MLB Preview 2013: Teams Already Hindered by Injury Heading into Opening Day

When Opening Day starts to appear in baseball fan's sights, it tends to bring plenty of optimism. For fans of many Major League Baseball teams, Opening Day is a time when they can throw out the record books from the previous season and hope that things will be better for this six-month journey.

However, those hopes can be crushed early in the season if a team suffers a crippling injury during the monotony known as spring training.

For most teams, they are heading into the season without major injury and will be ready to go for their respective openers. But here are some teams that may get off to a rocky start in April thanks to some bad luck in March. 

St. Louis Cardinals

The Cardinals head into 2013 with their starting shortstop and star pitcher preparing to spend the entire season rehabbing major injuries.

Chris Carpenter revealed on February 5 that his bad shoulder, which had limited him to 17 innings in 2012, had not recovered during the offseason. The issue will not only threaten his availability for this year, but his career could be over.

Rafael Furcal also had bad luck with an injury stemming from the 2012 season when his elbow didn't get any better despite an offseason of rehab. After trying to fire things up for spring training, he underwent ligament replacement surgery on March 15.

The loss of two quality players sets the Cardinals back, but they have the minor league firepower to soften the blow.

The injury to Carpenter leaves a hole in the rotation, but it allows the Cardinals to unleash Baseball America's sixth-ranked prospect Shelby Miller.

Miller made his major league debut last September as a reliever, but will be one of the most prized starting pitching prospects in all of baseball. As the fifth starter in the Cardinals rotation, he'll make the loss of Carpenter seem as minor of a problem as it was a year ago.

The same can be said for the man that is replacing Furcal at short, Pete Kozma.

Despite a small sample size, the former first-round pick flashed potential and helped lead the Cardinals to a wild card berth last season. With that experience under his belt, the promotion to the starting job will not be a shock and he will produce at a solid level.

The Cardinals have made an art form out of surviving without their top players, and that gives confidence that they can do it again in 2013. 

Los Angeles Dodgers

There are big expectations in Los Angeles as the new ownership group headed by Guggenheim Baseball Management begins their first full season with the Dodgers. However, a rough March have left those expectations in limbo as current injuries along with potential ones could lead to disappointment.

The biggest story for the Dodgers at the moment is the thumb injury to Hanley Ramirez.

Ramirez tore the ligament in his right thumb during the World Baseball Classic championship game on March 19 diving for a ground ball. The freak injury will keep him out for at eight weeks and will force Luis Cruz to take over shortstop until mid-May.

The Ramirez injury is big, but a pair of starting pitchers can doom the Dodgers as well if their ailments become major problems.

After investing $159 million into Zack Greinke, the Dodgers had to have been concerned when he reported that he was feeling discomfort in his pitching elbow early in spring training.

At the time, Greinke's status for the Opening Day roster was in doubt, according to manager Don Mattingly (via True Blue LA), but he has since made strides and is feeling healthy heading into the opener according to Hardball Talk.

Still, elbow injuries can linger and become more serious over time. With the Dodgers committing six years into Greinke, concern has to not only head into 2013 but the life of the contract.

The news is even more grim for fellow starting pitcher Chad Billingsley.

Billingsley suffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow last August, but opted for a platelet-rich plasma injection instead of Tommy John surgery.

The initial results have been promising according to USA Today's Paul White, but it seems to me like going this route is like trying to use a duct tape cast to protect a broken arm.

If Greinke or Billingsley have a setback, it will derail a Dodger rotation that would have to lean on Chris Capuano or Aaron Harang as replacements. Although both are solid, they're not top of the rotation replacements for two key pieces to the 2013 season. 

New York Yankees

There are teams facing injuries heading into the season, and then there's the Yankees.

It was bad when Curtis Granderson broke his forearm after being hit by a pitch on February 24. It got worse when Mark Teixeira went down with a wrist injury that according to ESPN New York's Wallace Matthews can turn out to be season-ending.

Then, it got absurd when the team announced Derek Jeter will not be ready for Opening Day following a broken ankle in the American League Championship series last October.

All three will miss the opening month of the season, and all of that carnage is without mentioning the name of Alex Rodriguez, who will be out until after the All-Star break following offseason hip surgery.

The rash of injuries have left the Yankees into panic mode, as they signed Detroit Tigers castoff Brennan Boesch and agreed to take $13 million of the Los Angeles Angels' hands by trading for Vernon Wells to help make up for the rash of injuries that has swept the clubhouse.

Add to the equation that the Yankees also have several declining players, and it seems like the prognosticators that have declared the team "too old" for the past five years will finally be right.

Although, it may be more accurate to declare the Yankees as "too hurt" to compete in 2013.