Freddie Freeman Injures Thumb in Arizona Fall League

For the 2nd year in a row, the Braves' top positional prospect has sustained a potentially serious injury while playing in the Arizona Fall League. According to reports, Freeman injured a thumb while sliding into 3rd base after hitting a triple and left the game right after. The injury is being called a sprain and will have it evaluated tomorrow. As you may recall, Talking Chop reported last fall that Jason Heyward injured a posterior leg muscle and proceeded to miss the rest of the Fall League. It didn't have much of an affect on Heyward's rookie season and we can only hope it won't continue to bother Freddie.

In case you were wondering, Freeman is hitting .125 in the AFL with a triple and one RBI. There's no reason to be concerned though and there's no indication that his thumb had been bothering him before the injury tonight. 

If the injury is even close to being serious, it's time to bring Freeman back to Atlanta. We've all seen how long it can take for thumb, hand and wrist injuries to heal and there's no reason to have Freddie risk future injury for some relatively meaningless swings in the AFL. He's already been named the heavy favorite to be the starting 1B for the Braves in 2011 and we'll need him to be ready from Day 1. If he misses a few weeks, so be it. I have a pretty good feeling Freddie Freeman will have much, much more important at-bats for the Braves in the coming years.

Stay tunned for more updates from Talking Chop on Freeman's injured thumb.