Brewers' Brandon Woodruff gives encouraging update on recovery from shoulder surgery

The Milwaukee Brewers need their ace back. With Corbin Burnes now in Arizona and Freddy Peralta putting together another up and down season in 2024, the return of Brandon Woodruff will be crucial to the Brewers' quest for a three-peat in the NL Central.

Woodruff missed the playoffs in 2023 and underwent a difficult shoulder surgery that took him out for the entirety of the 2024 season. Woodruff and the Brewers knew it would at the time and they've signed him to a multi-year deal to allow him to rehab and recover with the club. Now that we're into 2025, expectations are on Woodruff to return to the mound.

Because of that, Woodruff himself gave an update on his recovery to MLB.com's Adam McCalvy.

Brandon Woodruff going through 'normal' offseason progression

While rehab was going at a slow pace during the 2024 season, Brandon Woodruff got permission from his surgeon, Dr. Keith Meister, to have a normal offseason throwing program to get ready for 2025.

Woodruff is throwing bullpen sessions twice a week at home in Mississippi, is feeling good, and he hasn't looked at a radar gun reading once during this process.

This is fantastic news for the Brewers. This was the hope all along, that he'd have the surgery and be ready in time to have a normal offseason and then hit the ground running in 2025. Now, there still are a lot of steps to go in his recovery to get back on the mound in a game, but everything is progressing well so far.

According to Woodruff, he'll be heading to Arizona next week and throw in the Brewers "pitching lab" to get a full reading on his stuff, velocity, spin rate, all those metrics the Brewers use in their lab. That'll be the first time he'll get a true picture on how far along in his recovery he is besides his shoulder just feeling good.

From there, as spring training gets started and goes along, Woodruff will push as he's able to and his hope is to be ready for Opening Day. There's no guarantee he'll be good to go to start the season, but that's Woodruff's goal and if his shoulder allows it, he'll be there. Shoulder surgeries are tricky as the Brewers know with Aaron Ashby's performance in 2024.

Even getting Woodruff back at a slightly lesser version of his old self for the start of the year is a big help and improvement for this Brewers rotation. The hope is to get him fully back to his old self, but even 75-80% of the old Woodruff is a lot better than a lot of starting pitchers in the league.

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