2025 Classic Baseball Era Committee Candidate: Tommy John

The following article is part of a series concerning the 2025 Classic Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering long-retired players, managers, executives, and umpires whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 8. For an introduction to the ballot, see here, and for an introduction to JAWS, see here. Several profiles in this series are adapted from work previously published at SI.com, Baseball Prospectus, and Futility Infielder. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Tommy John spent 26 seasons pitching in the majors from 1963–74 and then 1976–89, more than any player besides Nolan Ryan, but his level of fame stems as much from the year that cleaves that span as it does from his work on the mound. As the recipient of the most famous sports medicine procedure of all time, the elbow ligament replacement surgery performed by Dr. Frank Jobe in late 1974 that now bears his name, John endured an arduous year-long rehab process before returning to pitch as well as ever, a recovery that gave hope to generations of injured pitchers whose careers might otherwise have ended. Tommy John surgery has somewhat obscured the pitcher’s on-field accomplishments, however.

A sinkerballer who relied upon his command and control to limit hard contact, John didn’t overpower hitters; after his surgery, when the usage of radar guns became more widespread, his sinker — which he threw 85-90% of the time — was generally clocked in the 85-87 mph range. He paired the sinker with a curveball, or rather several curves, as he could adjust the break based upon the speed at which he threw the pitch. He was the epitome of the “crafty lefty,” so good at his vocation that he arrived on the major league scene at age 20 and made his final appearance three days after his 46th birthday. He made four All-Star teams and was a key starter on five clubs that reached the postseason and three that won pennants, though he wound up on the losing end of the World Series each time.

Thomas Edward John Jr. was born on May 22, 1943 in Terre Haute, Indiana. He cut his teeth playing sandlot ball and more organized games at Spencer F. Ball Park, a three-block square with about 10 baseball diamonds used for everything from pickup games to those of two rival high schools, Garfield and Gerstmeyer, the latter of which he attended.

At Gerstmeyer, John excelled in basketball as well as baseball, so much so that the rangy, 6-foot-3 teenager was recruited by legendary Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp, and had over 50 basketball scholarship offers but just one for baseball (few colleges gave those out in those days). When Rupp paid a visit to their household, the senior John told the coach that his son was probably going to bypass college to pursue professional baseball. As the pitcher recalled in 2015:

Rupp said, “Well, we have a pretty good baseball team down in Kentucky, and your son might even be able to make our team.” My dad never liked Rupp, but that really made him mad. He told Coach Rupp, “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.” Rupp was furious. His assistant came in and tried to smooth things over, but it didn’t matter.

On the mound, John lacked a top-notch fastball but had a major league-caliber curveball that he learned from former Phillies minor leaguer Arley Andrews, a friend of his father. He pitched to a 28-2 record in high school, and while the Cleveland Indians scout who signed him, John Schulte, expressed concern about his inability to overpower hitters, he signed him nonetheless two weeks after John graduated from Gerstmeyer in 1961 — four years before the introduction of the amateur draft.

Speaking of graduation, John excelled academically and was named the valedictorian of his class. But because he had a stutter, he was not allowed to deliver the valedictory address at the graduation ceremony. Fifty-three years later, another Terre Haute high school (North Vigo, not Gerstmeyer), invited him to give a valedictory address at its ceremony, during which he recounted the advice he received from legendary UCLA bassketball coach John Wooden during his rehab: “I tell my basketball players we gain strength through adversity… You’ve got to have adversity in your life to be a tougher, stronger person.”

John began his professional career at Cleveland’s Class-D Dubuque affiliate, going 10-4 with a 3.17 ERA in 99 innings in 1961. He split the next two seasons between Charleston — which itself jumped from Single-A to Double-A for 1963 — and Triple-A Jacksonville, and was rewarded with a late-season callup. He debuted in the majors on September 6, 1963, with an inning of scoreless relief against the Senators. Eight days later, he made his first start, against the Angels, allowing four runs (one earned) in 6 2/3 innings and taking the loss. With Cleveland already well-stocked with young hurlers, including 23-year-old Luis Tiant and 21-year-old Sam McDowell, John split his 1964 season between the minors and majors. He pitched far better than his 2-9 record indicated, suffering due to a lack of offensive support. During one six-start span in June and July, his team scored a total of nine runs for him. He struggled to incorporate a slider taught to him by pitching coach (and future Hall of Famer) Early Wynn, which compromised his mechanics.

The following January, John was traded to the White Sox as part of a three-team, eight-player deal that sent slugger Rocky Colavito from the Kansas City A’s back to Cleveland. Still just 22 years old, John quickly emerged as a solid mid-rotation starter on the South Side, going 14-7 with a 3.09 ERA (102 ERA+) in 1965. That kicked off a seven-year stretch with the White Sox, during which he pitched to a 2.95 ERA (117 ERA+) and 3.20 FIP while averaging 213 innings and 3.4 WAR. In 1966, he posted a 2.62 ERA (121 ERA+) with five shutouts, tied for the AL lead with Tiant and McDowell, then followed up with a 2.47 ERA (122 ERA+) with six shutouts, tied for the league lead with four other pitchers, including the Tigers’ Mickey Lolich. In 1968, the Year of the Pitcher, he posted a 1.98 ERA (also good for fifth in the league, and for a career-best 161 ERA+) with 5.6 WAR (sixth) and made his first All-Star team. His season ended on August 22, however, when Tigers second baseman Dick McAuliffe charged the mound after a couple of errant pitches. In the scuffle, McAuliffe kneed John in his left shoulder, separating it and tearing ligaments. (He drew a five-game suspension.)

John returned without much trouble, shutting out Oakland on four hits in his 1969 debut. He topped 5.0 WAR and placed in the league’s top 10 in that category both in that season and 1970, but by ’71, he was clashing with another pitching coach who pushed him to integrate a slider, the great Johnny Sain. According to Jon Weisman’s Brothers in Arms, John endured 12 weeks of frustration while trying to integrate the pitch before reconnecting with Sain’s predecessor, Ray Berres, who told him, “Stick that slider up your ass… You don’t add a pitch if it takes away from your other pitches.”

In December 1971, after a subpar campaign (13-16, 3.61 ERA), John and one other player were traded to the Dodgers in exchange for slugger Dick Allen, who had spent just one year in Los Angeles and would go on to win AL MVP honors in his first year in Chicago. The trade wasn’t entirely one-sided, as John found a sympathetic collaborator in Dodgers pitching coach Red Adams, who told him to emphasize his sinker, which had plenty of movement to compensate for its lack of velocity.

In his first three seasons in Dodger blue, John pitched to a 2.89 ERA (119 ERA+) and 2.94 FIP. But on July 17, 1974, at a time when he led the NL with 13 wins for a team that would go on to win the pennant, the 31-year-old southpaw’s left arm went dead. “It felt as if I had left my arm someplace else. It was as if my body continued to go forward and my left arm had just flown out to right field, independent of the rest of me,” he later told Sports Illustrated’s Ron Fimrite.

Dr. Jobe, who had removed bone chips from John’s elbow after the 1972 season, initially could not determine how damaged the pitcher’s elbow was. When rest and therapy proved inadequate, John asked Jobe to operate to alleviate what the doctor called “Overuse Syndrome.” The surgery to replace a ruptured elbow ligament had never been tried in a pitcher, and in general, surgical procedures on athletes were often seen as last resorts. This one truly was.

On September 25, 1974, during a three-hour procedure, Jobe replaced John’s ruptured ulnar collateral ligament with a palmaris longus tendon harvested from the pitcher’s right wrist. The surgery initially turned John’s left hand into something resembling a useless claw, as he lacked sensation and control of multiple fingers. Three months later, Jobe operated again to reroute the ulnar nerve and restore feeling to the hand.

John went to spring training with the Dodgers in 1975, undertaking a rehab for which there was no road map. “I worked hard seven days a week, on exercises Dr. Jobe gave me to strengthen the arm,” he told biographer Dan Valenti. “I worked as hard as I possibly could on my rehabilitation. I never wanted to look back and say: ‘Son of a gun, maybe if I’d worked a little harder in 1975, I might have come back.’”

Unable to throw yet and still struggling to regain full sensation, John resorted to taping his damaged fingers to his working ones to help him grip the ball. In June, finally, he could uncurl his fingers; in July he could throw bullpens, and soon after, live batting practice. On September 29, 1975, he finally pitched in a game situation, throwing three perfect innings in an Arizona Instructional League game, the first of five he worked.

Suffice it to say that the operation and the rehab worked. John returned to the Dodgers in fine form in 1976, throwing 207 innings with a 3.09 ERA (109 ERA+) and 3.08 FIP. He won The Sporting News’ NL Comeback Player of the Year award as well as the Hutch Award, given annually to an active player “who best exemplifies the fighting spirit and competitive desire of Fred Hutchinson.” In 1977, he began a true career renaissance, winning 20 games for the first time, placing fifth in the league with a 2.78 ERA (138 ERA+), throwing a one-run complete game on three days of rest in the NLCS clincher against the Phillies, and finishing second behind Steve Carlton in the NL Cy Young race.

John made All-Star teams in each of the next three seasons, helping the Dodgers to another pennant in 1978 with a four-hit shutout of the Phillies in the NLCS before a victory in the World Series opener against the Yankees. New York prevailed in that series as it had the year before, and just a few weeks later, the Yankees signed John, who had reached free agency, to a three-year, $1.2 million deal, with an option for the fourth year.

John made 36 starts in each of his first two seasons in pinstripes, totaling a whopping 541 2/3 innings and notching 43 wins; he went 21-9 in 1979, and 22-9 in ’80. His 2.96 ERA ranked second in the AL in 1979, and his 5.5 WAR seventh; he again finished as the runner-up in the Cy Young race, this time to Mike Flanagan. On June 6, 1980, he threw a two-hit shutout against the Mariners in Seattle for his 200th career victory.

The Yankees missed the playoffs in 1979, and despite winning 103 games the following year, they were ousted in the ALCS by the Royals. They returned to the World Series in 1981 to face the Dodgers, that after John went 9-8 with a 2.63 ERA (136 ERA+) during the strike-shortened season.

For as strong as those numbers were, off the field John and his family were enduring difficult times. On August 13, 1981, just three days after the season resumed following the seven-week strike, his two-year-old son Travis fell through the screen of a third-story window and bounced off the front fender of a station wagon, fracturing his skull but probably saving his life. He spent nearly two weeks in a coma; during that time, his father took his turn in the rotation if the Yankees were at home and remained with his family when the team traveled. Thankfully, Travis recovered; by the time of his father’s start in Game 3 of the Division Series against the Brewers, Travis was able to throw out a ceremonial first pitch.

John allowed five runs in seven innings and took the loss in that start, but rebounded with six innings of one-run ball against the A’s in the ALCS opener. When the Yankees reached the World Series, he spun seven shutout innings against his old teammates in Game 2, but he had hard luck thereafter. Summoned into a bases-loaded relief appearance in the eighth inning of a tied Game 4, he allowed two inherited runners to score in what proved to be the decisive rally. In Game 6, with the Yankees trailing three games to two, John threw four innings of one-run ball, but with two on and two outs in the bottom of the fourth and the score tied, 1-1, manager Bob Lemon made the controversial decision to replace him with pinch-hitter Bobby Murcer. The broadcast captured a disbelieving John as he was told he was out of the game.

Murcer flied out to end the threat, and then the Dodgers broke the game open against reliever George Frazier (who had already taken two losses in the series, including in Game 4) and claimed their first championship since 1965.

John didn’t complete his contract with the Yankees; with the team going nowhere, on August 31, 1982, he was traded to the playoff-bound Angels. He threw a complete game victory in the ALCS opener against the Brewers, though he was hammered in Game 4, and the Angels went down in defeat.

Highlighted by his securing his 250th win on May 1, 1984 with eight strong innings against the A’s, John spent two and a half more seasons with the Halos with diminishing returns. He drew his release in June 1985; battling injuries, he finished that season with the A’s, putting up a career-worst 5.53 ERA. The next spring, he made the Yankees as a 42-year-old non-roster invitee, and pitched well when available, but missed one month due to back spasms and two more due to a ruptured Achilles tendon, then tore ligaments in left thumb in a fall on September 3, ending his season. He intended that to be his last one, having accepted a job to become the pitching coach at the University of North Carolina, but the Yankees lured him back with a $350,000 contract. In his age-44 season, he pitched quite respectably, posting a 13-6 record with a 4.03 ERA (110 ERA+), 3.88 FIP, and 2.4 WAR.

John spent parts of two more seasons with the Yankees. He was the Opening Day starter for the last of them in 1989, the third-oldest in MLB history at the time, at 45 years and 317 days. But after compiling a 2-7 record with a 5.80 ERA in 10 starts, he was released in late May and announced his retirement in September.

Thanks to his longevity and ability to eat innings, John finished with some impressive career totals and lofty rankings: He’s eighth all-time in games started (700), 18th in batters faced (19,692), 20th in innings (4,710 1/3), and 26th in both wins (288) and shutouts (46). Beyond his staying power, the knock against his traditional statistics is that he never led his leagues in a Triple Crown category (wins, ERA, and strikeouts), made just four All-Star teams, and never won a Cy Young (though he did finish second twice and fourth once). His score of 112 on the Bill James Hall of Fame Monitor, which measures how likely (but not how deserving) a player is to be elected by awarding points for various honors, league leads, postseason performance and so on — the things that tend to catch voters’ eyes — marks him as “a good possibility” rather than “a virtual cinch.”

One can play “what if” and surmise that John might have reached 300 wins, and thus automatic enshrinement, had he not missed a year and a half due to his elbow injury. On the other hand, the high level of success he enjoyed in the first half-decade post-surgery may not have been attainable without that intervention. Also, had his career progressed without his UCL tear, he could easily have been sidetracked by a different arm problem in his late 30s or early 40s, after banking a few million dollars in free agency, at an age when rehabbing might have seemed less appealing than when he was 31.

While 164 of John’s wins (about 56%) and 2,544 2/3 innings (54%) came after his fateful collaboration with Dr. Jobe, his pitching WAR split is almost exactly down the middle: 31.1 WAR before, 31.0 after. On a prorated basis, he was more valuable before the surgery (2.9 WAR per 200 innings) than after (2.4 WAR per 200 innings), mainly because he was mostly a below-average pitcher over his last seven seasons (4.43 ERA, 92 ERA+, 6.5 WAR in 1,002 2/3 innings from 1983–89). There are 223 starting pitchers with at least 2.6 WAR per 200 innings (John’s overall average) and at least 2,000 innings pitched, including 55 of the 66 enshrined starting pitchers.

For all of his longevity, John’s 61.5 total WAR (including offense) is just 58th all-time among starters, ahead of only 23 out of 66 enshrinees, and just two out of the 11 contemporary Hall of Famers from “That Seventies Group,” namely Catfish Hunter (40.9) and 2022 honoree Jim Kaat (50.5). From that group, John’s 111 ERA+ surpasses only Hunter (104 ERA+), Kaat (108), and former teammate Don Sutton (108).

Beyond his run prevention is John’s lack of strikeouts. He’s 62nd all-time, having whiffed just 4.3 per nine overall and 3.4 per nine after surgery, meaning that he shares a greater portion of the credit with his fielders, leading to lower WAR values. With just four seasons of at least 5.0 WAR and among his leagues’ top 10, his 34.6 peak WAR is tied for 164th, matching or ahead of just seven of the 66 enshrinees, and over 15 wins below the standard. He’s tied with Tim Hudson and Orel Hershiser for 84th in JAWS, ahead of just 16 of 66 enshrinees, some of whom (such as Sandy Koufax, Dizzy Dean, and Addie Joss) threw fewer than half as many innings.

John’s standing improves slightly when I use S-JAWS, the adjusted version of my Hall fitness metric that tones down the impact of high-volume innings totals from earlier eras. Here’s “That Seventies Group,” with Tiant (who’s also on this ballot) joining John among the outsiders:

John’s adjusted peak is tied for 135th with a pair of pre-integration hurlers, Waite Hoyt and Red Faber (both of whom are in the Hall), while his S-JAWS is tied for 76th with George Uhle and Chris Sale; he’s 0.1 behind Hershiser, 0.1 ahead of Mark Buehrle, above just 19 of the 66 enshrined starters, and nearly 10 points below the standard.

As John is significantly below the career, peak, and S-JAWS standards by substantial margins, to these eyes, one needs to apply a very large bonus when valuing the more subjective aspects of his career. He was very good in the postseason (6-3, 2.65 ERA in 88 1/3 innings, including 2-1 with a 2.67 ERA in 33 2/3 innings in the World Series), but not quite dominant, and he never won a championship. He wasn’t grossly underrated in terms of awards and accolades.

The question of how much to value John for being Patient Zero when it comes to his role as a medical marvel is one I’ve been wrestling with since before I created JAWS, as he was mid-candidacy when I broke down the 2002 ballot for my Futility Infielder blog. His was certainly an admirable and inspirational comeback, a great story of risk and perseverance, and it’s left an indelible mark on baseball. Via Jon Roegele, keeper of the Tommy John Surgery database, over 2,500 professional players have undergone the procedure, including nearly 39% of pitchers who appeared in major league games or on the major league injured list in 2024. In the half-century since his surgery, and particularly since his career ended, he’s done countless interviews on the subject, echoing top orthopedic surgeons by counseling in favor of proper mechanics and against throwing too hard.

For as impressive as his legacy is, I’m mostly left feeling that when the Hall honored John and Jobe in tandem in 2013, that was sufficient. I can’t shake the fact that John was a very-good-but-rarely-great pitcher during an era that’s already well-represented within Cooperstown. On a performance basis, he’s substantially behind the other contemporary pitcher on this ballot, Tiant (whose case I’ll take up next). His numbers and case are both better than the recently elected Kaat, but I don’t believe Kaat is any more acceptable as a bar for pitchers than Harold Baines is for hitters.

The voters have seen things similarly with regards to John. He debuted on the BBWAA ballot in 1995 with just 21.3% of the vote, and didn’t top 30% until his 15th and final ballot (31.7% in 2009). Though he appeared on the 2011 and ’14 Expansion Era ballots, and the ’18 and ’20 Modern Baseball ones, he never received enough support to have his actual vote total announced; customarily, the Hall lumps together all candidates below a certain (varying) threshold as “receiving fewer than x” votes to avoid embarrassing them (or their descendants) with the news of a shutout.

Given the ubiquity of the surgery that bears his name, I can see a case for awarding John a bonus for his pioneering role, though my gut feeling tells me that covering an 11-point JAWS gap is a stretch, which isn’t to say that’s a hard line; I’ve got candidates I support who are a few points short of the standard, including pending BBWAA newcomer CC Sabathia. Regardless of my qualms, if the voters are going to choose John, I’d rather it happens while he’s alive. But Hall voting doesn’t take place in a vacuum. Voters are limited to three choices from among the eight candidates, and through four evaluations, I’ve got one definite yes (Allen), one firm no (Steve Garvey), and one yes-but-for-space (Ken Boyer) before John. Boyer has much stronger numbers, but his lack of traction from voters, and the fact that he’s deceased, lowers him as a voting priority. Even if I put John ahead of him, I know there are still stronger candidates to evaluate. So while I’m not a definite “no,” I lean that way for John on this ballot.