SUNDAY: Dahl will undergo surgery on Monday to have his spleen removed, according to tweets from his agents at Sosnick Cobbe Karon. Dahl chose the procedure in the hopes that he’ll be able to return to action this season, though a splenectomy “also brings other challenges,” as SCK’s tweet notes. Charlie Drysdale of the Purple Row blog details a few of the longer-term health issues that Dahl could face in the wake of his operation, though with such a severely-damaged spleen, it’s also possible Dahl may not have been able to continue playing baseball whatsoever.
FRIDAY: Center fielder David Dahl, widely regarded as one of the two best prospects in the Rockies organization, will miss the remainder of the 2015 season after undergoing surgery to repair a “massive laceration” on his spleen, reports Yahoo’s Jeff Passan (Twitter links). As Passan reported yesterday, Dahl suffered a serious spleen injury as well as a likely concussion in a truly frightening outfield collision. He will have to wear some form of protective padding for the rest of his career as a result of the injury, according to Passan.
Dahl’s father, Mike, told Mark Inabinett Mobile Press-Register that during a collision with second baseman Juan Ciriaco, his son was kneed in the spleen and was also hit in the face. “He probably has a minor concussion, I would imagine, because he doesn’t remember much about what happened,” said Mike Dahl.
The 21-year-old Dahl was the 10th overall selection in the 2012 draft out of Oak Mountain High School in Birmingham, Ala. Entering the season, he ranked as the game’s No. 22 overall prospect, according to Baseball America. Baseball Prospectus, meanwhile, ranked him 24th, while he was No. 27 per ESPN’s Keith Law, No. 31 on Fangraphs’ Top 200 and No. 59 on MLB.com’s Top 100. This will be the second season that Dahl has had significantly shortened by injury, as a torn hamstring limited him to 10 games in 2013.
A slow start in his first taste of Double-A leaves Dahl with a .269/.296/.379 batting line in 189 plate appearances this season, but he hit .299/.335/.492 with 14 homers and 21 steals in 119 games across two Class-A affiliates last year. All of that, of course, takes a back seat to the fact that Dahl appears to have avoided a number of potentially worse outcomes in a very precarious scenario. MLBTR wishes Dahl a speedy recovery and continued success once he is able to return to the playing field in 2016.
Life has a way of inserting itself into our game too often, reminding us that there are more important things. Hoping Dahl makes a full recovery and is able to reach his potential.
Man, that is just awful. Hope for a speedy recovery for this kid.
First Buxton and now Dahl.. 2 terrible collisions by 2 very good prospects playing in New Britain. Sucks I wasn’t able to see either play. And how the Twins moved their AA affiliate..
The question I have is how does this compare to Eric Davis’s injury that was similar? He was never the same afterwards.
Huh? Davis had colon cancer.
He had a spleen injury right after he went to the Dodgers that cost him almost 2 seasons and he was a shell of his former self when he final came back.
Eric Davis suffered a lacerated kidney during game 4 of the 1990 World Series, which required surgery. He was never the same after that
My spleen essentially exploded when I was playing football in seventh grade. It’s an insanely painful injury (the internal bleeding is what gets you) and it took me a long time to recover. Hopefully Dahl turns out ok, but that is really frightening.