Spring training camps opened this week and almost immediately, Major League Baseball saw three notable players succumb to hamate bone injuries: Francisco Lindor of the Mets, Corbin Carroll of the Diamondbacks and Jackson Holliday of the Orioles. Lindor and Carroll are expected back by Opening Day, but Holliday’s return will be “measured in weeks” after the regular season starts, according to president of baseball operations Mike Elias.
The first question that comes to mind with every sports fan out there: why do we only seem to see this injury in baseball? For starters, that’s not actually true, even though MLB players do seem to dominate the headlines. Golfer Bryson DeChambeau, for example, missed two months in 2022 after fracturing his hamate bone. But it’s all about the equipment.
“This injury is unique in that it only really occurs with a direct blow over the most prominent part of the hamate bone, known as the hook of the hamate,” Dr. Rodney Benner, an orthopedic surgeon in Indianapolis, told CBS Sports. “As such, the only way it usually happens is when the end of a bat, golf club, hockey stick or some other object directly impacts the area. Hitters in baseball get jammed or a forceful check swing, which causes the end of the knob if the bat to impact the hamate. This can also happen grounding a golf club or making a similar motion with a hockey stick.”
The next place our minds go is to the preventative aspect. Is there anything hitters can do? The answer is not a ton, really.
“There are pads that can be worn over the hook of the hamate to try and cushion the area,” Benner said. “Unfortunately fractures of the hamate can still happen.”
And then there’s the power. Players returning from broken hamate bones and subsequent surgery have long been assumed to lose their power, at least temporarily. In going back though the last 10 seasons of data, there isn’t actually evidence of a loss of power upon return. Here are some prominent cases with decent samples of statistics on both sides of the injury.
- In 2016, Francisco Cervelli was slugging .293 before the injury (49 games) and slugged .352 after his return (52 games).
- It was only a 12-game sample before the end of the season, but in 2016 Mark Reynolds returned to hit .281/.378/.500. He was hitting .283/.354/.446 before the injury.
- Superstar José Ramírez came back for three games in late September after his hamate injury. He homered twice in his first game back and once in his second.
- Tommy Pham dealt with this in 2020. He hit .207/.316/.293 in 23 games before the injury and .222/.300/.370 in eight games after his return to close the season before hitting .375/.400/.458 in six playoff games.
- Aristides Aquino homered in his first and fourth games after returning in 2021.
- Mike Trout in 2023 returned for just one game before re-injuring his wrist to end his season. He was himself to start 2024, homering six times in the first 11 games.
Still, it’s always possible there are lingering issues, as with any procedure.
For years, we’ve heard stories, including from famed surgeon Dr. James Andrews, about youth players and their parents asking to have preventative Tommy John surgery without even having torn the ulnar collateral ligament in their elbow. Could we apply that mindset here and see players wanting to have their hamate surgery (removal of the bone) without it actually being injured?
Former All-Star Andrew Benintendi had his hamate bone removed after breaking it in college, only to somehow break it again in 2022. It was unclear at the time if the bone had regrown or not been fully removed.
“I am not aware of anyone advocating for removing the hook of the hamate to prevent injury in an athlete that does not have pain or other symptoms associated with it,” Benner told CBS Sports. “However, athletes can experience chronic pain in the hamate from repetitive trauma to the area, as opposed to a one-time acute injury on a specific swing. Nonsurgical treatment is possible in chronic cases in those athletes, but there is a high risk of continued symptoms or progression of the injury resulting in a complete fracture and subsequent surgery. It is possible to fix the hook of the hamate with a screw, but nonunion (failure of healing) of the fracture is common, so many athletes have the hook excised rather than fixed. Excision can usually result in rapid return to play within 6-8 weeks. However, mild strength loss and tenderness in the area can limit the ability to swing the bat effectively in the early phase of return to play. The ulnar nerve, one of the main nerves in the wrist and hand, is also nearby, so nerve complications are possible with surgery.”
The expectation here is that, while players continue to get bigger and stronger — swinging harder — while facing pitchers that throw harder and harder, we’ll continue to see this injury pop up predominantly in baseball. The good news is it’s a relatively quick-and-easy procedure and players are back to being themselves shortly thereafter. May that be the same for Lindor, Carroll and Holliday.
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