At the MLB Draft Combine in June, all Henry Williams could do was play catch. Peyton Pallette, meanwhile, could only toss PLYO balls against a wall. 

In the lead up to the MLB Draft, which will begin Sunday, few junctures are more symbolic than the combine, which serves as a forum for scouts to gather prospect intel for their affiliated teams. And though Williams and Pallette each attended the event, they could not actually pitch, both were sidelined in the wake of Tommy John surgery. 

Such is life for some of this year’s uber-talented draft hopefuls. Eight of the pitchers ranked in Keith Law’s final top-100 draft prospects list are recovering from Tommy John surgery. Six of them are college players — Williams (Duke) and Pallette (Arkansas) among them. 

Six of the eight were once considered potential first-round picks. That includes Pallette, whom Baseball America pegged as the second-ranked pitcher in the draft in January. 

“It’s crazy, I have never seen this many guys who have had it,” a National League executive told The Post’s Joel Sherman. 

It’s a tenuous road to navigate, both for the players whose dreams, while so close, may now seem so far away, and for the teams tasked with assessing the risk-reward nature of drafting an injured pitcher. 

Draft hopefuls have dealt with Tommy John surgery before, just not quite on this scale. In the previous two drafts, eight pitchers rehabbing from the injury were selected within the first four rounds. Last July, the Blue Jays picked Ole Miss fireballer Gunner Hoglund with the 19th overall pick, even though Hoglund had undergone Tommy John surgery in May 2021. 

“I had a lot of comfort in the fact that this is such a common surgery and that there’s a plan in place that’s tried and true,” said Williams, who underwent surgery in December. 

“Presumably, once I’m in a big league organization, they have all the resources to make sure that I’m getting what I need to get me healthy to compete next spring.” 

Not everything is always that neat and tidy, though. 

While each injury — a torn UCL — may be the same, each rehab often proceeds differently, contingent on the player and his body. 

“It’s case by case,” said Josh Byrnes, the senior vice president of baseball operations for the Dodgers. “The odds are not 100 percent historically. As common as this surgery is, there’s some risk associated with it. 

“We realize that the draft is a pretty long bet on a player’s career, so the only consideration is that there’s a little bit of an unknown here.” 

The Dodgers are well-versed in this proposition. In 2018, Los Angeles selected Michael Grove, a right-hander out of West Virginia, with the 68th overall pick in the draft. At the time of his selection, Grove had yet to pitch in a competitive game in nearly 13 months, having undergone Tommy John surgery in May 2017. 

Byrnes remembers sitting inside Grove’s house in West Virginia, realizing that the Dodgers’ brass hardly knew him. With a healthy pitcher, that normally wouldn’t be the case. But Grove’s injury occurred before the Dodgers typically start “intensively” spending time with a prospect. 

“The backbone of all of this is still scouts, seeing players and creating a file, a chronology, a history with the player,” Byrnes said. “And we just didn’t have that.” 

The Dodgers convinced Grove to sign anyway, doing so partially because of a pitch from Walker Buehler. 

Buehler, then a budding star on the injured list with a rib injury, traveled to West Virginia to relay his own path. In 2015, the Dodgers picked Buehler in the first round despite being aware of his balky elbow. Sure enough, Buehler underwent Tommy John surgery shortly thereafter. 

Byrnes cautions that Buehler’s speedy recovery — he returned to the mound in a mere 12 months — is abnormal. 

“You can’t count on that outcome,” Byrnes says. 

What can you count on, then, amidst so much uncertainty? 

“A draft pick is a five, eight, 10-year proposition,” explained Byrnes, who noted that Tommy John surgeries are believed to have a seven-year shelf life, meaning that a pitcher’s UCL will stay in-tact for the first seven years following the surgery. “You factor that in. And the individual part of it is how we think the surgery or the rehab is going and how much we actually know about the guy.” 

Williams and Pallette have each attacked their rehabs in a manner that reflects Byrnes’ philosophy. 

“You have to be patient with it,” said Pallette, who is slated to resume throwing shortly after the draft, six months out from surgery. “I hear all the time that guys get off track, they try to rush stuff and they get hurt again. I’ve just tried to stay on track with my program.” 

For now, that includes throwing plyo balls against a wall three days a week, 10 throws per set. Intensity is minimal, but it simulates the throwing motion, prepping the arm for what to come. It may seem rudimentary, but so it goes. 

“Taking it day-by-day has gotten me to this point,” said Williams, who has done everything from throwing a dry towel wrap to throwing on a trampoline. “It’s a really slow ramp-up, but I consider it pretty bulletproof.” 

As much solace as the injury’s prevalence may provide, it still takes its toll. Williams called the experience humbling. Pallette recognized the more immediate implications, musing on his since-cratered draft stock, from plausible top-10 pick to likely second-rounder. The emotions of it all, he said, “hit me hard.” 

“I didn’t get to showcase the skills that I improved on over the offseason,” Pallette said. 

In the 2022 draft, that is the sobering reality many players — and teams — have to grapple with, even if there is a blueprint to follow.