LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – The name is not scary anymore. Pitchers used to hear Tommy John and regard it as an epithet. Tommy John never wanted to be the Angel of Death for pitchers, and yet for years the surgery named after him because he was the first person brave enough to try it made pitchers quiver. Tommy John surgery meant a torn ulnar collateral ligament, a blown-up elbow, a career in jeopardy.

View photos

Until recently. As pitchers' elbows failed more and more, as surgeons became more and more adept at fixing them, something curious happened: Tommy John wasn't all that scary anymore. It practically became a rite of passage.

"Tommy John now," Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said, "is almost like a root canal."

Just look at Stephen Strasburg last season. None of the estimated 1,000-plus professional pitchers who have undergone Tommy John ever had a full season of starts – fine, an almost-full season – like his 2012. Perhaps because there are few pitchers ever with Strasburg's talent, sure, but what about Brett Anderson?

The left-hander rejoined the Oakland A's toward the end of August last year and over his first four starts allowed two earned runs. His comeback was perhaps the best yet in the middle of a season, in the same conversation with Strasburg's five-start cameo the year before.

As great as they were – the celebrated Strasburg blowing hitters away and Anderson pushing the A's to a playoff spot – neither was the best in 2012. Another pitcher – a most unlikely candidate – may be the greatest Tommy John success story yet, the sort who can demystify a surgery evolving faster than anyone realizes.









Kris Medlen stands 5-foot-9 3/4, and we will round up to 5-10, even though when you're under 6-foot that extra quarter-inch means more than tall people care to recognize. He is a right-handed starting pitcher for the Atlanta Braves. This is important because 5-foot-10 right-handed starting pitchers exist only in dreams and parallel universes in which scouts do not chortle, scoff and expectorate a giant stream of tobacco juice in the direction of any right-handed pitcher with the temerity of standing 5-10.

Last season, Medlen joined the following list: Pedro Martinez, Greg Maddux, Bob Gibson, Ferdie Schupp, Dutch Leonard, Walter Johnson and Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown. They are the only starting pitchers in history to finish a season with at least 138 innings pitched and an adjusted ERA of over 250. That means his ERA, when factored for the stadiums' dimensions, was more than 2 ½ times better than the league average. In the last 96 years, the list is Medlen, Pedro, Maddux and Gibson.

[Related: Giants' Sergio Romo can't get enough of his final pitch in World Series]





Though Medlen started only 12 of his 50 games last year, it doesn't lessen the impressiveness of his season. In those dozen starts, he pitched 83 2/3 innings, struck out 84, walked 10, allowed 57 hits and went 9-0 with a 0.97 ERA. At 26, Medlen made a maneuver last seen from Johan Santana: bullpen to ace, changeup artist who prompts his teammates to speak in onomatopoeia.

"I sat in one of his bullpens last year," Braves reliever Jonny Venters said. "Both sides of the plate, every pitch, pop, pop, pop. Change-ups going vvvvvvooooo-pop."

View photos

Story continues