One of the latest disappointments in a very long line of them for the Atlanta Braves this season was the news that Grant Holmes was going on the injured list with an elbow injury. Throughout the first half, Holmes was a rare (if weird) bright spot and how fans were faced with the likely prospect of him needing to go under the knife and being out for the rest of this season and at least most of 2026.
At least that is what almost everyone thought.
The prevailing wisdom with Holmes from beat writers on down was that the only question when it came to Holmes' elbow was if he was going to get an internal brace or full Tommy John. However, it appears as though there was a third option available all along, although it does seem to be hopelessly optimistic given what we knew about Holmes injury. According to manager Brian Sntiker, Holmes has decided to forgo surgery and go for a rehab-only approach...at least for now.
#Braves’ Grant Holmes will first try non-surgery rehab option for his elbow rather than Tommy John or other procedure. Made decision after weighing opinions from 2 docs. If not improving by offseason, could have surgery, which would sideline him all of 2026 even if he had it now.
— David O'Brien (@DOBrienATL) August 4, 2025
Grant Holmes opting to avoid elbow surgery for the time being
We have seen guys try rehab their way through significant elbow injuries before and it very rarely ends without surgery in the end. Given that Tommy John or an internal brace was already on the table from the start, it feels very likely that this little experiment is going to result in Holmes having some sort of surgery anyways.
In fairness to Holmes, it feels unlikely that he would try this path unless there wasn't at least some hope of it working. Holmes isn't going to do anything to jeopardize is career and if this path seems to be endorsed by at least some of his doctors, there is probably a small chance of it working. At 29 years old, he is probably hoping to avoid an extended downtime that could greatly impact his earnings going forward as elbow surgeries are held against guys in arbitration.
However, this just adds more uncertainty to the Braves' offseason plans. If Holmes decides after a month that he needs the surgery, that is easy enough. However, if he enters the offseason thinking that the rehab is working and the Braves expect him back and end up losing him say in February or even during spring training, that could be a disaster. Plans require some amount of predictability and Holmes just became a big wild card that the Braves probably shouldn't count on for a while.
In short, here is hoping that Holmes and his doctors are right and he can just rehab the injury and he doesn't require surgery at all because we know Holmes can be an asset to the Braves when he is healthy. However, there is a chance that this whole plan just creates more chaos and causes more problems as we head into the offseason in a couple months.