Injuries one day after the draft

The BaseballGB Fantasy Draft took place on Sunday evening, so yesterday’s Spring Training games were eyed with a measure of caution. There’s nothing worse than thinking your draft has gone quite well, only to have one of your key picks immediately suffer an injury that could derail your plans.

Miguel Cabrera was ranked by Yahoo as the top pick and, sure enough, the Chatham Anglers used their draft position to take the Tigers’ slugger with the first selection in our draft. I suspect the team’s manager Nick was more than a little perturbed when Cabrera was led off the field on Monday with blood streaming down his face.

Cabrera’s Number One ranking reflects that he is one of the best hitters in the game, but an added element to him this year from the fantasy perspective is the prospect of him gaining third-base eligibilty.

Few fantasy games take fielding performance into account, so the trade-off Detroit have to make with his fielding at the hot corner isn’t something that fantasy managers need to worry about. Once he’s played enough games to be eligible, he can be slotted in to the third base position and another big hitter can be used at first base.

The only potential problem – well, alongside him fielding so poorly in his first 10 games or so that he gets shifted to DH and doesn’t gain third-base eligibility after all – is that Cabrera’s move to a fielding position that he’s not really suited to does increase the risk of him picking up an injury.

And that’s what happened to him on Monday.  A groundball took a nasty hop and struck him in the face, causing a “non-displaced fracture of the orbital floor in his right eye”.  The reports seem optimistic that he will be cleared for a return to action by Opening Day, but it’s a scare nonetheless.

There was more than a scare for another player on Monday, though.

Joakim Soria had complained about soreness in his right elbow recently and it was confirmed yesterday that the MRI scans revealed “damage to the ulnar collateral ligament”.  That normally means Tommy John surgery and a year on the sidelines.

It’s a tough break for the Kansas City Royals, who have already lost catcher Salvador Perez for the first half of the season to a knee injury, and even tougher on Soria himself, who has already undergone Tommy John surgery in his career back in 2003.

From our BGB Fantasy league perspective, Steve Keene will be cursing his luck having drafted Soria for his Pretzel Vendors team in the ninth round.

Injuries are a part of the game, but seeing key players suffer injuries just a day after your fantasy draft is not the way you want to start your season.