Jeff Passan is an ESPN baseball columnist and Senior MLB Insider, and worked in baseball for many years. In 2016, he wrote a novel called The Arm, which is a compelling story about a baseball pitcher’s arm and the history of arm injuries. The most infamous arm surgery is TJ, otherwise known as Tommy John surgery, which is surgery to repair the tear of the UCL. Passan interviews current players, former players, doctors, and other notable individuals in baseball to unravel the mystery of the arm and explore how strategies have evolved in caring for it. Jeff Passan’s The Arm dives into the physical and mental side of Tommy John surgery.
This book is a significant contribution to the sports world, as Passan attempts to piece together the puzzle to determine the best strategy for maintaining arm health and avoiding surgery. Baseball players of all ages are getting Tommy John surgery, from young teenagers to professionals trying to get the last bit of gas out of their arms. However, the question remains: how do you avoid injury when you throw a baseball faster than anyone else in the world?
Many different tactics, stories, and philosophies are shared by different people from around baseball, including those from different countries. Since this book breaks down many different stories, I will be diving into the two players that Jeff Passan highlights throughout most of the book. After reading the novel, I will be breaking down my personal opinion on the epidemic of arm injuries in baseball. I will be using quotes from the novel, as well as other sources, which I will provide.
Let’s dive into Jeff Passan’s The Arm.
Todd Coffey’s Rehab: The Physical and Mental Toll of Surgery
At the beginning of the book, Jeff Passan gives a history lesson on UCL tears and how baseball started to attack arm injuries. It sets up the story of reliever Todd Coffey. The right-hander experienced his first incident requiring Tommy John surgery in 2000, just two years after being drafted to the Cincinnati Reds. He would recover well, becoming an MLB reliever on four different teams. However, the story starts in 2012 with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Coffey would suffer another UCL tear requiring Tommy John surgery at 32-years old. This is scary for a pitcher like Coffey because of his age, and at the time, only 20% of pitchers who had Tommy John surgery twice ever pitch another game in the Majors. This would take a toll on Coffey physically and mentally. As somebody who plays baseball everyday for a living, Coffey felt his life was stripped away.
He lost his job and wife, but he never lost the drive to come back to the Majors. After a year of recovering from his second surgery, Coffey had a showcase with multiple teams watching. However, Coffey failed to impress, suffering a velocity drop and bad luck. Frustrated, Coffey went back to work on recovering, and after almost two years of recovery, Coffey would find a suitor.
Passan highlights two teams that were in on Coffey in the summer of 2014: the Seattle Mariners and Atlanta Braves. Both teams having their pros and cons, Coffey would start in Triple-A and work his way to the Majors, and he would choose Seattle. Even after a solid season in the minors, Seattle would not put him on the Major League roster. Following a great season, Seattle would release Coffey in hopes that he would find Major League time elsewhere; however, this would not be the case.
Coffey would never make it back to the Majors, and after a stint in Mexico, Coffey would finally hang up in the cleats in 2017. It is truly a story about grit and determination falling short. The entire book talks about the mysterious nature of an arm whose purpose is to throw baseballs as hard as humanly possible everyday for a living. Coffey suffered mentally, losing confidence in the pitcher he once was. Was it bad luck? Probably. If he were younger and in better shape for most of his career, things would have panned out differently. However, they didn’t, and Coffey will be known as a cautionary tale in Jeff Passan’s The Arm.
Daniel Hudson’s Climb: The Grit and Gambles of a Double Rehab
Hudson’s story is different from Coffey’s story in the sense of potential. Coffey willed his way to the Majors, and Daniel Hudson had the potential to be one of the best arms in all of baseball. In 2011, Hudson was a promising starter for the Arizona Diamondbacks, finishing the season with a 3.49 ERA in 33 starts at just 25-years old. After just 9 starts in the 2012 season, Hudson would suffer his first UCL tear, requiring Tommy John surgery. And to make things better for Hudson, just before his injury, Arizona offered Hudson a $15 million contract, and Hudson turned it down, expecting great success in the near future.
Jeff Passan’s The Arm details his return, as he worked hard and even started throwing earlier than expected. During his first rehab start, Hudson became just 1 of approximately 40 instances of a pitcher tearing his UCL again, requiring another round of Tommy John surgery. This was devastating to Hudson, and after going a full year of rehab of no MLB baseball, he was going to have to endure another long year of working his arm back into form.
Passan details Hudson’s second recovery and how mentally draining it is. Mentally, Hudson couldn’t stop thinking about turning down the original contract Arizona offered. He also couldn’t stop thinking about life outside of baseball, preparing to never play the sport again. His relationship with his wife was strained, he lost motivation, and realized he may never be the same pitcher ever again.
Hudson would work hard, regain motivation after having his first child, and fight his way back to the Major League roster. Unlike Todd Coffey, Daniel Hudson would make his way back to a Major League mound late in the 2014 season as a reliever. He would not perform the best in three games, but the journey Hudson went through made him a different pitcher and a different person.
He would become a successful pitcher in baseball, becoming a full-time reliever, even winning a World Series in 2024 with the Los Angeles Dodgers. With an incredible story and journey, Daniel Hudson beat the odds and became a long-time pitcher in baseball after two Tommy John surgeries.
Beyond the Scar: The Arm’s Legacy and the Modern State of Pitching
Jeff Passan’s The Arm is one of the most important baseball books to ever be published. Passan details many different people and their stories on the arm and how mysterious it truly is. After documenting Japanese culture, American culture, year-round throwing, and the history of throwing, I have come to the conclusion that arm injuries are inevitable in the sport of baseball. In 2024, teams are hitting all-time highs in UCL injuries. However, teams are content with drafting players with former UCL injuries. According to CNN Sports, 36 players with a history of UCL surgeries were drafted in the top 10 rounds of the MLB Draft.
With the surgery getting stronger and doctors are more familiar now more than ever with these injuries, are teams confident that having surgery before the Majors indicates a healthy career? The numbers indicate that even more players are getting UCL surgery before making the majors than ever before.
Jeff Passan’s The Arm is truly a great read. I recommend this book to any baseball enthusiast. I look at injuries differently, seeing the physical and mental toll that it has on players. In the book, Passan states that he hopes the future figures out the mystery of the arm. Unfortunately, people haven’t, and they probably will never know how to prevent serious arm injuries in the sport of baseball.
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