Prospect Injury Report

This past week we saw some big names get added to the injury report. Wladimir Balentien (No. 21), Jose Tabata (No. 36) and Deolis Guerra (No. 48) were all bit by the injury bug, some more severe than others.

The Tacoma Rainiers got a major scare out of star outfielder Wladimir Balentien on August 10^th. The future M’s star misjudged a ball hit his way, attempted to recover, and was left trying to make a diving catch with all of his weight coming down awkwardly on his wrist. The ball got by Balentien, who was in such pain that he couldn’t get up to get the ball into the infield. The Tacoma trainers originally feared Balentien had a broken wrist, however they soon realized that no damage whatsoever occurred to the wrist and that Balentien merely had a dislocated little finger. Word is that he will miss two to three weeks to let the finger heal, which is quite a sigh of relief at this point.

Jose Tabata’s injury went from being ‘foggy’ at the beginning of the week to unfortunately clear come Friday afternoon. It is now being confirmed that Tabata will miss the remainder of the year while recovering from having his hamate bone removed from his right wrist. This injury has likely been a major reason for Tabata’s subpar power numbers this season. So despite the grim news it is more than likely for the better at this point.

Rumors are flying wildly around the Internet this week in response to some postings that stated Deolis Guerra might be shut down for the season. While the Mets have offered no confirmed reports, it is safe to say that Guerra’s shoulder tendonitis is nothing the Mets want to mess with. With that said, it appears that the Mets have merely moved him into a relief/brief starting role in order to limit the number of innings on his shoulder. The bigger issue is just how bad this shoulder tendonitis may be now and in the future. We hope this is not an injury that plagues him throughout his career. Jered Weaver has a similar issue, which has caused him to miss time in each of the last two seasons. The biggest fear right now is that with the more innings a pitcher logs, the worse the tendonitis will get. Hopefully the Mets are being smart in continuing to let this kid pitch rather than shutting him down altogether.

A few other injuries to make note of are Chris Garcia (knee surgery), Tony Sipp (Tommy John surgery) and Dexter Fowler (hamate bone).

The Yankees got slammed with the double-whammy this week in losing right-hander Chris Garcia to knee surgery. Garcia had been in the process of rehabbing from Tommy John surgery when he suffered this setback. Reports state that he will now be shutdown until November. The Yankees do not fear that this is that much of a concern, however as he was only rehabbing to keep his body in shape at this point. He is expected to fully recover and be ready to go come Spring Training.

Tony Sipp is the unfortunate victim of Tommy John surgery and will not even begin a throwing and conditioning program until July of 2008. This setback prevents Sipp from contributing at any point next season and more than likely prevents his making an impact with the Indians until mid-Summer of 2009. This is a truly unfortunate blow to an Indians bullpen that certainly could have used his arm down the stretch run this year and certainly next season. Sipp’s tag as the Indians’ Closer of the Future is now completely up in the air.

Finally, Dexter Fowler broke his pisiform bone back in June while making a catch and running into the outfield wall. The break required two pins to be inserted into his right wrist. This is fortunately not a break that is not uncommon to baseball players by any means, so he should recover well from it. While it was originally thought that Fowler was to be back by no later than mid-August, it now appears far more likely that the Rockies will hold him out until the Arizona Fall League season begins. This setback does not appear to be enough to keep Fowler from advancing to Double-A next season, but his performance in the AFL and early on next season should be closely watched to see if this wrist injury saps any extra-base power that he had.

Now, onto the list itself. So that you do not have to sort through the list each and every week, all new additions have been placed up front. All players on the lower portion of the list have already been seen on the list and have no significant updates. All players are shown with their most recent Project Prospect ranking.

And as always, do feel free to request additional information or to have a player added to the list in the upcoming update. You can reach me at: BTCharpied@projectprospect.com.

Enjoy!

Brandon can be reached at btcharpied@projectprospect.com.