After receiving a second opinion, A’s right-hander Daulton Jefferies is scheduled to undergo thoracic outlet surgery on Monday per Matt Kawahara of The San Francisco Chronicle. Oakland will share more details about Jefferies’ recovery timetable after the surgery is completed.
The surgery decision comes as little surprise after the 26-year-old Jefferies was placed on the 15-day IL a few weeks ago. A subsequent move to the 60-day IL largely dashed any chance that the right-handed pitcher would return to the hill in short order.
For the time being, the A’s appear set to roll with a rotation headed by Frankie Montas, Cole Irvin, and Paul Blackburn who are all off to strong starts this season. James Kaprielian and Jared Koenig, who was called up this past Sunday, present a pair of interesting options to hold down the fort at the back of the rotation.
While that group will hardly stand in the way of Jefferies receiving future looks in the rotation— he has first-round pedigree and strong peripherals working in his favor— the last place A’s have no urgency to rush him back. More pressing for the organization is the recovery of a player under five additional years of team control.
As has been discussed ad nauseam when it comes to any major procedure like TOS surgery, nothing is guaranteed in terms of pitching success upon recovery. D-backs starter Merrill Kelly and Chris Archer of the Twins are both years removed from the procedure and having modest success out of the rotation this year. Past pitchers haven’t always rebounded as decently however, as former Padres starter Tyson Ross, for example, saw a promising career derailed by the procedure. More recently, Nationals reliever Will Harris underwent the procedure in May of 2021 but has yet to return this season.
He should be healthy by the time the A’s climb into second to last place.
You forgot to mention Harvey as tos killed his career
I thought all the partying and blow ruined the dark knight.
Definitely the hookers and blow
It’s both. If it weren’t for TOS he might be able to sober up and come back. But it’s not one or the other, it’s both.
What, why, how.
Im not old old, but im old enough to remember SP being able to go the distance at any time. There wasn’t a plethora of TJ surgery.
Pitcher’s always got hurt, but never to this extent.
Is it really the “hard throwing”??? As a kid I threw hard, I threw sliders and curves. I didn’t develop any arm issues until I started playing softball as an out of shape adult and tore my labrum trying to go 100% without warming up.
I played the AAA equivalent for Canadian rep ball, the traveling around Ontario and the occasional BC or AB tournament. With the strength and conditioning plus medical advances, I can’t figure out how TJ surgery is just going through the roof
Way back in 2002, fastball velocity across MLB averaged 89.0 mph, It’s increased every year since. For this season it’s up to 93.5 mph. We know that throwing overhand is unnatural and leads to injury. So if you factor in guys throwing in harder than ever in an unnatural way then more injuries should be the expected result.
So explain Nolan Ryan…. is he just an outlier?
If someone with your expertise can’t explain it I don’t think anyone can.
Nolan Ryan is absolutely an outlier, he’s pretty much one of a kind.
@n8888 thanks for contributing to the conversation, the wisdom you shared will make everyone here a better person and you sir should pat yourself on the back for gracing us with your presence
Not entirely sure Ryan was human. What he did was unprecedented in modern baseball.
Ryan actually tore his UCL, just didn’t have the surgery
I was going to contribute by talking about my own youth baseball days but then I realized it would be completely irrelevant to discussion of Major League Baseball.
AL Bundy is that you?
you had guys throwing 300 inning for years… talk about wear and tear… there were guys who threw 600+ inning is a year… I believe they are more injuries because of improper training… in the old days those guys who pitched 300+ innings a year were training aerobically.. now they train anaerobically.. the difference being… aerobic training builds muscles for endurance.. anaerobic training build muscles that injure more easily.. they don’t have a blood supply and they can’t get rid of their wastes as efficiently.. meaning they tire easier… and are more likely to be injured..
@someoldguy i think a lot of it also has to do with that theses kids are burnt out before they even get to the farm. i can’t remember if smotlz said this in an interview or on mlb network, but he basically said kids nowadays just specialize in one sport and damn near play it year round. he went on to say playing other sports while growing up when bb season was over helped him develop muscles that he couldn’t develop just playing bb. his final point was that you only have so many bullets in your arm and once there gone there gone. also now this just my theory but with all this year round ll bb i think parents are pushing there kids thinking there kid is the next ryan and kids are throwing off speed pitches at an earlier age which is just as damaging as a 99mph fastball.
Glory days, pass you by
This surgery seems to be happening more frequently. Was it not diagnosed previously?
Luke Hochevar can’t toss out a first pitch without pain after TOS.
Didn’t Ben Grieve have a similar surgery? I know he had a a rib removed due to a blood clot and nerve issues – unsure if it was TOS.
that by definition is TOS
Hoping the kid can return to health. TOS has a poor track record for recoveries.
He should be healthy by the time that he and every member the team is traded for a coffee they serve in Las Vegas
The Twins Phil Hughes.. personally I think the surgery is the nonsense… The Mayo Clinic says: “Thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS) is a group of disorders that occur when blood vessels or nerves in the space between your collarbone and your first rib (thoracic outlet) are compressed. This can cause shoulder and neck pain and numbness in your fingers.”… so how to relieve the compression… I believe there is a simple approach… STOP LIFTING WEIGHTS.. this is an anaerobic activity.. it builds bulky muscles and these are a cause of the problem ( if you aren’t born with it or get it from injury)… Lean muscles developed from aerobic exercise.. don’t bulk up and compress the area… the problem is aerobic exercises take time… while anaerobic exercises are quick by comparison… but build muscle masses that don’t have their own blood supply… leading them to tire more easily and be injured more easily because of the lack of blood supply….
The guy hasn’t pitched since 2018 and he doesn’t have a degree in, well, anything. So why are you quoting him?
Lifting weights gives you more strength which allows pitchers to throw harder. If you don’t throw 95 today, you pretty much don’t have a job in MLB. IF you don’t lift weights, you don’t throw 95+.
So you are trying to say that instead of taking a less than 0.5% chance on TOS, they should just give up on being a MLB player?
Somehow I don’t think your ideas will take hold with players. They WANT to be MLB pitchers.
thats the belief but its not true.. anaerobic muscles injure easier , they wear out faster .. they have no durability.. as for strength… aerobic muscle can and does develop strength… it just takes longer.. no, the reason for weight training is to build bulk quicker… it is a injury causing desire for the easy way to do things..
I was using him as an example of a TOS victim.. the Quote was the from the Mayo Clinic..
idk about that pads fans wanio is having a great year so far and barley throws 90 (and in his prime i think his best was 94). tbh if pitcher actually became pitchers instead of throwers they might actually be able to have a career that makes it to fa and beyond
BTW, venous TOS cannot be attributed to weight lifting, only neurogenic TOS can.
For the Most part… pitchers and other athletes have Neurogenic TOS.. they were fine for years and the thickening from the bulking up of muscles brings it on.. or they would have had that loss of feeling and strength before.. and I don’t remember a single case of it before the weight lifting craze hit the MLB… doesn’t mean there wasn’t one… but I don’t remember it..
Anyone know the ratio of TOS compared to successful returns/failures
The last 2 studies done, one that utilized data from 2001-2017 with data from 27 surgeries and another that utilized data from 2006-2021 with with data from 26 surgeries showed that while 72-74% of pitchers that got the surgery returned to pitching in MLB, performance declined after surgery.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33472488/
“Pitching metrics demonstrated that pitcher ERA remained inferior postoperatively compared to baseline preoperative performance (3.66 vs 4.50, p = 0.03). Fastball velocity (p = 0.94) and strike percentage (p = 0.50) were equivalent to pre-injury performance.”
The 2nd study only took into account performance data from the season in which the injury happened and the season directly after returning. Even then they only used IP/G to determine performance.
Will TOS surgery ever start to have the same success rate as TJ surgery? Right now its a death knell for careers.