FG on Fox: The Cost of Injuries in Texas

by
May 23, 2014

In theory, one would think Thursday was a good day for the Texas Rangers.

Ace Yu Darvish took the mound for an afternoon affair in Detroit. A few hours later, Texas enjoyed a 9-2 win over maybe the best team in baseball. The win drew the Rangers one game shy of .500 with a 23-24 record, but the victory was an afterthought because Thursday brought other, bigger-picture news.

Prince Fielder was scheduled for season-ending surgery on a herniated disc in his neck, and Jurickson Profar re-injured his shoulder. Fielder is getting a second opinion, but it’s almost a lock the first baseman will have surgery and is done for 2014, while Profar looks like he’ll be a non-factor this season. And this didn’t establish a new pattern — it continued an old one.

It’s not even Memorial Day, and the Rangers have been devastated by the injury bug. Almost no position has been left untouched, and it seems like every week brings a new ailment. It’s hard to say when everything started — left-hander Derek Holland injured his knee in the offseason — but spring training was unkind to the roster … and the season’s been the same.

There’s a sense that these Rangers are cursed, and though, eventually, they’ll have talent back and healthy at some point, it seems like the year is a lost cause with the Rangers too short-handed.
What’s the approximate impact of all the injuries they’ve experienced?

Read the rest on FoxSports.com.

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.




 

Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.

12 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Matthew TobinMember since 2025
11 years ago

But J.P. Arencibia is still healthy.

0
srpst23Member since 2025
11 years ago
Reply to  Matthew Tobin

and he has currently amassed -0.5 War this year. So yeah, that really isn’t helping much.

-2
Matthew TobinMember since 2025
11 years ago
Reply to  srpst23

A way to convey sarcasm over the internet would be a billion dollar idea.

1
srpst23Member since 2025
11 years ago
Reply to  Matthew Tobin

Yeah, sorry. After I hit post I realized you were likely being sarcastic. I’m blinded by a buddy who still thinks Arencibia is a roster-able MLB catcher because of his raw power, so I tend to think that others may have the same opinion.

0
Johnston
11 years ago
Reply to  Matthew Tobin
1
Jason
11 years ago
Reply to  Matthew Tobin

yes and fortunately he was dropped from the 40 man roster. I drafted him this year in my AL-only league as my 2nd catcher hoping he played enough to get 15-18 homers along with a wretched AVG. Well he delivered…on the AVG. Sigh.

Oh and I have Prince Fielder too. Hence why my team is named The Hurt Locker.

1