This southpaw overcame arm injuries, Hodgkin lymphoma to be a top Draft prospect

This story originally ran previously, before Talon Haley was drafted with the No. 349 pick by the Angels.

It’s the spirit of competition that has kept Talon Haley going.

That’s how it is for this 6-foot-2 left-hander when a batter steps in the box and he goes into his delivery. And that’s how it is when health deals its harshest.

“I’ve always been a competitor,” Haley said in his charming Mississippi drawl. “God gave me that ability, that competitiveness, to fight.”

He’s drawn upon it often.

As the 19-year-old Haley -- the No. 90 overall prospect in the 2025 MLB Draft, per MLB Pipeline -- moves into the next stage of his baseball life after a stellar senior season at Lewisburg High School in Olive Branch, Miss., he does so with the wisdom and perspective gained not only from multiple arm surgeries but also a successful battle with high-risk Hodgkin lymphoma.

Haley has had to summon a resilience that is extreme even by the standards of his exacting sport. The experience has left this jovial young man with a deep appreciation for the lower-stakes competitions that await him either in a professional career or at Vanderbilt.

“Those who take a risk on me, I do think I'm going to prove them right,” he said while attending the MLB Draft Combine. “I know who I am I know and what I can do.”

Haley learned it the hard way. First, in eighth grade, when he had a strange bone abnormality in which a piece of a growth plate pierced the ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing elbow. To address the bone, doctors had to tear the UCL -- i.e., full Tommy John surgery.

Unwilling to go a long period without playing baseball during the rehab process from that procedure, the southpaw Haley taught himself how to throw right-handed so that he could at least play in the outfield, and continued to hit. He even threw some right-handed bullpen sessions on the side, reaching 88 mph with his non-dominant arm.

“You weren’t going to take me from the game,” he said matter-of-factly. “Honestly, it kind of works out now. I can teach myself a pitch right-handed, and then I can try to throw it with my left hand in the offseason, when I'm taking some time off from pitching.”

Tommy John surgery is devastating for any pitcher at any level. But it’s not life or death.

For Haley, the life-or-death competition arrived his freshman year of high school.

“I get back from spring break, and I felt like a little bump [near the neck] that prevented me from getting full range of motion,” Haley said. “And so, when I had to pitch, I always had to turn my body to just see the hitter or the catcher. I went to get it checked out, and there's three tests on it. The first two came back negative. ... Unfortunately, that third test came back and said I had stage 3 Hodgkin lymphoma, and it was a higher-risk, so it was in my spleen.”

What followed were 21 rounds of chemo and 19 rounds of radiation. Haley treated it like another batter in the box.

“This is a competition,” he told himself. “I’m not going to lose to cancer.”

He did not. Haley was deemed to be in full remission toward the end of his sophomore year.

When you’ve been through what Haley went through, another elbow setback akin to the injury that required an internal brace procedure to address a partial UCL tear his junior year is no huge hill to climb. The doctors told Haley that he probably wore out the ligament because he continued to pitch through his cancer treatment.

But he has absolutely no regrets about pitching during that time. Because when he took the mound, he was able to consider himself a pitcher, not a patient.

“That was my way out,” he said. “I’d say, ‘I’m the best pitcher in the game, even though I’m sick.’ I could go and be with my team. They treated me like a baseball player, and that’s how I wanted to be treated.”

Leading up to the MLB Draft, teams might not know how to treat Haley. The only thing sick about him these days is his stuff -- a fastball that can reach 97 mph, a hammer curve, a solid slider and a changeup he can spin.

“I’m not going to throw anything straight,” he said with a smile. “Everything is going to move. But before this year, we had a new catcher, and I told him, ‘You can trust me, I’m not going to miss my spot.’”

Ultimately, a team is going to have to trust that the worst of Haley’s elbow issues are behind him and that the cancer battle, the resilience and even the willingness to throw right-handed for a while are all a testament to his ability to power through the adversity the professional game will inevitably present.

And no matter where this baseball life takes him, Haley has had an experience that has helped him brighten the lives of others.

“I’ve treated all this as God’s plan,” he said. “I can show people, ‘Hey, this is possible.’ Just find that outlet. For me, it was baseball. But just find that outlet that’s going to get you through it.”