Interview: Reds Pitcher Brandon Bailey on Tommy John Surgery
Interview: Reds Pitcher Brandon Bailey on Tommy John Surgery
By Scott Bolohan
On Jul 26, 2020, Brandon Bailey made his major league debut for the Houston Astros, throwing a scoreless inning of relief.
It was the culmination of a lifetime in baseball that saw him win a state championship in Colorado, star at Gonzaga, and climbed through the minors. But there were some bumps along the way—namely a torn UCL as a junior in high school that led to him missing his senior year recovering from Tommy John surgery.
This offseason, Bailey was traded to the Reds and he underwent his second Tommy John surgery on February 26, 2021, a week after mine. When I called Brandon, I didn’t know how he would be only three weeks after the surgery, both physically and mentally. But he was upbeat and positive, and an incredible baseball mind happy to share his experiences with Tommy John surgery.
How’s the arm doing?
It’s doing well. I’m currently in the middle of week two of physical therapy. I had surgery on February 26. Things are going well. I’m a little bit ahead of my range of motion goals, just in terms of flexion and extension of the elbow. So things are looking up and feeling pretty good.
What’s the story of that first Tommy John?
It was my junior year of high school. And we had just come off winning our first state championship since 2006. I was definitely coming off a high there and was going into summer ball with my travel team and was just feeling on top of the world. I went 11-0 as a pitcher. I pitched the state championship game and was named Colorado 4A Player of the Year. I was feeling pretty confident about where things were going. I had just committed to Gonzaga University on a baseball scholarship. Things couldn’t get much better.
And then in the summertime, I started noticing my elbow was bothering me, but I just pitched through it. I had an opportunity to potentially play in the Under Armour All-American Game at Wrigley Field that’s put on by Baseball Factory, and one of my goals as an amateur was to play in that game. I wanted to show that not only can players from Colorado really play, but short athletes like myself, especially pitchers, can compete at the highest level with some of the most elite prospects in the country. I was going to a showcase, which was my final tryout to be named to the Under Armour All-American roster, and during the showcase, my velocity was extremely down. I was throwing in the low-to-mid-90s in high school, and I think I was throwing like 86, 87 and getting hit around pretty bad. I felt insecure about my performance, but I was also feeling like I’m messing up this opportunity to play such a big game. I tried to go back out and I threw a pitch and I felt a pop. I knew deep down what had happened, there were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I tried to throw one more pitch and it made it like 50 feet and was like 65 miles per hour.
At that point, I was pretty discouraged. Me and my dad went to urgent care and got an MRI. Unfortunately, I got the news that I need Tommy John surgery and as a 17-year old, that’s not supposed to happen that early on in your career. This was during a time when not much was known about Tommy John surgery, it was more, ‘This is happening a lot. Nobody knows why. Why did this not happen frequently back in the day? Why is it happening now more so than ever, from amateur players all the way to professional levels?’ So I got the surgery on July 26, 2012. At the time, I didn’t know much about my surgeon, his name’s Dr. David Schneider of Panorama Orthopedics, but he is formerly the head surgeon for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Lakers, and Kings. He did a great job of explaining to me how the surgery was going to work, what we were going to do, what the recovery protocols looked like, and the plan going forward. But now, ten years later, Dr. Schneider is one of my closest friends. He actually did my second surgery, which took place in late February of this year.
I don’t really know why I needed surgery at such young age. It might have had something to do with the fact that I would pitch on Thursdays for my high school team, and in high school, if you’re the guy, you’re expected to go all seven innings. I would pitch that every single week. Our number two starter would play third when I pitched, and Saturdays, when it was our next game, I would switch and play third and he would pitch. Looking back, the throw from third is an extremely far throw. Most people that are unfamiliar with the game don’t really realize how far of a throw that is and how much of a strain it can put on your arm. I’m a ‘day two’ soreness guy. Some guys get sore the day after they pitch, and some guys have that delayed soreness—I’m one of those guys. Looking back, that probably wasn’t the best thing for me to be playing third base two days after I pitched. Nobody knew back then the ideas of workload management. If a kid pitched seven innings on Thursday, he probably should not be playing the field on Saturday. So that might have played a role. Also, I was five foot eight, 165 pounds, throwing in the low 90s. It could have honestly just been my body hadn’t matured to the level to withstand those types of valgus torque and stress on the elbow.
When you found out the news, what was going on in your head?
I broke down crying and my dad was there comforting me and reassuring me it was going to be okay. As a high school kid that had just committed to a Division I program, you hear the horror stories of high school guys getting injured and colleges taking their scholarships away, so I feared for the worst. But I’m so thankful that the coaching staff at Gonzaga, Mark Machtolf, Danny Evans and Steve Bennett, Brandon Harmon, all stuck behind me and honored my scholarship. They told me, ‘Take your senior year to do everything you can to get healthy and be as close to 100% by the time you step on campus in Spokane.’ I think that says a lot about Gonzaga University baseball, what type of people they are, and the program they run in Spokane. Gonzaga has a first-class program with really great morals, great people, and produces really great baseball talent. I was very thankful for that. But prior to having to call my head coach at Gonzaga and tell him the news, I was very scared. And I was heartbroken. My high school had come off our state championship season and we had ten out of the 16 guys coming back. We were fully geared to make another run, and it was hard not to be able to pitch and help my team defend our state championship title my senior year.
Where did they take the graph from?
The first surgery it was from my right hamstring. The second one they took from my left wrist.
I’ve heard that the hamstring is brutal to come back from.
You are 100% spot on about the right hamstring. That physical therapy was more difficult than the physical therapy of my elbow. I remember two weeks post-surgery, and I’m still on bed rest because I couldn’t walk. So that was extremely tough to basically have one half of your body that you couldn’t use. I was on a crutch with my left arm and keeping my right leg up, and then not being able to use my right elbow. And then having to go back during my senior year of high school, hobble around in the hallways, sit in class, and I couldn’t write with my right arm. It was a struggle. Every single day after school, I went straight to physical therapy.
When did you start throwing again?
I think it was about five or six months post-surgery that I started tossing a ball around again. I know that it was 11 months post-surgery that I was back, pitching a game just 20 pitches, all fastballs. Looking back, that was actually a pretty quick recovery time just to be able to pitch in a game again. I was lucky enough to work out at a place called Impact Sports Performance and Synapse Physical Therapy, which was five minutes down the street from my high school. One of the trainers at Impact, Rylan Reed, did a great job of helping me lay out a program that synced up my throwing, physical therapy, and strength and conditioning development. Impact had a team that played in the Rocky Mountain Baseball League, that’s who I played for in the summer. He did a really great job of making sure that it was 20 pitches, all fastballs, and then slowly but surely increasing the pitch count over the summer. I felt really good about where I was at heading into my freshman year at Gonzaga.
Do they treat you any differently because you had Tommy John?
The initial speculation going in my freshman year was that I might redshirt just because I was coming off Tommy John surgery. But it didn’t happen. I actually went into my freshman year and earned the Friday night starting job. So that was extremely exciting just to be a freshman be pitching on Friday nights, which is supposed to be the ace pitcher of your team. To earn that role and pitch well was awesome. There was really no gap in terms of my play and performance from high school to college, I went right into the fall, competing for a spot and trying to prove that I could play at that level. When you start talking about the draft, a lot of the scouts and organizations want to do their due diligence and have access to all of your medical records and look at how your arm is holding up. There were really no issues in terms of my Tommy John surgery when it came time in 2016 for my draft class. I wish I could have been eligible for the 2013 draft, but that didn’t happen, just because of surgery.
What’s the general thought about Tommy John around college and pro ball?
I think at the college and professional level, you start to understand as an athlete that the demands and what is expected of you, especially as a pitcher, are extremely high. Volume and workload increase dramatically from high school to college, and then from college to professional ball. So just from my experience, professionally, Tommy John as a consensus is viewed as something that, the more you throw, the harder you throw, the more you train, the likelier you’ll need surgery, and it’s something that is definitely out there. But there are things that you can do in terms of recovery, trying to improve your mechanics and your arm action and the overall efficiency of your delivery. I think people are very aware that those things play a significant role in which guys have surgery versus guys that don’t. But I don’t think there’s necessarily a fear of having to have surgery. I think everyone’s coming to the universal understanding is that the surgery is becoming more and more common. The success rate of guys returning back to their full health and strength, or even a little bit better, is extremely high. And it’s not a foreign entity anymore. I would say it’s something that if it has to happen, it sucks, but you look at it as a year off to hit the reset button, maybe take a mental break from the game and just be one with yourself and take a step back and look at what you can do. How can I turn this negative into a positive? And what can I do to be a better baseball player from it?
What are you doing to make that happen for you in this next year?
I’m very thankful to have had a connection with Driveline Baseball. I interned there in the fall of 2019 and I’ve been training at Driveline since the winter of 2014, early 2015. I’ve been working for Driveline now for two years straight, just on the online remote training side of things. So that keeps me busy with a side hustle job in which I can expand my knowledge on coaching and interacting with younger athletes at the high school and college level. That’s my dream, when I’m done playing to become a coach, whether that be at the high school, college, or professional level. So that’s been really cool to have that opportunity. Also, I’m currently working on a master’s in sports coaching. I’m taking two classes right now, so those two things take up a lot of my free time. But then also to be able to spend more time with my girlfriend, Rachel, and hang out with our dog, Teddy and do normal things like play video games, read books, go for hikes, and go on dates. I feel like hobbies and positive outlets help distract me from falling into that negative cycle of being a little bit depressed that I missed out on a regular season of 162 games last year and now this year, I’m not getting to play again. I think just having those positive outlets, especially with the surgery, as an athlete that so used to competing, training, and practicing, it’s good to take a step back and be like, ‘What are some things that I’ve always wanted to do that I might not have had the time to do? What can I do now with a little bit more free time?’
What happened with the second surgery?
Back in late November, I was already on a return to throwing program and starting to increase my training intensity to try and start making gains in preparation for spring training 2021. I just felt like a little bit of tweak in my forearm. I went to Dr. Schneider, and he informed me that it’s nothing to do with your UCL, the MRI came out clean. But what we do see is just a little bit of fluid buildup in the elbow and a slight strain of the pronator muscle, which is more on the top of your forearm rather than the elbow area where the UCL is located. So I was like, ‘Okay, just rehab this for the month of December and return to throw in early January and I should be on time in terms of my arm strength and just being acclimated to the slope.’
I showed up early to the spring training complex in Goodyear, Arizona, where the Reds are located. I wanted to get there early just to meet everybody and start familiarizing myself with how the Reds go about their business because I was traded from Houston in November of 2020. I was part of the rehab group and wanted to get hands-on with some of the physical therapists, athletic trainers, strengthen conditioning staff, and the rehab pitching coordinator. I also wanted to start throwing outside in the warm weather. And as I started to increase the intensity of which I was throwing, from 60%-to-70%, rate of perceived effort to 80% or 90%. I just noticed that I could make the throws, but something just didn’t feel quite right. As an athlete, we become hyper-aware of our bodies. We know when we’re feeling good versus when we know something is a little bit off. And that’s what it felt like, not that I couldn’t throw, not that I was hurting. It was just something was off.
The Reds shut me down for a couple of weeks, just doing a lot of maintenance work and physical therapy trying to strengthen the surrounding muscles and attack the area where I was feeling discomfort. And after two weeks, it was time for me to start throwing again and I just didn’t feel like my arm had really gotten any better. The Reds ordered another MRI in early February. Unfortunately, the MRI came back showing a partial tear of the ulnar collateral ligament and I had two choices. I could either rest and keep doing what we were doing and try and rehab and body maintenance stuff to try and maybe help heal the ligament in the graft. But there was a risk that I would still have needed surgery and I’d be missing some of 2022. I talked to Dr. Schneider and he strongly recommended that I get the surgery and start my rehab process as soon as possible just so that way I can hopefully come back fully ready for the 2022 season and hopefully pitch for another ten years without any issues. So that’s what I decided to do and here we are.
Having been through it once, is it easier for you this time knowing what you’re getting yourself into?
It definitely gives me confidence knowing that I’ve already done this once before and I kind of know what to expect now. Being able to look back on my first surgery and knowing what exactly physical therapy was going to look like and the pain level I was in for, gave me peace of mind going into this a second time. I wasn’t worried about what the upcoming months had in store. So now going into physical therapy, I’ve already exceeded expectations in terms of range of motion and flexion and extension in the elbow. I definitely think I’m more open to moving my elbow and being proactive and trying to increase the ability to move my arm and not necessarily babying it. There’s also a fine line of doing this once before and having that overconfidence of, ‘I already know everything that’s in store, I know my body.’ And just making sure to trust the program, trust what the physical therapists and athletic trainers for the Reds have to say, and listen to my body. But not go crazy in terms of pushing it, because it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Sometimes I still think I could throw a baseball but I know I can’t. My arm feels shockingly good, I think I expected a lot worse, to be honest. I’ve learned that so much of this is trusting people who know what they’re doing.
Yeah, if there’s one thing I’ve learned playing professional baseball is in the amateur levels, we can be not 100% and go out there and still help our team win, whether that be high school or the collegiate ranks. I might be 85% today, but my 85% might be what’s still going to help us win. In professional baseball, it’s not like that. I quickly learned that the hard way. I had a few different starts in the minor leagues trying to pitch through little nicks and dings in my body and not being 100% and it affecting my play. Mistakes you can make in high school and college, in terms of pitch location, compensating for the injury, or the pain that you’re feeling in your body, you can’t make those same mistakes, especially at the professional ranks or in Major League Baseball. I think for me, that comes from maturity and the experience of playing the game for so long as I have. I know deep down that if I’m not 100% right, I need to say something to the athletic training staff because I’m only going to be hurting the team. If I go out there and try and pitch through any sort of nagging ache or pain that I’m feeling, it’s not going to help me or the team.
What’s your PT and your timeline looking like now for recovery? Is it different than the last one?
Yeah, I think it’s a little bit different. With my first physical therapy, there was that expectation of trying to get back as quickly as possible. Now, with the Reds organization, they have a lot on the line. They invested in me and wanted me to be a part of their organization’s long-term plans. So I think that definitely plays a role in my timeline. The expectation is for me to be 100% healthy and throwing off a mound again at 12-to-14 months, but it might take longer. It just depends on the Reds’ evaluation of my progress. It means a lot to know that an organization cares about my progress. It makes me feel wanted and valued and truly makes me feel like they have plans for me for the future. That’s all you could ever ask for, especially at this level of the game, just to be in someone’s thoughts, especially from the front office.
I was wondering how much support you were getting from the Reds being new to the organization, but it sounds like it’s been great though.
It has. I’m extremely blessed and thankful to be a part of such a great organization of innovative thinkers. They’re definitely a part of the movement of analytics and sabermetrics, doing everything according to science, what the doctors and physical therapists are saying, and when it comes to athletic performance and overall development in the healing process. I couldn’t be more grateful to be a part of such a great organization that sees the best of me—as a pitcher, as an athlete, and as a person. They genuinely care about my well-being and long-term health. And for that, I’m forever grateful.
I coach high school baseball, and especially this year, I think there’s going to be a lot of injuries. Are there things that I should be doing, and that kids should be doing to prevent injuries?
The very first thing that comes to mind is getting a return to throwing program in place, some sort of on-ramp. I think one of the biggest injury problems when it comes to high school athletes, especially in baseball, is that we play football in the fall, basketball in the winter, and then spring rolls around. And then it’s, ‘Baseball tryouts are in two weeks, I haven’t picked up a ball in six months, but I need to be able to pitch a tryout. So I’m just going to throw every single day as much as I can. And just when tryouts come around, I’m just going to throw as hard as I can, because I’m invincible because I’m high school, I can’t get hurt.’ Especially with missing all of the 2020 season, I think you need to be prepared to help your athletes get back to return to the throwing program in which they feel confident that their arm is that back to 100% normal and seeing strength. Then you can feel peace of mind that they’re not being rushed and that they’re going to be able to perform at a level in which this to your expectations.
But also as coaches, we have to be able to take the blame a little bit sometimes, because high school athletes are a little bit hardheaded. I know because I used to be one of them. They want to get out there and play, they want to compete, and they want to perform at a super high level. But we didn’t lay the groundwork months prior to make sure that you did everything that you could do to be ready to play at that high level. So just making sure that they understand that there’s a rhyme or reason for what you’re having them do. Make sure that when they do return a throwing, it’s just 50% to 60 and 70% rate of perceived exertion. They’re not just going out there and throwing as hard as they can the first day that they pick up a ball and gradually progress over time. Once they have adequate arm strength, then start mound blending them, getting them re-acclimated with the slope, and go from there.
So my biggest suggestion for coaches, I would say start from your first game that’s on your schedule and try and work backward. If you’ve got a month, you work with what you got. If you do this and you’re six months till your season starts, that’s even better, or two months in advance. I understand that some high school kids play other sports, they have other things that they’re involved in, so just do the best and try your very best to explain to them, ‘I’m just looking out for your best interest and I don’t want you to get hurt, and I want you to be able to perform at a high level and help us win this season and do that in a safe and healthy manner.’
Have you had a chance to reflect on what making your debut last year means after the journey you’ve been on?
It meant a lot just to be able to make my lifelong dream become a reality. Even if there weren’t fans in the stands, even if my parents, family, friends and girlfriend, couldn’t be there in person to watch me pitch. Just knowing that all of my hard work, all of the hours spent training, all the sacrifices made not only by myself, but everybody in my inner circle, to make that happen, it was such a rewarding and satisfying feeling to know that I’m a big leaguer, and I got a pitch in the big leagues. And that’s something that no one can ever take away from me.
Brandon Bailey was drafted out of Gonzaga by the Oakland Athletics in the 6th round. He was traded to the Houston Astros, where he debuted in 2020, throwing 7.1 innings with a 2.45 ERA and 4 strikeouts. He was acquired by the Reds in November 2020. You can follow him on Twitter or Instagram.
Scott Bolohan is the founder of The Twin Bill. He is rooting for Brandon Bailey.