Nobody threw a baseball harder and with better command than the Rangers’ Jacob deGrom. Since his breakthrough season of 2018, deGrom owned the hardest fastball among all MLB starters (97.4 mph average), the hardest slider (92.0 mph), the best strikeout rate among pitchers with 500 innings (12.3 per nine innings), the best strikeout-to-walk rate (7.03) and the lowest batting average allowed (.187).
It was pitching elevated to its highest form. With power and command never before seen, deGrom pushed right up against the physical limits of the human body—and eventually through it. His brilliant career is on hold again, if not entirely in doubt, because of a second Tommy John surgery, the latest in a series of breakdowns.
deGrom will turn 35 next week. Second Tommy John surgeries, known as revisions, require longer, slower rehabs. Recent studies show the average time between a revision and return to a major league mound is 20.76 months. Success rate (return to form) is lower for revisions than initial surgeries: between 33% and 78%, as compared to between 80% and 95%. Only 29% of revisions led to pitching more than two seasons in MLB.
