Torn Labrum Surgery and Recruiting Timeline

A player has nothing if not his health. Timelines of any sort lose all relevance in a situation such as this.

If highly qualified orthopedists who are involved in your son's  situation advise him to undergo surgery, making surgery a foregone conclusion, he should have the surgery now.

Afterwards, he needs to be certain that he follows his doctors' rehabilitation to the letter; neither rushing it nor short-cutting it.

Best of luck to him!

I have no idea how he can hit with a torn labrum.  It's really tough to diagnosis as well.  What you don't have is time to fool around with speculation.  I know two kids who were misdiagnosed because the MRI showed nothing. The went on to miss huge portions of their high school and college years respectively because they fooled around with therapy.  I would insist on having it scoped.  If it's torn, get the surgery asap.  If the MRI shows a clear tear, you can bet it's severe enough to warrant surgery.

Good luck to you.  I empathize being a dad who has a Tommy John kid. 

IMO you should ask the ortho if delaying the surgery could have a negative impact on the outcome. If so, then you have your answer and you need to get it done asap. If the ortho says it doesn't matter (knowing full-well that your son is a catcher), then you can weigh the options.

One thing to consider is where he projects. If not mid to high DI, then he should have plenty of opportunities in the fall, and that would be another reason to get it done now. If he continues to play, the left shoulder shouldn't impact his catching too much, except for balls over his head. Not sure about his hitting (R or L?).

My 2015 played his rising senior summer with a bad knee and several schools told him pretty directly that it hurt him on their boards. His situation was a little different because he doesn't play fall baseball, so he felt like he just could not miss summer ball. Ortho and PTs said that he was in no danger of making it worse by playing on it (with a brace), but that it was not going to get better until he took a break.

Best of luck.

MidAtlanticDad- When you said "several schools told him pretty directly that it hurt him on their boards," was that because they felt he was not playing at 100% because he was hurt or because he required the surgery in the first place and they could not assess him?

I agree that one of the main questions we need to ask the ortho is the impact of delaying.  In general, he seemed to feel that delaying was an option but said that until we got the MRI results back, he could not give us more detail.  If delaying means redoing his swing though (one-handed finish), I am not sure that is such a good idea.  The PT who will be working with him said he would have to change his finish.

Thank you very much for all the thoughtful responses so far and any others coming.  We just want to make sure my son completely understands the impact of all the options as far as timing and is part of the decision making process. It helps to hear ideas from others.

The main reason was because the interest he had generated before the injury was mostly at C, and that summer he was limited to 1B. His running was not 100% either, and it wasn't great to begin with. He has not needed surgery. I didn't get the impression that healing from the injury was a major concern, but they wanted to see him at 100%.