On March 2nd Cam Collier was at first base for the Cincinnati Reds in a spring training game and he made a swipe tag while in the field and injured his thumb. A few days later he got a second opinion on the injury and then decided to undergo surgery for a torn UCL. Mark Sheldon of Reds.com reports that he will miss 4-6 weeks.
This is the second year in a row that one of the Reds top prospects has been injured during a spring training game. Last year a shoulder injury would cost shortstop Edwin Arroyo the entire regular season. This year things aren’t nearly as bad as Collier is likely going to return to the field before April is over.
What this does mean, though, is that the infielder is going to miss the Spring Breakout game. Last year he homered to open up the series and was the star of the game. He carried that power forward into the regular season where he became just the second teenager in the Reds farm system to hit 20 home runs in a season since Johnny Bench.
Earlier in the week Cincinnati sent Cam Collier back to minor league camp as a part of their first cuts of the spring. They’ve made three more moves since then – sending one player down in each wave. This morning another one of those came through as the team optioned right-handed reliever Luis Mey to Triple-A. He’s the first player from the 40-man roster to be optioned this spring.
It’s worth noting that just because a player is optioned to a certain level during spring training that it does not mean that the player will begin at that level when the regular season begins. Until the season begins these things are all just a matter of bookkeeping, so to speak.