Prince Fielder bitten by injury bug

Apr 22, 2014; Oakland, CA, USA; Oakland Athletics second baseman Eric Sogard (28) turns a double play against Texas Rangers first baseman Prince Fielder (84) during the third inning at O.co Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

It was announced today that Texas Rangers first baseman Prince Fielder will have season ending neck surgery next Tuesday.  He will seek a second opinion first, which is standard operation procedure, but it highly unlikely that will change things.

This is especially bad news for the Rangers since he has recently been coming out of his April slump.   For the month of April Fielder only batted .206 with only 2 home runs.  It was the worst start in his career.  Things were looking up in May for him.  Over his last 4 games he was batting .462 and over his last 12 games he was batting .350.

Many had figured Fielder would finish the season with another 30 or more home runs and a batting average north of .300.  There was a lot of exciting about him batting in Arlington with the short fence in right field.  I’m sure that alone sold a lot of tickets in the home run porch area.  But, fans won’t be seeing anymore of Prince Fielder this season.

The surgery the Dr. Dossett will perform on will sideline Fielder for the rest of the season.  Dr. Dossett will fuse the troubled discs together (C5-C6) in order to give him the best possible results.  This type of surgery does have a high success rate.  He should be ready to play in the 2015 season.

Jon Daniels had this to say about the injury and staying positive.

"“It is May and we are going to stay positive,” general manager Jon Daniels said. “We’re going to stay strong and stay the course. We’ve played well the last couple of days and we think we can still do a lot.” (Evan Grant – Dallas Morning News)"

The Rangers are paying $24 million a year for Prince Fielder.  Rangers are receiving $30 million from the Tigers to make their part of the total contract $76 million.  There is an insurance policy on Fielder, in which the Rangers will be able to recoup $2 million with this season.

With a season full of injuries, the Rangers are getting used to cashing in insurance plans this year.  So far they have placed 16 players on the disabled list and currently have 13 on the disabled list.  Fielder will be the next one to join the list.

This is a big blow to the Rangers.  One thing Rangers fans should be happy for is they still have Mitch Moreland.  There was a lot of talk and fans complaining about Moreland.  Well it looks like Moreland will be the primary first baseman now.  It is a good thing they kept him around.