4:14PM: Muncy will indeed break camp with the A’s, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post.
2:45PM: The Athletics suffered a major blow this afternoon when the club told reporters (including Martin Gallegos of MLB.com) that second baseman Zack Gelof will begin the 2025 season on the injured list. Gelof, who was hit by a pitch on his right hand earlier this week, underwent x-rays to determine the severity of the issue. That testing revealed a hamate fracture, and Gelof is expected to undergo surgery in Los Angeles tomorrow.
Gallegos adds that while the A’s did not provide a specific timetable for return, manager Mark Kotsay noted that former Oakland first baseman Matt Olson suffered a similar injury in 2019 and returned to action on May 7, though Kotsay added that Olson’s timeline was “pretty accelerated.” That seems to suggest that the A’s aren’t expecting Gelof back until sometime in May at the earliest, though a more specific timetable for his return could be available once he’s gone under the knife.
Even if Gelof misses only a month, that’s a tough blow for an Athletics club that was surely counting on the 25-year-old as a big part of the club this year. While Gelof struggled in 2024 and slashed just .211/.270/.362 in 138 games while leading the AL in strikeouts, he posted a fantastic rookie season with the club the year prior with a 132 wRC+ in 300 trips to the plate. Even if Gelof’s 2025 season fell somewhere in the middle of 2023’s 132 figure and the 82 wRC+ he posted last year, that would still make Gelof a quality regular on a young, up-and-coming A’s club that needs a lot of things to go right if its going to contend in a crowded AL West this year.
Fortunately for the A’s, however, the club does have a viable replacement for Gelof at second base in Luis Urias. The club signed Urias to a big league deal just before camp opened last month, and he responded by crushing the ball during Spring Training with a sensational .333/.429/.524 slash line in 49 trips to the plate. Still just 27 years old, Urias was a consensus top-30 prospect in the sport during the early days of his career with the Padres, and enjoyed a few seasons as a solidly above average regular with Brewers when he slashed .244/.340/.426 in 269 games with the club from 2021 to ’22.
Urias took a step back in 2023 and had to settle for a bench role with the Mariners last year, but hit quite well in a part-time role with a 107 wRC+ in 41 games despite a worrying 31.2% strikeout rate that was by far the highest of his career. If the infielder can get his strikeouts under control in a return to regular at-bats with the A’s this year, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him return to the form he flashed with Milwaukee that made him an above-average regular. 2024 rookie Max Schuemann also appears likely to make the club’s Opening Day roster in a bench role and could help cover second base on occasion, though he’s struggled to hit much at the big league level and in Spring Training. Darell Hernaiz could be a potential depth option in the middle infield after he struggled through 48 games in his rookie season where he slashed just .192/.261/.242 with a wRC+ of 50 despite solid defense all over the infield.
Another potential option, according to Gallegos, could be top infield prospect Max Muncy breaking camp with the club. Muncy, not to be confused with the former Athletic and current Dodgers third baseman of the same name, was the club’s first-round pick in 2021 and impressed in 50 games at Triple-A last year when he hit .278/.374/.491 in 203 trips to the plate. Muncy’s spent most of his professional career at shortstop but has experience at second base as well, and after an impressive camp where he’s held his own to post a .290/.391/.395 slash line in 23 games it’s not impossible to imagine the club opting to be aggressive with Muncy and include him on the Opening Day roster. Even if the club opts to stick with the plan to start Muncy in Triple-A for the beginning of the season, a strong start there combined with early-season struggles from Urias could theoretically convince the A’s to reverse course.
That is a big loss for A’s he was looking much better this spring.
His spring is encouraging, but has also come with a concerning 37% strikeout rate in 43 plate attempts
Anyone else noticing this epidemic of spring training hand injuries? Along with Gelof, Drury, Francisco Alvarez, and Jerar Encarnacion immediately come to mind. And a bunch of players—seems like more than usual—have been removed from games as a precaution after being hit on the hands.
Is it Kosher to get hamate surgery?
By the time Muncy is a free agent, he will get a Max contract.
Depends if the doctor doubles as a Rabbi
And if he does then that’s an RBI double
Suspend the pitcher who threw the pitch that results in a lost time injury,
Pitcher remains suspended as long as the batter his errant pitch injured for as long as the injured batter is unable to perform at the MLB level.
HOW MANY TIMES HAS THIS HAPPENED IN JUST SPRING TRAINING??
The pitcher who throws a pitch that strikes a batter and results in a lost time injury for that batter should be immediately be suspended and remain do until such time that the injured player is able to resume contributing to his team at the Major League Level. This antiquated, one sided aspect of HBP with one team losing a player while the pitcher’s team just shrugs and gets by with, OOPS, S-O-R-R-Y, well that’s just part of the game. MUST STOP. MLB needs to take action. Fans should insist. Players are being hurt, lives are affected, careers are being threatened.
The Johnsons–Walter and Randy are 4th and 5th lifetime in hit batsmen. With their speed, under your idea, I imagine both would have had far fewer victories having been suspended for injuring batters.
I’m starting to get the sense that you must have been hit by a ball at some point in your life and it really really really really really really hurt your psyche. So now you post this same stupid diatribe every time a hitter takes one for his team.
It might explain his attempts at nearly-constant bad puns on the PFR comment sections too, I might add
To me it looked like he was in a pirates uniform something about the hat confused my vision
Gelof needs his raw power to compensate. Without it, he’s just a low-contact, low-OBP hitter with limited defensive upside—not a building block for a rebuilding A’s team.
It is pretty wild that both guys to make the major leagues named Max Muncy would be born Aug 25.
Eh, Max Muncy has a much higher ceiling and much lower SO rates…this will probably work out better this way…