This seems really dumb. Cappy was not pitching well by anyone's definition. He has the opportunity to have surgery paid for, spend a year rehabbing and pull in about $4 million for technically being part of the Brewers.

Instead, he's going to opt for rehab to see if he can resume being not good enough to start for the Brewers by midseason, and either get lost on a rehab assignment and end up spending the rest of the season in AAA or be an even more ineffective major league pitcher.

It's not like he was setting the world on fire before he got hurt...why not do the surgery and come back stronger in 12-18 months? If he comes back in July and sucks he's going to pitch his way right out of the big leagues.

if they're concerned that the surgery won't be as successful since it's his second go-round on the Tommy John procedure.  If that's the case, trying to rehab it first makes some sense, since it could give him two shots are recovering and continuing his career.  There have been guys who have had the surgery more than once (Jose Rijo, Victor Zambrano, Chad Fox, and a few others), but I can't think of anyone that came back after a second TJ surgery and performed at anything approaching their prior level, with the possible exception of Al Reyes.  

Andrews himself put the success rate (i.e., a pitcher returning to the his previous performance level) of second Tommy John procedures at just 20% in a USA Today article last year.  "You can always get it redone, but it won't be as good as the first time."

Looking at it from Capuano's perspective, where the priority isn't this season or even next, but the rest of his career, if there's a chance that rehabbing it will work, why not try that first?  If it doesn't work, he can still get the TJ procedure done later and hope for the best.