Tommy John has a surgery name after him. Some say it should be named after Dr. Frank Jobe the doctor who developed and performed the surgery on Tommy John. I have no problem with that. However, Tommy John does deserve credit also. It isn’t easy receiving surgery, practically experimental surgery. Also, after it is done you are the first one who goes through rehabilitation for the surgery. So, Mr. John deserves a lot of credit for making it work. Now days the surgery is fairly common and saved many a pitcher’s arms. They should than both men.
One thing in the formulas is what you put in the formula. Fangraphs WAR for Tommy John is a lot higher than his Baseball Reference WAR. I believe both groups who developed the formula are smart in baseball. It is a matter on how much you weight certain things. I don’t know who was right, so I combined them with win shares. Hopefully this limited the weaknesses and captured the strength of each formula. However, my results seem reasonable to me, so I’m happy.
Tommy John pitched, it seemed like forever, 26 years. That was with missing a year due to injury in there. That helped him exceed the 750. However, Tommy John did more than hang around to age 46. At the age of 44 he started 33 games, went 13-6 and had an above average earned run average. He wasn’t as good as in his prime, but he still got batters out and helped the team. He deserves credit for that and I see him as a hall of famer.
