FORT MYERS, Fla. — Attempts to determine what kind of player Pablo Sandoval might be going forward seem to revolve solely around his weight and physical conditioning. Yet it’s entirely possible that another physical issue will loom larger in determining his impact in 2017, and his worthiness of reclaiming an everyday role at third base.

It is easy to forget that the reason Sandoval missed the 2016 season was not his conditioning; it was surgery to repair a damaged labrum in his left shoulder. And while his physical preparedness for this season may have a great deal to do with his performance, there is a chance that the health of his shoulder played a significant role in his 2015 decline — and that it will likewise play a pivotal role in 2017.

The initial returns are promising. Sandoval beamed about the condition of his repaired shoulder.

“Right now, it feels 1000 percent,’’ he said.

Yet the procedure he underwent is one from which players can struggle to return.

For a pitcher, surgery to repair the labrum — a capsule of cartilage that promotes stability in the shoulder socket — remains fraught with recovery challenges, and there’s a long line of pitchers who never return, let alone reclaim their previous performance levels.

And while the risks for position players — particularly in their non-throwing shoulders — is often overlooked, there are several examples of players who did not perform at the same offensive level after the procedure.

Adrian Gonzalez was among the best hitters in the game when he had a labrum procedure on his right (lead shoulder). After his rehab, he retained that stature through the first half of 2011 with the Red Sox (.354/.414/.591) before his performance declined markedly (.306/.366/.476) over the duration of his time in Boston until a trade to the Dodgers in 2012. Overall since the procedure, he has been an above-average rather than elite offensive performer.

Matt Kemp was a 27-year-old outfielder in his prime and one of the best hitters in the game in 2011-12, hitting .315/.387/.567. In four years since labrum surgery on his left (lead) shoulder, he has hit .272/.321/.471.

Melvin Upton Jr. looked like an emerging five-tool star for the Rays as a 22- and 23-year-old in 2007-08, but his excellent all-around approach in those years (.286/.384/.452) unraveled following his labrum surgery. He has a .304 OBP in the years since his procedure, and has never had a mark above .331.

There is a medical rationale for those cautionary tales.

“When you have this procedure, it changes the anatomy on the inside of the joint,’’ said former Red Sox trainer Mike Reinold, now the president of Champion Physical Performance and Training. “It’s really, really hard to get the capsule equally as balanced as prior to the surgery.

“During the surgical procedure, you can over-tighten it very easily. You can under-tighten it and it’s still loose. It’s skill-dependent on the surgeon.

“The rehab process and in the surgery, it’s very easy to get tightness. That’s going to change the way your shoulder works and then obviously it changes your swing. We do see that. It’s usually from being over-tightened — they’re super loose, they get the surgery to stabilize it, and they’re extra tight after it, and it impacts their ability to swing.’’

One of Sandoval’s teammates can vouch for that notion. Hanley Ramirez required surgery to repair a torn labrum (suffered in a dive for a ball) after the 2011 season. He spent that winter rehabbing, and when he came back in 2012, he felt like a different player.

“The shoulder is going to be in a position that your body doesn’t know and it’s not used to it,’’ said Ramirez. “You’re going to have to make some adjustments in everything — swing and batting stance.

“It takes a lot of work. The whole year, you realized something wasn’t feeling quite right. Something is not what you’re used to.

“It took me almost a year, year and a half to realize that I’ve got to find a way to produce, because the past was different when my body was feeling normal. After that surgery, everything changed. That’s when I started to make some adjustments in my swing and batting stance.’’

Ramirez actually had a better year in 2012 (.257/.322/.437) than in an injury-marred 2011 (.243/.333/.379), but both performances fell considerably short of the standards he’d set in his first five full seasons (.306/.380/.506). Ramirez said it wasn’t until 2013 (.345/.402/.638) that he felt ready to make the necessary swing adjustments to return to familiar levels of production.

The performance difficulties for a hitter typically vary depending on whether it is the front shoulder or back shoulder. For the front shoulder — the one on which Ramirez received his 2011 operation, and the one that helped derail his 2015 season — hitters struggle with the extension and finish of their swings, which can affect plate coverage and power.

The unraveling of a plate approach makes sense in that context: If a hitter is cheating not to get beaten on pitches away, he might feel an unfamiliar vulnerability on pitches in. The result in several cases is a hitter who is more aggressive — and less productive — post-surgery than he was before the procedure.

Instability or tightness in the back shoulder, meanwhile, is “super-impactful in getting the barrel through the zone,’’ said Reinold. “The second your arm starts across your body is when you put pressure on the back side of your capsule.’’

Most cases of labrum repairs for position players have been associated with the front shoulder. For the switch-hitting Sandoval, his left shoulder is his lead shoulder when batting righthanded and his back shoulder in his more frequent lefthanded position.

Of course, Sandoval is not certain to struggle. Red Sox hitting coach Chili Davis, also a switch hitter, notes that he had a Bristow procedure (the insertion of a screw) on his left shoulder after the 1986 season that limited his extension. Starting in 1987, he adjusted to commit to driving the ball to the opposite field as a righthanded hitter. What had been his weaker side as a hitter thus became a much stronger one, allowing Davis to become one of the most productive switch hitters in the game.

“It might benefit him in the long run,’’ suggested Davis.

Such a claim might not be the proverbial pie in the sky — particularly given that, according to Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski last May, Sandoval had shown signs of labrum damage even when he signed with the Red Sox.

At the time of the surgery, Dombrowski offered, “He had labral effects in his shoulder, like most players do. [The Red Sox] saw that a couple of years ago when they signed him. But as you can see, the Giants tried to sign him at that time, so it was not a thought process that this would develop.’’

If Sandoval had been dealing with weakness and deterioration of his labrum over a long period of time, it’s possible the repair could have upside. It’s worth noting that there are instances of players — most notably Adam LaRoche, who reclaimed his status as a middle-of-the-order slugger in 2012 after struggling in 2010 and 2011 with long-term back-shoulder labrum wear — whose production increases post-surgery.

Perhaps Sandoval is in line for a similar rebound. Perhaps his struggles in 2015 were a reflection of his growing shoulder instability that rendered him (before his temporary abandonment of switch-hitting in 2015) the worst righthanded hitter in the big leagues against southpaws in 2014-15 (.172/.218/.272).

That said, while it’s hard to imagine Sandoval’s production going anywhere but up, it also would be a mistake to ignore that the surgery he underwent is a significant one — with a wide spectrum of potential changes to performance.

“There are a ton of variables,’’ said Reinold. “You can’t say, ‘Everybody does this or that.’ Everyone is different.’’

Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him on twitter at @alexspeier.