THURSDAY: The surgery was to “reduce the fracture,” per a club announcement, with “no damage to the tendon” requiring treatment. Whether or not that impacts the timeline is not known, but it seems there could be some hope for an improved outlook.
SATURDAY: The Reds have announced that their top prospect, third baseman Nick Senzel, will undergo season-ending surgery in order to repair a torn tendon in his right index finger.
It appears as though Senzel suffered the injury while making a defensive play during the top half of the first inning in a Triple-A matchup against the Norfolk Tides. Although he initially remained in the game for the Louisville Bats, he was removed in the bottom half of the inning, and now it appears the Reds are facing one of the worst-case outcomes, as a player who seemed ready to contribute in the majors at some point soon will instead miss the remainder of 2018.
The 22-year-old Senzel is a consensus top-flight young talent in the game, with all four of Fangraphs, MLB Pipeline, Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus labeling him as either the game’s sixth- or seventh-best prospect in their most recent rankings. A 6’1″ third baseman, Senzel has raked at a .310/.378/.509 clip in 193 Triple-A plate appearances this season while slugging six homers and swiping eight bags.
For what it’s worth, The Athletic’s C. Trent Rosencrans reports that the Reds expect Senzel to make a full recovery, and they believe the injury is unlikely to affect him moving forward. Furthermore, it seems as though he could still feasibly be ready in time for further development in the Arizona Fall League or in winter ball. Online research, at least, would seem to corroborate that last point, as a few sources suggest that a finger with said injury can handle heavy sports activities after about 12 weeks post-surgery.
Prior to this stunning turn of events, Senzel seemed to be on the brink of a potential major-league call-up, at least by basic logic. He was just coming off a two-homer game and had three in the past week in addition to his strong Triple-A batting line. Furthermore, a promotion at this point in the season would not have helped him qualify for Super Two status, as that deadline has almost certainly passed for the season. Though he would appear to be blocked at third base by a red-hot Eugenio Suarez, Senzel’s actually been getting some reps at the keystone this season in order to give him a more direct path to the majors.
For now, though, the young wunderkind will sit on the MiLB injury shelf, where he won’t gather any MLB service time. That means Reds fans will likely have to wait until at least three weeks into next season to see Senzel at Great American Ballpark, as Cincinnati will almost certainly look to manipulate his service clock in order to gain an extra year of team control over him.
Hopefully he can treat his vertigo issues during rehab, I think that’s the real concern long term.
He rehabbed extensively last time he went down with it and it hasn’t been an issue since
Everyone making a much bigger deal out of it than what it seems to be
Well vertigo can come back and for some, deal with it off and on for a long time. I’d say that’s why some might be concerned he’ll deal with it longer down the road. I actually started dealing with it roughly 4 months ago, and its no joke!
Vertigo can be a HUGE deal. Its nothing to sneeze at. Recurring vertigo was debilitating for my dad for several years.
Reds can’t seem to figure out how to manage log jam of talent!? Don’t worry, it’ll work itself out when your top prospect hurts himself playing in not Cincinnati!
“Reds can’t seem to manage log jam of talent” where is this?
In the major leagues. The have Scooter Gennett, Eugenio Suarez, Joey Votto, and Jose Peraza in their infield. In 2018, that is a very good infield.
The Reds are not good because of their starting pitching, not their offense, which is about on par with the Yankees offense this year,
You’re high..omfg
I think you confused a couple of ALE teams in your Reds comparison. The Reds offense is about on par with the Rays, not Yankees.
Me thinks he hiflew the coocoo nest.
Actually, the Reds are below average in scoring. They have 327 runs this year, as opposed to the MLB average of 328. The Yankees have 382 runs.
baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2018.shtml
Thanks for the link, but you really didn’t have to do that. Every sane baseball fan knew this not to be true by a very wide margin.
“about on par with the Yankees” what video game league are you getting that from? The Yankees are the team with the “logjam of talent”
If you would’ve said infield, it would’ve been correct. I never realized how good of a trio Votto, Gennett, and Suarez were in the Reds infield. They are probably performing like the best infield in the game and you’re correct, it is quite a logjam.
Wellll you can’t exactly go by just runs scored. You have to take the DH role into account, adjust for some level of significance, look at the standard deviation based on NL vs AL, adjust for ballpark (I wonder which is more hitter friendly between the two??)
Yes the Yankees are better. But it might be closer than you think. But since I’m assuming the reds are middle pack in the NL, I bet it’s worse than what runs scored is showing
Gennett is putting up MVP numbers, on pace for 30 home runs and 100 RBI while hitting .335/.370/.537
To this thread, I wouldn’t comp the Reds to the Yankees because they lack the overall power. But the offense has actually been pretty damn good.
It’s really a shocker that the Yankees fan are piling on. That NEVER happens on this site. You might as well just put the Yankees logo in the banner.
BTW,
Reds team slash line – .254/.333/.395
Yankees team line – .252/.331/.463
Other than power, it’s pretty much the same. Put the Reds pitching on the Yankees and they are 20 games behind the Red Sox. Put the Yankees pitching on the Reds and they are 10 up in the NL Central.
“It’s really a shocker that the Yankees fan are piling on. That NEVER happens on this site. You might as well put the Yankees logo in the banner.” You write a paragraph more or less baiting a few fans of the Yankees, and Insulting the site. You’re the one making false claims about the similarities between these two teams, and when you are proven wrong you get bent. Well I apologize for calling you a nut then. Oh I see you downvoted everyone without even answering them, but that’s ok to do i guess.
The reds do have an above average infield. Without a doubt. Their outfield has been far below average dragging the overall offensive output down.
Last year they have 6 position players hit 24 homeruns and above. One of them left via free agency (Cozart). That’s not bad. This year some hitters are hitting, some aren’t (Hamilton, Duvall). Their pitching? Awful.
Tell that to the Cubs
See ya
Amen!
I love threads like this.
“Learn some baseball”
“Do you even follow baseball”
“You’re such a reds homer”
Well in reality Dhud either has been following this season pretty closely, or just got straight lucky with his homerism.
Fact is the reds infield sports 3 players in the top 10 in NL for ops.
Yankees have 1 player in the top 10 in AL, and they only have 3 players even in the top 30 for AL ops.
Everything sucks. Now they have less motivation to move Gennett so they’ll punt any decision until next spring
The never ending rebuild.
Another bone head decision cost the guy a year on the shelf. He should have already been in the majors. Just a prime example of a AAA team in the majors. Their rebuild will take 10 years at this pace. I feel sorry for the reds fans.
How was this a bone headed decision? Could have happened just as easily while in the majors.
Yeah if he were injured riding a bus or carrying his own luggage you could blame being in the minors. Should he be in MLB? Of course but an injury is an injury and random as hell
Well if he was in the majors, I could DL him on my fantasy team instead of housing him on my ML the rest of the season. Wink wink
Well at least this ends the debate over when he should be brought up. If all goes as anticipated Senzel SHOULD be a legit ROY candidate in 2019.
Doesn’t end the debate. The debate now becomes whether to hold him in AAA for the 15 days or whatever next season to get the extra control, or leave him down until Super 2 deadline still.
Journalism 101: what day did this happen? Missing in the current version of this story.
This is why holding players back for contract purposes is stupid. It leaves players thinking they aren’t doing enough or more than enough and they overdo it, make a dumb play or whatever. Serves you rights Reds.
Except, seven years is often better than six.
Well, he can compete with Alex Reyes for 2019 NL Rookie of the Year.
The Reds offense is not on par with the Yankees. Our outfield is subpar. I’ll take our infield and put their numbers up against any team. I’ll do the same with our pen. We still have a way to go, before we will be competing on that level. The good news is we have some very good (high draft picks) players 2 years or less away. Senzel, Trammell, Green, Santillan, India, and T Stephenson. All those guys are doing well with the exception of India, since he hasn’t actually played for us.
Winker and Schebler have been above average hitters