Atlanta Braves Lose Dustin Peterson as Bench Option

Stretched Braves budget might have to go a bit further as injury news starts to make an early impact to Spring decisions.

The Atlanta Braves announced this afternoon that outfield prospect Dustin Peterson injured his hand Wednesday evening while batting against the Yankees.

Its gets worse:  today he had surgery to “remove the hook of the hamate bone in his left hand” as a result of that injury.

The procedure comes with an expectation that the 22½ year old Peterson will be out for roughly the next 2 months… plus rehab time, presumably.  That would make him available for action again at roughly the end of April/beginning of May.

In theory.

For a comparison, Giancarlo Stanton was sidelined on June 27, 2015 with a similar injury.  He began a rehab assignment on September 1st of that year, but was never activated for the rest of the year.

Thus we hope the Braves tread carefully with Peterson.

Okay, Educate Me

We hear about hamate bone injuries a lot.  Until now, I hadn’t bothered to check up on what this really means to a ballplayer.

Google’s own dictionary resource proves most helpful here:

"a carpal bone situated on the lower outside edge of the hand. It has a hook-shaped projection on the palmar side to which muscles of the little finger are attached."

This picture illustrates the issue fairly well.  If you hold your own left hand up so that the palm faces you, the ‘hook’ involved is near the base of the palm in the ‘padded’ area on the side with the ring and pinky fingers.

By the definition above, having this bone break would certainly impact that hand’s ability to grip a bat or otherwise effectively control the outer pair of fingers.

Peterson is right-handed, so there should be no future throwing issues, but this is a second setback for a Braves’ prospect in recent action during a plate appearance.  Clearly, Ozzie Albies’ olecranon injury in September was the more serious issue, but this may have had more near-term impact to the team than we might have thought.

Okay, that’s a surprise

If that’s really the case, this suggests a couple of things:

• Peterson’s Non-roster Invitee status might very well have been a real opportunity to make the club.  He was one of the team leaders in AB’s thus far, going 3 for 10 (.300) with no walks and a single K while scoring twice.
• There are no other internal candidates for the 4th outfielder/bench role currently under consideration.
• This would certainly include someone like Adam Walker (2 for 6, .333 with both of those hits still looking for a place to land).  That said, he also has 3 Ks.

At the same time, with the expectation of Peterson being on the shelf for only a month-ish of the regular season, one wonders what kind of transaction might be envisioned here.

It’s reasonable to think, then, that this injury could simply derail Peterson’s candidacy… for the near future at least… as the team was good with letting him try out for the role during Spring, but perhaps not so in season once he’s healed.

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We’ve heard noise about Jeff Francoeur and Kelly Johnson all winter, yet the Braves have not offered a major league deal to either player.

With free agents still out on the market such as Angel Pagan (certainly not a ‘retread’), this also suggests that the Braves’ payroll may be about maxed out.

Still, there’s going to be a balance that will have to be struck between free agent monies, potential trade costs and production.

We will have to keep watch to see what happens next.  The Braves seem to be treating this bench position fairly seriously.  The ultimate answer may send a positive message about what it might mean to the club.

Next: All Votes Are In. No Recount Needed.

Hey, Chipper Jones was in camp as a guest instructor today.  Think he’d suit up for a month?  He could probably still hit .300 falling out of bed each morning.