The BaseballGB Fantasy Draft took place on Sunday evening, so yesterday’s Spring Training games were eyed with a measure of caution. There’s nothing worse than thinking your draft has gone quite well, only to have one of your key picks immediately suffer an injury that could derail your plans.<\/p>\n
Miguel Cabrera was ranked by Yahoo as the top pick and, sure enough,\u00c2\u00a0the Chatham Anglers\u00c2\u00a0used their draft position to take the Tigers’ slugger with the first selection in our draft. I suspect the team’s manager\u00c2\u00a0Nick\u00c2\u00a0was more than a little perturbed when Cabrera was led off the field<\/a> on Monday with blood streaming down his face.<\/p>\n Cabrera’s Number One ranking reflects that he is one of the best hitters in the game, but an added element to him this year from the fantasy perspective is the prospect of him gaining third-base eligibilty.<\/p>\n Few fantasy games take fielding performance into account, so the trade-off Detroit have to make with his fielding at the hot corner isn’t something that fantasy managers need to worry about. Once he’s played enough games to be eligible, he can be slotted in to the third base position and another big hitter can be used at first base.<\/p>\n The only potential problem – well, alongside him fielding so poorly in his first 10 games or so that he gets shifted to DH and doesn’t gain third-base eligibility after all\u00c2\u00a0– is\u00c2\u00a0that Cabrera’s move to a fielding position that he’s not really suited to does increase the risk of him picking up an injury.<\/p>\n And that’s what happened to him on Monday.\u00c2\u00a0 A groundball took a nasty hop and struck him in the face, causing a “non-displaced fracture of the orbital floor in his right eye”.\u00c2\u00a0 The reports seem optimistic that he will be cleared for a return to action by Opening Day, but it’s a scare nonetheless.<\/p>\n There was more than a scare for another player on Monday, though.<\/p>\n