Giancarlo Stanton will miss four-to-six weeks with a broken bone in his wrist
Fantasy owners and baseball fans alike were dealt a devastating blow on Friday, as superstar Marlins outfielder Giancarlo Stanton fractured the hamate bone in his left wrist, sidelining him for four-to-six weeks if all goes perfectly in surgery and rehab. This means fans will miss out on Stanton’s participation in the Home Run Derby in during the All-Star break and likely will not see him again until mid-August. The good news is that there has been no report of ligament damage in Stanton’s wrist, which makes recovery from a hamate fracture simpler.
The immediate impact of Stanton’s injury is massive. Few position players in baseball can carry a fantasy roster in the way in which Stanton can. At the time of his injury, Stanton was leading the league in home runs (27) and RBI (67). In many cases Stanton is by far the most impactful player on any given roster and a simple one-for-one switch to replace his production simply isn’t possible. The Marlins’ offense is already terrible, and recalling Cole Gillespie and his four career home runs will certainly not help their cause.
The Stanton injury effects far beyond his owners in fantasy games. The main threat in the Marlins’ lineup is now gone, leaving opposing pitchers with absolutely no reason to pitch to Christian Yelich, who had been batting in front of Stanton. The big power threat in the Marlins’ lineup now falls on Marcell Ozuna, who has shown little to no glimpse of the power he showed in 2014. Translate Stanton’s absence even farther through the Marlins’ lineup, and you will likely see less runs being scored by speedster Dee Gordon. If you’re looking for a way to take advantage of this injury, the easiest way would be streaming starting pitchers versus the soft Marlins’ lineup, which wasn’t overly intimidating before, and is now one of the worst in baseball.
While the official placement of Stanton on the disabled list hasn’t happened yet, it will likely be made official this weekend. Fantasy owners would love for this to happen by Sunday in order to evaluate the waiver wire for a replacement prior to the week starting on Monday. Obviously, replacing Stanton with a single player is impossible, so in this case some creative waiver wire plays will be in order. The thing is, there is plenty of cheap power available on waivers, you just might not get any other categories to go with it. Immediate stopgaps available in over 30% of leagues include Luis Valbuena (19 HR and 35 RBI), Ryan Howard (13/36), Curtis Granderson (12/24), Chris Carter (12/35) and while he hasn’t produced much at the MLB level in 2015, Jonathan Singleton, who the Astros recalled this week after obliterating balls in the Pacific Coast League to the tune of 17 HR and 66 RBI. So, there are options out there. Exciting they are not, but as fantasy owners, we have to make the most of what is available.
If all goes well with his surgery and rehabilitation, Stanton will be good to go in mid-August. And while it’s easy to dream as fantasy owners that Stanton will pick up right where he left off, hamate bone fractures are not so simple to return from with immediate light-tower power. It is entirely possible that Stanton’s home run power will be sapped by this injury in the future. A good example of this is Pablo Sandoval, even though the two have different hitting styles. What is encouraging for fans and owners of Stanton’s power is that his average distance and exit velocity numbers are greater than that of most teams in baseball, let alone versus individual players. Even if he has some loss of power as a result of the broken hamate, he should still be hitting moonshots for many years to come.
Roy Widrig is a correspondent at FantasyPros. To read more from Roy, check out his archive and follow him @rolewiii.
