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What appeared imminent is now official, Liriano will undergo Tommy John surgery on Monday. His 2007 season is done, but hopefully he can return at full strength and 2008 and have a long and succesful career. The rotation takes a huge hit, and guys like Bonser and Garza will have to step in and be middle to top of the rotation guys.

Not good news but if it has to happen, do it now.

Its dissapointing but he has a lot of years left assuming they can fix him. I will miss watching him pitch.

What have been the results of this surgery? I know it has saved careers but how do guys compare to what they were at their peak vs afterwards. Will he ever regain the form he showed in May, June and July?

It has saved careers and not done much for others. If I remember, pitchers have trouble getting the movement they had back. Velocity usually improves. 1 year for recovery, 1.5 to return to form for most pitchers.

Tommy John surgery, otherwise known as ulnar colateral ligament reconstruction, replaces a ligament with a tendon harvested from the forearm, foot, or leg. Chances of a complete recovery are estimated at 85%-90%, rehab takes about a year to year and a half. Tommy John had the surgery in 1974, didn't pitch again until 1976, but went on to pitch 13 more years.

Pitchers who have successfully recovered from Tommy John surgery include; Kenny Rogers, John Smoltz, Mariano Rivera, Jason Isringhousen and of course Tommy John.

Pitchers who haven't recovered from it: Rod Beck, Rick Ankeil, Joe Mays, Adam Eaton, and Kerry Wood.

It's hard to find a successful return to the starting rotaion after this kind of surgery, beyond John and Rogers most guys either faded away or wound up in the bullpen like Rivera, Isringhousen, and Gagne.

The truly scary part is look who's on the list had surgery and never made it back to form, those guys were top tier young pitchers who just faded away.

Wow this is a huge loss for the Twins hopefully he can recover or else the Twins willo be in a really tough spot for starting pitchers

Liriano out of the pen? Wow, I'd love to have Silva then. Let him pitch 2 innings, walk a guy and then bring in Liriano for 4 or 5 innings.

Or even worse, Liriano closing out games? He might be better than Dennis E was.

As PB said, surgery is simply "replacing flesh and bone to retore function". It seems to me it doesn't make sense to replace one part of Liriano with another part of Liriano. This move would only relocate the deficiency from one place to another.

I am going to the Twins once again to offer my services. For a small fee or trade of course, they can have some of my flesh to help rebuild Liriano. Now I know ligaments attach bone to bone and tendons attach bone to muscle. I will leave it up to the medical team to determine what they need as well as the quantity of each. My only request is that I will still be able to bowl, golf, and throw batting practice speed.

Well, atleast we know the issue and he can get it fixed now