PHILADELPHIA — Bryce Harper left an operating room in Los Angeles on Nov. 23 with a reconstructed ligament in his right elbow and a giant question mark over his head.
When might he play again?
In a tightly worded news release issued on Thanksgiving eve, the Phillies announced that the face of the franchise will be back in the lineup, initially as the designated hitter, “by the All-Star break of 2023.” More than a week later, we’re still pondering the ambiguity of that statement.
The All-Star break isn’t until July 10-13. By then, the Phillies will have played 90 games. Is Harper really going to miss more than half the season? Or is this a classic case of underpromising with the hope of overdelivering? If the two-time MVP returns on the Fourth of July, or June 15, or June 1, wouldn’t that still qualify as “by the All-Star break?”
So, yes, if the Phillies’ timetable seems vague and perhaps even a bit conservative, it’s by design. Because although Harper is said to be optimistic about making it back much sooner than the middle of July, pinpointing when he will be recovered from the procedure that is commonly known as “Tommy John surgery” is an inexact science. Even for the medical community.
“The rehabilitation is going to, I would think, begin at four months when it comes to the higher-level activity, but it’s going to progress at its own rate, its own intensity,” said David L. Glaser, an orthopedic surgeon and chief of the shoulder and elbow division at Penn Medicine who has not treated Harper. “The reality is — and I don’t know what other damage he had within the elbow — he’s an elite athlete, and elite athletes tend to heal well.”
This much is clear: Position players, especially outfielders, come back from Tommy John surgery in about half the time as pitchers, who typically require 12 to 18 months. That’s cause for the Phillies to be hopeful — and not to feel panicked into altering their offseason plan, which centers on signing a star free-agent shortstop and adding depth to the starting rotation and the bullpen.
But this is also true: Few outfielders have actually gone through this.
Of the 2,218 instances of Tommy John surgery tracked by baseball writer/analyst Jon Roegele, only 71 (3.2%) were performed on outfielders, notably Aaron Hicks, Carl Crawford, Shin-Soo Choo, Rocco Baldelli, Luis Gonzalez, Matt Holliday, Jay Buhner, José Canseco, and Mike Greenwell. And most had it done during or immediately after a season, according to Rogele’s exhaustive research, giving them ample time to recover before spring training. Harper, by virtue of the Phillies’ playing until Game 6 of the World Series, won’t have that luxury.
But Harper will enjoy one advantage. He can come back as a DH, which was finally incorporated by the National League this year. And since hitting doesn’t affect the torn/newly reconstructed ulnar collateral ligament nearly as much as throwing does — Glaser called it “a completely different mechanism” — it may get him into the lineup faster.
“That would’ve helped me a lot,” Gonzalez, the Diamondbacks’ 2001 World Series hero, said by phone this week. “Obviously that’s a huge bat to miss early in the year, but for Bryce, I mean, that DH definitely helps. Knowing him and knowing the type of athlete that he is, he’s going to do whatever he can to get back on that field as fast as he can.”
In the absence of an apples-to-apples comparison to confidently predict Harper’s return date, let’s look at two examples that may help gauge his timeline more specifically:
Luis Gonzalez
Had the universal DH existed 18 years ago, Gonzalez may have been able to finish out the 2004 season. But with throws from left field becoming too painful to bear and the last-place Diamondbacks headed for 111 losses, he succumbed to surgery on Aug. 1.
“If we were in contention, I would’ve tried to battle my way through it until the following year,” Gonzalez said. “I was in excruciating pain every night. After the game, I would have to hold my arm up in the hot shower. I couldn’t throw. It’s a bad feeling being in the outfield and hoping they don’t hit you a ball because you’ve got to throw it in.
“For me, it helped shutting it down because I was able to rehab early. All offseason, I was doing double-rehab, morning-afternoon, because I wanted to be back. I didn’t want to miss time.”
Like Harper, Gonzalez throws with his right hand but bats from the left side, a combination that Glaser said should enable a player to resume hitting more quickly. According to Glaser, the back elbow tends to absorb the most strain from hitting, while the lead elbow serves more as a guide. In the cases of Gonzalez and Harper, their right (throwing) elbow is in front when they hit.
“If they’re hitting lefty, the right ulnar collateral is going to be relatively protected,” Glaser said. “That’s going to help [Harper’s] recovery.”
Gonzalez said teams tried to exploit his injured elbow in 2004 by pitching him away and getting him to extend his front arm. When he moved closer to the plate, they would bust him inside. He marveled at Harper’s ability to make adjustments during the season and remain productive while also noting that Harper wore a brace to protect his compromised right elbow.
Once Gonzalez reported to spring training in 2005, he no longer had elbow pain nor restrictions on baseball activities. He DH’d in the Diamondbacks’ second spring training game, on March 4, then played left field for the first time four days later.
But estimating Harper’s return isn’t as simple as tacking on 3 1/2 months to Gonzalez’s based on the difference in their surgery dates. Because if spring training had started in, say, January, Gonzalez believes he would have been ready by then, too, at least as a hitter. He couldn’t recall exactly when he resumed swinging but said it was at least one month before he arrived in spring training.
“I remember as soon as I got the green light to start, doing light tee work and being able to,” Gonzalez said. “And the surgeries are probably better than they were back then. The technology, the training, all the stuff that they have now.
“Bryce will find a way. Now, if they are playing well, then there’s no rush for him. But you’re talking about a world-class athlete, a middle-of-the-lineup guy, an impact player when he’s out there. If you get a 50-60 percent Bryce Harper, he’s going to be a lot better than a lot of other options that teams have.”
Shohei Ohtani
Ohtani is the most commonly cited example to gauge Harper’s timetable. Not only is he a right-handed thrower and left-handed hitter, but he’s strictly a DH — well, at least when he isn’t pitching.
After having Tommy John surgery on Oct. 1, 2018, Ohtani began hitting off a machine on April 12, 2019, and faced live pitching in a controlled setting 12 days later, according to multiple reports at the time. Rather than going on a minor league assignment, he got 50 plate appearances in simulated games and was fitted for a brace to shield his elbow while sliding.
Ohtani returned to the Angels lineup as the DH on May 7, 218 days after surgery.
If Harper followed Ohtani’s timeline exactly, he would hit off the pitching machine on June 4 and face live pitching on June 16. A minor league assignment would likely come next. If Harper’s entire recovery took 218 days, he would be back on June 29, the Phillies’ 81st game of the season.
But as a two-way player, Ohtani had other considerations. Although he didn’t resume pitching until the 2020 season, he had to take care not to put undue stress on his right elbow as he returned to hitting. According to some accounts, there were times when he backed off from hitting to give his elbow extra rest.
Harper likely will have starts and stops in his rehab, too, but as Glaser put it, “his standard is not going to be throwing the fastball.”
“One thing I can tell you is, in his mind, his clock is a lot faster than what any doctor would give you,” Gonzalez said. “As an athlete, when somebody tells you it’s going to take two months, you think, ‘I can beat that. Maybe I can get back in a month, month and a half.’ Because that’s the competition now, to see if you can get it right and get back out there and compete for your team. If they give you a timeline, you want to beat that timeline.”
Especially if it’s as broad as “by the All-Star break.”
