Cubs right-hander Jameson Taillon knows what it feels like to get a season with high personal expectations rolling, only to have an injury grind it to a halt. He knows what it’s like to learn that a second elbow surgery is necessary a handful of years into a big-league career. He knows the kind of concerns that can creep in.
Taillon has a unique view into what lefty Justin Steele is experiencing as his season-ending elbow surgery approaches.
Steele is set to undergo surgery Friday to repair his left flexor tendon and address his compromised ulnar collateral ligament, although the extent to which his UCL needs to be repaired won’t be completely clear until the operation.
“A big message that I did tell him was just, mentally, it’s a long recovery,” Taillon told the Sun-Times. “And he’s already gone through it once, just like me. The second one, I actually took a little bit of a step back, and I just made sure mentally I was OK.”
Taillon, like Steele, had his first Tommy John surgery (ulnar collateral reconstruction) when he was in the minors. Five years later, early in his fourth big-league season, he landed on the injured list with a strained flexor tendon.
He tried to avoid surgery with stem cell therapy, rehab and an aggressive throwing program. Nothing worked. So in August that season, he underwent flexor tendon surgery, knowing there was a slight chance a UCL reconstruction would be performed at the same time. When the surgeon opened his elbow, it was clear Tommy John surgery was needed.
“Obviously, there’s plenty of people now who [Steele] can look to that have had success with second ones,” Taillon said. “For me, it was Nate Evoldi and Daniel Hudson, [who] were the only [starters who’d had a second Tommy John surgery] active in the big leagues.”
One Tommy John surgery was common in baseball, with a high success rate. Anecdotes circulated about pitchers coming back throwing harder, although many have questioned whether that was because of the surgery or the rehab program that followed.
In 2019, however, a second Tommy John surgery was enough to set off alarm bells.
“My second one, I viewed as a second lease on life, career-wise,” Taillon said. “I got really curious after my second one, like, why is this happening? What can I do to prevent it? What, delivery-wise, do I need to get better at, get into the biomechanics, see how my body’s working? So that was part of it.”
The other part was mental. Taillon saw the checkpoints of his first Tommy John rehab as challenges to be conquered. Steele, similarly, returned from his 2017 surgery in less than a year, which was shorter than usual.
“My first TJ, I was like, you’re telling me I can do eight reps? I’m going to do 10,” Taillon said. “You’re telling me I can throw at 18 weeks? I want to throw at 16 weeks. You’re telling me I can get off the mound at 10 months? I want to do it at nine.
“My second one, I was like, ‘[Screw] that.’ ”
That’s not to say Taillon didn’t push himself. But he saw the second UCL injury as his body sending him a message.
“This is gonna be very wellness-y, but I feel like you heal better when you’re in a good mental place,” Taillon said. “And so, for me, I needed to look out for myself. I feel like I spent a lot of time trying to make a lot of other people happy, be a good teammate. I was like, ‘You know what, for once in my life, I’m going to focus on myself and what’s best for me and my mental health.’ ”
To begin his recovery, Taillon prioritized sleep, hydration and diet. That first offseason, he told his trainer, Steven Hamner, he didn’t want to do baseball-specific workouts. He’d be missing the next season anyway, so he wanted to be a normal person. That approach “reignited a fire” in him when it was time to return to baseball, he said.
That’s still a long way away for Steele. And once he has clarity on the exact UCL procedure and recovery timeline, he’ll cater his approach to his own needs.
“I’m just excited to see who he is coming out of it, because I learned a lot about myself,” Taillon said. “Going into it, you don’t know what’s going to happen. Looking back, I was a totally different person and just learned a lot about a lot.”
