TOMMY JOHN, TOMMY JOHN

Chris Capuano is attempting a comeback from a second Tommy John surgery.  Much has been written about the horrible track record of pitchers having that surgery twice, casting a pall on Cappy's chances at a successful comeback.  Here is the list of pitchers who have had two (or more) Tommy John surgeries:

Dave Eiland 
Chad Fox (3)
Shawn Hill 
Hong-Chih Kuo 
Mike Lincoln 
Scott Mathieson 
Jose Rijo 
Matt Riley 
Denny Stark 
Tyler Yates 
Victor Zambrano 
Jeff Zimmerman 

The first thing I notice is that most of these pitchers weren't that good in the first place.  In fact, no other pitcher on the list has ever won as many games in a season as Capuano did (18).  He's one of only two (Jose Rijo) to have multiple 10-win seasons.

I'm not saying that Chris Capuano is going to win any Cy Young awards.  I'm just pointing out that in his case, because of his past success and because of his relatively young age at which he's making a second comeback, this is somewhat uncharted water.