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Welcome to the new feature we will be doing every week called TJ Surgery Thursdays.  For the next several years I plan to write a weekly feature on a guy that went under the procedure.

This should only take about 10 years to be caught up with the epidemic growing exponentially over the last decade.

Today’s write-up is the 2nd ever player to go under the knife for the procedure.  That guy is named Brent Strom, and he followed Tommy John‘s lead to take the UCL surgery repair in 1977.

There may be a reason why there wasn’t a third procedure down until 1985 as Strom never made it back to the Major Leagues.

Born in Oct of 1948, the LHP was drafted by the New York Mets in 1970 as the 3rd overall pick.  He never amounted to much on the club when he made his debut in 1972.

After fighting through some injuries in the 1974  year, the man originally from San Diego was traded to that very city.

In 1975, Strom had his best ERA in his brief career – posting a 2.54 ERA in 16 Game Starts in 120.1 IP.  1976 saw the man pull in his best numbers as a big league thrower, when he started 36 contests -and logged 210.2 IP.

At age 28 he had the Tommy John Surgery, and he toiled in the Minors for a few years after that, but his tale would be a player that never thew another pitch in the Major Leagues.

Strom ended his pitching career with a 22 – 39 record with a 3.95 ERA, but his peripheral stats looked a lot better with a WHIP of 1.321 – and an acceptable HR/Per 9 IP of 0.9.

In the Minor Leagues from 1979 – 1981, he did post a record of 19 – 9 for those campaigns – although he had a rising ERA in that that time span, while he was being homered on with a great frequency – and his Strikeout rate dropped.  It was apparent he was going to have a tough time making it back to the bigs.

Brent Strom has had a decent post playing career – with working for the Montreal/Washington franchise as a Minor League Pitching Coordinator.  He is now the pitching coach for the Major League Houston Astros, and has done a fine job working with that staff sine the start of the 2014 year.

Would more of the pitchers gone to see Frank Jobe if Strom had also recovered enough to play multiple seasons in the MLB?  Perhaps we would not have had to wait until David Wells underwent the repair in 1985 – to become the winningest pitcher ever to have gone under the knife?

Brent Strom Career Transactions

• November 27, 1972: Traded by the New York Mets with Bob Rauch to the Cleveland Indians for Phil Hennigan.
• June 21, 1974: the Cleveland Indians sent Terry Ley and Brent Strom to the San Diego Padres to complete an earlier deal made on June 15, 1974. June 15, 1974: The Cleveland Indians sent players to be named later to the San Diego Padres for Steve Arlin.
• March 28, 1978: Released by the San Diego Padres

Tommy John Surgery All – Time Tracker – We have added  – 25 players to the list  + All players under the knife http://wp.me/P1iuH8-29k

*** The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of mlbreports.com and their partners***

I am happy to be back at the helm of the MLB Reports, after completing my 224 Games in the MLB Trip in 2015.  It was the 4th time I have seen all 30 MLB Parks since 2008.  During that time away I was fortunate to do 100 Media Interviews and be named the Baseball Blogger Alliance President.

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