrache about the need for another TJ surgery. ElAttrache cocurred with the torn-ligament diagnosis and surgery recommendation, and Beachy decided to have ElAttrache do the surgery rather than Andrews.
Braves general manager Frank Wren said the team left it up to the invididual player to decide on a surgeon, since it’s the player’s career that’s involved. Both Medlen and Beachy are under one-year contracts and would remain under team contract in 2015, if the Braves decide to tender them contracts after the season.
Wren said this week that the Braves would evaluate their post-surgery protocol going forward. The team has followed Andrews’ recommendations and not rushed pitchers back ahead of the 12-month-or-more recovery period following Tommy John surgeries, but their recent rash of re-injuries has led them to re-examine how they’re doing things.
