Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: Injuries to Rehab, Contracts to Mull
Braves prospect Albies will have surgery for elbow fracture
DAVID O’BRIEN / AJC.COM [SEP 9]
Braves second-base prospect Ozzie Albies will miss the rest of the Double-A playoffs and the Arizona Fall League season after fracturing his right elbow Wednesday in a playoff game at Pensacola, Fla.
Albies, 19, will have surgery next week to repair a fracture of the olecranon bone at the tip of the elbow. The Braves said he’s expected to resume baseball activities at some point after Jan. 1.
They hope that he’ll be ready for spring training, where Albies was expected to compete for a starting job on the major league team prior to the injury.
…
He was injured in the sixth inning Wednesday when he hit a hard foul ball that outside the left-field line on a pitch that was in on his hands. Albies immediately hopped from the batter’s box while grabbing his arm in pain.
[ Ed. note: this was still one of the strangest injuries I can recall: breaking a bone – that bone at the tip of the elbow – during a swing.
Here’s another injury rehab that could take a while… or maybe “should”. The last heard on this was that Albies was ahead of schedule and likely would be ready to resume baseball activities for Spring Training.
Frankly, I hope they reconsider.
Something about Albies’ swing is generating a lot of force that is focused on that part of his elbow. That’s not likely to change. Yet there’s not that much surface area at the olecranon to absorb that energy.
"The recovery time on the olecranon fracture wasn’t specified, though recent examples of such fractures, including Gavin Floyd and A.J. Pollock, were able to return in late August (Pollock) and September (Floyd) after fracturing their olecranon bones in March (Floyd) and early April (Pollock). That suggests that in an ideal scenario, Albies could be back up to speed come Spring Training next season, where he could well compete with Jace Peterson for the second base job."
Floyd’s injury came via the force of pitching; Pollock’s was a re-injury.
"A lot more information came out about A.J. Pollock‘s elbow injury yesterday, including in particular the history of the ailment, and it’s clear both that there was significant structural damage to the elbow, and that it was an area of concern. The origin of the problem dates all the way back to spring training in 2010, his first camp after being drafted by Arizona the preceding June. At that time, he broke his elbow, and had a plate inserted into the joint to stabilize the fracture."
The article goes on to suggest that Pollock’s original fracture failed to heal correctly, eventually leading to his re-injury last Spring.
I think you can connect the dots of where I’m now going with respect to Ozzie Albies.
In short: don’t rush it. ]