Brent Rooker Suffers Season-Ending Forearm Fracture

Honestly I didn't think Rookers bat would look this good at the MLB level even in a small sample size, so his debut was impressive to me.  Just when it seemed he was comfortable he gets hurts.  The guy has had some seriously bad injury luck pretty much every year.  I feel bad for him and wish him a speedy recovery.  He can certainly hold his head high for helping the team while he was there.

Rooker looked MLB ready hitting, hard to judge defensively with such limited chances. Hopefully can fully recover from injury by next season.

Not enough AB to really know, but his strikeout rate (5/19) was not prohibitive here. That was my biggest worry about him and it remains to be seen if he can continue to make contact once the pitchers start to figure him out a little next year.

Not much info about the injury yet. Whether it is the Ulna or Radius is a big difference. While the Ulna is the non weight bearing of the pair, it can be slower to heal. Heezy? This looks like a minor fracture impact to me. Certainly not a total separation, so no plate needed.

Agree with Nine of twelve, this pitch looks to have hit him just at or above the wrist, almost certainly on the ulnar side. At the level of the wrist, the ulna is the smaller bone on the small finger side of the forearm. It's obviously hard to say exactly where this pitch hit him- whether it is a fracture of the ulna right at the wrist and into the wrist joint (what we would call intra-articular) or more on the shaft of the ulna (away from the joint a bit, within the bone itself or extra-articular). Neither is ideal, obviously, but you would prefer that the fracture be away from the joint so that there is less risk of damage to the cartilage of the wrist joint. Cartilage has less blood supply and therefore less healing potential when compared to bone.

 We do occasionally hear about injuries to part of the wrist cartilage in baseball players. This is called the Triangular Fibro-Cartilage Complex (TFCC for short). I believe Carl Crawford and Matt Holliday had this issue some years ago. 

 I am hopeful this is a fracture above the wrist joint, and involves only the bone of the ulna. This would typically be fixed with a plate and several screws to hold the bone in the appropriate position while the body heals the fracture. Healing of these type of fractures often takes around 6-8 weeks. On occasion, ulna fractures can have trouble healing and may heal slowly, or in rare cases not heal at all. In those cases, sometimes additional surgery or other treatments may be needed to get the bone to heal. 

 There are also tendons that glide close to the ulna in this area, and the sheath they glide in could potentially be damaged as well in this case. This can occasionally cause issues for baseball players as well (i.e. Mark Tiexeira). 

 Overall, definitely a bummer for Rooker, who was having a nice start to his career. Without knowing details, it's difficult to comment on the time frame for recovery or the likelihood of this affecting him in the future. Let's hope it's a straightforward fracture and surgery goes smoothly. I know the Twins have an excellent group of physicians to take great care of him. 

 Let me know if folks have questions or would like me to clarify anything. 

GO TWINS!!!

Agree with Nine of twelve, this pitch looks to have hit him just at or above the wrist, almost certainly on the ulnar side. At the level of the wrist, the ulna is the smaller bone on the small finger side of the forearm. It's obviously hard to say exactly where this pitch hit him- whether it is a fracture of the ulna right at the wrist and into the wrist joint (what we would call intra-articular) or more on the shaft of the ulna (away from the joint a bit, within the bone itself or extra-articular). Neither is ideal, obviously, but you would prefer that the fracture be away from the joint so that there is less risk of damage to the cartilage of the wrist joint. Cartilage has less blood supply and therefore less healing potential when compared to bone.

 We do occasionally hear about injuries to part of the wrist cartilage in baseball players. This is called the Triangular Fibro-Cartilage Complex (TFCC for short). I believe Carl Crawford and Matt Holliday had this issue some years ago. 

 I am hopeful this is a fracture above the wrist joint, and involves only the bone of the ulna. This would typically be fixed with a plate and several screws to hold the bone in the appropriate position while the body heals the fracture. Healing of these type of fractures often takes around 6-8 weeks. On occasion, ulna fractures can have trouble healing and may heal slowly, or in rare cases not heal at all. In those cases, sometimes additional surgery or other treatments may be needed to get the bone to heal. 

 There are also tendons that glide close to the ulna in this area, and the sheath they glide in could potentially be damaged as well in this case. This can occasionally cause issues for baseball players as well (i.e. Mark Tiexeira). 

 Overall, definitely a bummer for Rooker, who was having a nice start to his career. Without knowing details, it's difficult to comment on the time frame for recovery or the likelihood of this affecting him in the future. Let's hope it's a straightforward fracture and surgery goes smoothly. I know the Twins have an excellent group of physicians to take great care of him. 

 Let me know if folks have questions or would like me to clarify anything. 

 

GO TWINS!!!

You are a treasure for TD! Thank you so much for your informed analyses. We all tend to speculate regarding things about which we know little, so advice from a true expect is priceless!

Wholeheartedly agree.

 

How are you doing in Portland?  (Apologies if this has already been asked and answered.)

Off topic, but thanks for asking. The last week has looked like the apocalypse here. The air quality index was 516 yesterday, which is beyond the top of the "hazardous" region. They don't have a name for it, just "beyond scale." That said, we are grateful that the high east winds that were blowing the fires (and the smoke) from the forests into Portland have subsided, and it looks like the main metro area is not going to be threatened by fire.

It seems a bit like rooting for the Yankees to be hoping for rain in Portland, but that's what we need to clean out the air. Maybe tonight or tomorrow, and likely at the end of the week. There is hope!

Too bad for Rooker. He has looked good at the plate in his limited big league at-bats. That said, he may have been on his way back to St. Paul (either him or Wade) with Kepler being ready to come off the Injured List. 21 plate appearances isn't enough to know how good of a hitter he is or will be. I will say that his stint was encouraging, but doesn't make him a centerpiece for future Twins teams. 

I can't think of an example where a poor defender was moved from OF to IF at the MLB level (not counting 1B).

Maybe I'm a traditionalist, but it appears to me that roles available for next year for Rooker would be platoon/4th outfielder and backup at first base and DH in the event of injury. Honestly, having a guy with limited defensive ability and flexibility is not my idea of good roster building. It is also unknown whether Rooker can perform well with sporadic playing time (probably my main complaint about Cave), so unless the roster is really juggled next year, I don't see a role for him. 

Also, the Twins currently have Kepler, Rosario, Cave, Wade, Kirilloff and Larnach as corner outfielders and Cruz and Sanó to cover first base and DH. There aren't enough roster sports for all of the corner outfielders. The shortened season might have kept the team from dealing with the logjam, but something probably needs to be done by Opening Day of 2021.