Twins first baseman C.J. Cron played through a thumb injury for much of the season’s second half, twice landing on the injured list, and he’ll now seek an outside opinion on the matter, chief baseball officer Derek Falvey revealed to reporters (link via Betsy Helfand of the St. Paul Pioneer Press). “There could be a potential for a procedure to help alleviate some of the stuff he’s been dealing with,” Falvey said.
Cron, 30 in January, posted a solid .266/.326/.495 slash with 17 homers through 77 games prior to the All-Star break. That production cratered as his thumb troubles cropped up, however; he hit just .229/.280/.420 in the second half as his walk rate nearly halved (from 6.9 percent to 3.6 percent) and his strikeout rate spiked (from 19.3 percent to 25.6 percent). In all, Cron’s first season with the Twins resulted in a .253/.311/.469 slash with 25 home runs. That was only a hair better than league-average production by measure of both wRC+ (101) and OPS+ (103) in 2019’s heightened offensive environment.
Cron’s health will be of particular interest given that he’s projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to receive a raise from this year’s $4.8MM salary up to $7.7MM in 2020. That’s a relatively steep price to pay a first baseman coming off league-average offensive output, although perhaps the Twins are confident that better health would’ve kept Cron productive and led to a second consecutive 30-homer season.
Still, the Rays cut Cron loose and ran him through outright waivers a year ago, when he had multiple seasons of club control remaining and was fresh off a .253/.323/.493 season (123 wRC+ and OPS+). Minnesota was 12th in waiver priority when Cron was claimed, meaning more than a third of the league was uninterested in picking up two years of control over him at a time when his projected arbitration salary was $5.2MM. If Cron was a borderline call for clubs at that point, that’s all the more true now with just one year of control remaining, another raise in the offing, a barking thumb and a year of diminished offense. Perhaps the two sides will cut some kind of deal at a lower price prior to the tender deadline, but Cron seems like a potential non-tender candidate this winter.
playing through injury rarely works out. sometimes you just have to accept the inevitable to avoid an issue worsening.
Tons of guys play hurt and it works out just fine. Nobody goes 150+ games a year without having a twisted ankle, tweaked wrist, etc.
if it was something that everyone dealt with they wouldn’t write articles about it. im talking about stuff that may be requisite of a IL stint. not all tweaks and twists require a player to be inactive for 10 days.
And how does one determine how long it takes when it’s not an obvious injury? Is there a machine where you just stick in your afflicted body part and it dings and says “This will take X days!” because that would be slick.
It’s easy when a guy breaks something but sometimes you don’t know until you’re already in too deep whether it’s some normal pain incidental to being a pro athlete, or if it’s worth writing articles about it.
Cron should be non tendered. He’s just not that great and the Twins have internal candidates to replace him.
Don’t be greedy. Us giants fans will take him in a heart beat lol
Why? He’s not versatile, Posey will be getting more and more playing time at First as the years go on. And you already have Belt there. And what about Panda if he comes back?
Panda wolnt be ready until later in the year anyway.
Posey and Belt are not dangerous hitters. At all. The giants could use some threatening hitters like Cron in the lineup.
SF has too many players (under big contracts) suited for first base.
So you’re telling me you’d rather have Cron in the lineup than Posey because he’s more dangerous? I’d argue Posey is more dangerous.
Through 405 at bats the man had 7 home runs and 38 RBI’s…. yes cron is more dangerous
Agree with you that Posey is not “dangerous” but please don’t use rbi to try and prove your point
cj went farther in payoffs than the angels ever since he left the team.
Perhaps the Angels can use him
nope. with pujols and ohtani taking 1b and dh, we have no place for him.
Yup and we got Thaiss too. And if Cozart is healthy La Stella will see some time at 1B.
Definite non tender but Twins badly mismanaged his injury. You’ve locked up a playoff spot but still sent him out every second day to aggravate it ???