Early Injuries Hit Jersey

Everyone knows the injuries are part of baseball and the BSA is no exception.  Injuries have hit several teams this year and many note worthy players have hit the DL in recent weeks.  Some of those players outside of Jersey include: Jose Salazar, Zach Hutchinson, Osvaldo Cruz, Kendrick Garland, Jason Jackson, Brett Dwyer, Earl Harper, Enzo Diaz and many others.  Injuries to star and core players can impact one team more than others and vice versa.  Do you have the depth to replace the player with an above average player? League average player? Defensive stud?  Below Average starter?  Is the injury bad enough to make a trade?  Many questions go into how to replace these players.

As for Jersey since the beginning of Spring Training 6 of the D-Bags projected Opening Day 25 man roster have been injured severely enough to warrant a DL trip.  Below they are listed with their injury, approximate time missed, their replacement and how heavy it impacts the team.

MR Hyo-chin Kim: Torn UCL, 14 months+ recovery time.  With a young bullpen Kim was one of the more experienced relievers on the staff.  In 3 years his ERA+ was 117 and he was pegged as the set-up man.  If the trade with LA hadn't of happened to bring in MR Moran, this would have been a much harder hit.  At the time I would have rated this as 7/10 impact level.  Through the first month and a half of the season the bullpen ERA sits at 3.50, which is good for 4th in the CL.  His replacement Gerald Johnson has been more than adequate in his rookie season.

LF Fransisco Torres: Sprained Knee, 5-6 weeks+ recovery time.  Torres a starter in the past have seen his numbers go down each year he had been in the pros.  With a full OF, he was slated to be the 4th or 5th OF, bench bat and pinch runner.  I rated this a 2/10 on impact level because of how deep the Jersey OF is.  His replacement on the roster is 27 year old Juan Cabanas who has done everything Torres could have done thus far.

MR Phillip Moran, 2 weeks, back tightness.  Moran became the primary bullpen lefty when Kim went down.  Luckily this injury happened before the the end of spring training, so almost a week of his DL time was before the season started.  MR Pedro Vega replaced him and pitched 5.2 scoreless innings before Moran came off the DL.  I listed this as a 2/10 impact because the length of the injury was so short.  A long injury for Moran would have pushed this much higher.

SP Jose Lara, 3 months, elbow inflammation.  This only makes sense.  After a career worst year, Lara came out of the gate hot and was the D-Bags best starter through 5 starts.  He was pulled after 1 hitter in his 6th starter.  Though the Jersey rotation is deep I still rate this a 7/10.  Lara seemed to have put 2018 behind him and with the rest of the staff struggling, he hadn't allowed more than 3 runs in any start.   With rehab we should see Lara sometime in mid-late July.  Since the staff was going with a 6 man rotation, this injury pushed it back to the normal 5-man rotation.

CF Fransisco Ibarra, 3-4 weeks, sprained knee.  For the 2nd year in a row Ibarra will miss at least a month of the season.  He had drastically improved across the board this year and was hitting clean-up.  I put this at an 8/10 impact level.  He is one of the only consistent right handed hitters on the team and was on pace for 40+ HR at time of the injury.  He was replaced in the field by sliding Vancini from LF to CF and 4th OF Cabanas to LF starter.  He was replaced on the roster by OF Armando Gonzales.  

MR Angel Lara, 2 weeks, back tightness.  The 3rd MR of the short season to see DL time.  Luckily middle reliever is the deepest position in the organization.  Thus far Lara has been good serving as the set-up man posting a 3.15 ERA and striking out just over a batter per inning.  Pedro Vega was recalled to replace him an Gerald Johnson will move into the primary set-up role for the next 2 sims.  Though Lara is an important piece to the pen, missing 2 weeks only rates as a 2/10.

Although Jersey has been hit with 3 major injuries so far in the young 2019 season, none of them had TOO much of an impact so far.  The majority of the injuries have come at positions of great depth, something Jersey prides themselves on, and were replaced with above league average players.  We hope that early injury concerns do not become a theme of this season, but if they do, the D-Bags plan on replacing and chugging along.

Through May 19th, Jersey sits with a 24-21 record, 3rd place in the CL East, 5.5 games behind division leader Greenville and 1.5 games behind Wild Card leading St. Louis.

GO D-BAGS