Mets pitching prospect Matt Allan had second Tommy John surgery in January
Mets pitching prospect Matt Allan talks to reporters Saturday, Feb. 19, 2022 at the Mets' minor league training complex in Port St. Lucie, Fla.. Credit: Newsday/Tim Healey
Matt Allan, a big-bonus draft pick who at one point ranked as the Mets’ top pitching prospect, had a second Tommy John surgery last month, the team announced Saturday, pushing the 21-year-old's return to the mound to 2024 at the earliest.
Allan’s complicated elbow history just got way more so. Ulnar collateral ligament revision surgery, as it is officially called, comes with a lower success rate and usually means a shorter career.
If he follows a normal rehabilitation timeline this time, Allan will be approaching five years between professional games by the time he makes it back.
“He continued to feel pain throwing as he went through the normal progression [in 2022],” director of player development Kevin Howard said Saturday. “He felt pain he shouldn’t have been feeling for long enough that everyone agreed this step was necessary.”
The Mets selected the righthander in the third round of the 2019 draft — Brodie Van Wagenen’s first as general manager — and signed him to a first-round-sized $2.5 million bonus, considered a coup at the time because many considered Allan a first-round talent. The Mets designed the rest of their draft around funneling as much money as possible to Allan, who was committed to the University of Florida, to convince him to turn pro.
Allan pitched in a half-dozen games in the lower minors late that summer but hasn’t pitched since.
He missed 2020 because the pandemic caused the cancellation of the minor-league season. In 2021, after being assigned to shadow Jacob deGrom during major-league spring training, he had his first Tommy John surgery in May. In January 2022, he had ulnar nerve transposition surgery, a less serious and more common follow-up to the first operation.
At this time last year, the Mets expected Allan to pitch by the end of 2022. It never happened. Dr. Keith Meister performed Allan’s latest surgery in Arlington, Texas.
Dr. Christopher Ahmad, an orthopedic surgeon who serves as the Yankees’ head team physician, said in a video on his website that the revision UCL reconstruction usually means the player is less likely to make it back to the same level he was at previously — which in Allan’s case means the lower minors, never mind the already daunting task of climbing the ladder to the majors.
Those who make it back from a second Tommy John surgery typically have shorter careers of fewer innings and fewer pitches, Ahmad said. The rehab process is longer and the workload management needs to be more careful.
“Usually the revision,” Ahmad said, “is never as good as the primary.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
