RADIO
One of the biggest breakout players of the 2014 season will be limping into Spring Training.
Brewers Catcher Jonathan Lucroy injured his hamstring, according to the team's Twitter page.
Catcher Jonathan Lucroy is expected to miss 4-6 weeks of Spring Training with a mild strain of his right hamstring. (continued)
— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) February 11, 2015
The original diagnosis is that Lucroy will be out 4-6 weeks, meaning he should be ready for the Brewers Opening Day April 6th against the Rockies. The Brewers did not specify on how Lucroy suffered the injury.
This is a cause for concern for Lucroy, 28, and his prospective fantasy owners. Even if Lucroy is ready for Opening Day, he will miss the majority of Spring Training. Back in 2013, Lucroy missed a similar amount of time in the spring backing up Joe Mauer for the U.S. team in the World Baseball Classic. He responded by starting the season off slow, posting a .687 April OPS.
Lucroy had a 2014 to remember, posting a .301 BA with 13 HR, 69 RBI and a .837 OPS along with a league leading 53 doubles while finishing fourth in the NL MVP race. Lucroy also had a career high BB% at 10.1% and a career low K% at 10.8%. He also raised his BABIP and WAR from 2013, going from .290 to .324 and 3.5 to 6.3, respectively.
After a historic 20-7 April led to an improbable lengthy first place run in the NL Central, the Brewers followed that up with a 9-22 collapse leaving them out of the postseason. In the process, Lucroy took it upon himself to become a team leader in 2014.
Heading into the 2015 fantasy season, Lucroy is one of the few elite catching options, and is the ranked #54 overall according to MLB.com.
Lucroy's Steamer projects have him hitting 15 HR with a .282/.348/.432 slash line. While I would expect him to rebound in a similar fashion to 2013, expectations might need to be tempered a bit with what might be a rough first month of the season.
