Major League Baseball Offseason News (Non-Alex Rodriquez related)

Fighting Chance Fantasy is so glad to welcome back Corey Dawkins and his expertise on injury news. If you are new to Fighting Chance, be prepared to be wowed by his writing and the way he makes it so easy to understand some of the more complicated injuries.

Its great to be back and I’m really looking forward to the upcoming season. 

I’ve spent the whole offseason doing two things. First, planning a wedding is the most stressful thing I have ever done. 

Second, I’ve mostly spent the rest of the time building an injury database that I have at my Website,  www.fantasypitchfx.com. I know it’s a shameless plug but only because I think it is extremely important when evaluating whether or not a player has a tendency to be injured.  Enough of that though, here’s my biggest offseason injury news.

1. Albert Pujols had surgery on his elbow but it wasn’t the Tommy John surgery that everyone was expecting.  Instead he had a procedure to take pressure off the ulnar nerve that runs close to the ligament and then move the nerve into an area where it won’t be irritated as much. He shouldn’t miss any time in spring training and therefore shouldn’t miss any time during the year from this surgery.  He’s a one-of-kind hitter and I don’t think it should affect his value at all.
2. B.J. Upton had surgery on his left shoulder to repair a torn labrum that hampered him all last season.  That front shoulder is where much of the power resides with a right-handed batter and the injury likely resulted in the power drop-off last season.  He could end up missing a week or two this season but I think he’s one of those talents where he could give you close to 30/30. Long term I don’t see any potential issues but he could start off slowly.
3. Chase Utley had surgery on his right hip in November.  He had damage to his labrum but more concerning is that he had a bony lesion repaired as well. This put his time table to 4-6 months.  At best, he’s looking at coming back from the surgery in the middle of spring training.  Unfortunately, this injury is the type that could prevent him from working in the offseason to keep his timing or trunk power up.  I expect that his power out of the gate will be a little slow as well. If that bony lesion acts up at all, he could have problematic issues throughout the season.
4. Chris Carpenter had surgery on his elbow and actually had the same procedure as Albert Pujols. Two things make me concerned about Carpenter this season. First, and perhaps foremost, is that this didn’t actually address the pain that was bothering him at the end of the season, namely the shoulder nerve problem. There was no procedure to alleviate the pressure on the nerve but I would expect that he did a lot of rehabilitation for the shoulder and elbow. Secondly, according to my database, he has been to the 15-day and 60-day DL four times each since 2002.  That’s over 660 days on the DL since 2002. That’s 58 percent of the time (using a simple 162 days/season). That is a lot of wear and tear on a body and that doesn’t even count any time he could miss this year.
5. Mariano Rivera had surgery on his shoulder to clean it up.  Not much to really write except to tell you that sometimes planning to have the surgery after the season actually does work out.
6. Troy Glaus had his surgery a couple of weeks ago on his balky shoulder.  This clearly will affect his playing time this year.  I don’t know if I’d draft him at all because you never know if there will be any complications or setbacks. It's not like a simple meniscus tear or bone chips in an elbow.

It’s good to be back and I hope that my injury tool helps some people out. I will be writing here once a week until the first week of March—when I begin my normal timeline of Sunday and Wednesday.  Pitchers and Catchers report soon enough.