Roman Quinn Rupture Achilles

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First reported here by Murray but we now have confirmation from Jim Salisbury http://www.csnphilly.com/baseball-philadelphia-phillies/good-news-bad-news-2-phillies-prospects?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Quinn ruptured is achilles doing sprints near his Florida home. He has already had surgery to repair it, the Phillies are also looking into having him get surgery on his wrist which has been healing slowly since it was broken by a pitch in June. It took Ryan Howard 10 months to return to the field so Quinn could see action towards the end of next year, but odds are he will be highly limited and without the aid of his speed for much longer. This is a severe blow to the Phillies farm system as a whole.

In better news Tommy Joseph is headed to the Dominican to play winter ball. He will be behind the plate for Estrellas de Oriente.

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About Matt Winkelman

Matt is originally from Mt. Holly, NJ, but after a 4 year side track to Cleveland for college he now resides in Madison, WI. His work has previously appeared on Phuture Phillies and The Good Phight. You can read his work at Phillies Minor Thoughts

47 thoughts on “Roman Quinn Rupture Achilles”

  1. Damn….you gotta feel bad for the kid. Seemed like he was doin’ everything he could to improve, both during the season and now in the off-season. All we can hope for is that he get’s healthy and gives baseball his best shot going forward.

    feel really bad for young Mr. Quinn

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  2. Well, as I said when Murray first reported this, I think Roman Quinn now goes into the Scott Mathieson bin: we’d be best to forget about him completely as a prospect for the moment and take anything we get from him a few years down the line as an unexpected blessing.

    God, this really sucks–on top of everything else I feel like the system has been afflicted by a lot of bad luck in terms of injuries the last year or two. Quinn’s injury means that three of our Top 4 from the beginning of the year have been sidelined by serious-to-career-threatening issues. That seems like an unusually high amount of attrition, even leaving aside the nagging concern I have about whether Biddle had some kind of deeper physical issue the second half of the year.

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      1. Actually, it’s a great day for the site–it actually broke a bit of prospect related news. It’s not good news, to be sure, but I’m pretty sure if Murray hadn’t reported what he’d heard it would have been a lot longer before we heard about it. We should all applaud him, since gathering accurate information about prospects is what this site is all about.

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  4. That really sucks…pretty much wipes him out as a prospect given that his entire game is based on speed. What a terrible blow for a young prospect and for our system.

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  5. I wonder if this means when Quinn comes back, either next July/August or later, that he is switched from ss to another position.

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  6. Really sucks about Quinn. At least w/ injury being so early in offseason there is a legit chance he comes back in 2nd half of season. I think that’ll be important for the simple fact to get back into playing shape and get some rust off to be ready the in 2015.

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    1. I think the Achillies is generally 6 to 9 months with a year or more to be ‘fully’ recovered. Ryan Howard was on the long-end with a tear in October and a comeback the next July, but that’s because of the infection at incision delaying healing and pushing things back 6 to 8 weeks. Still since Quinn’s game is entirely built on speed I think 2014 looks like a wash and you have to hope he doesn’t lose any speed once ‘fully’ recovered.

      The interesting thing will be that JP Crawford will quite likely have more Single-A AB’s by the time Quinn comes back then Quinn has had in his career.

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      1. They actually say it usually takes a full year plus to really recover completely from an Achilles…assuming you can fully recover as 1 in 10 guys never get their mobility back after achilles surgery.

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    2. I think you almost have to move Quinn back to centerfield now – given that short was a new position for him, he’s simply lost too much developmental time to make a fair run at that. Now, time is not on his side and they need to put him in positions where he will succeed. The switch hitting experiment may also go by the boards.

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      1. It really depends on what he can work on. They had already put in some work during his wrist recovery on his footwork and action so we will see what was improved there. His speed might be sapped for a bit but he might be able to start working on transfers and stuff like that early. They aren’t going to stop switch hitting him, the new swing shows a ton of promise and he has a lot more power from that side and that will be important to keep teams honest.

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        1. The point on the swing is well taken. As for staying at short, I think they need to decide very quickly after he’s healed how they want to go. Quinn himself has so much as complained/observed that the changes made by the team have slowed his development down. It was done for good reason, but he can’t sustain many more delays and expect to have a potential big league career.

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      2. I’ve been thinking the same thing. When he comes back he won’t have the speed that he used to have but he’ll still be pretty fast and moving him to CF where he’s more comfortable might be the way to go. If Quinn misses all of next year which is certainly possible, he’ll still be young but JP will probably have passed him by. By the way, I tore my achillies a few years back and he definitely won’t come back as fast as he used to be, its just not a “you’re as good as new” type of injury.

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  7. Only positive thing is it’s early enough in the offseason where Quinn could be back for 2nd half next season. I think that’ll be important to get some rust and get back into baseball shape. Especially, since he missed final 2 months of season this past year.

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    1. He could be back for the 2nd half but it will take a full year for him to be back to somewhere close to 100% (90%?). I could see them playing him in August and into the FIL while he’s still working his way back just so he doesn’t lose the entire season. This is really a tough one for the organization. Morgan, Joseph, and now Quinn…
      We’ll see but I did hear some positives that LGJ was starting to figure some things out…

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  8. This is horrendous….and we’ve got to wonder if–once healed–he can recapture his foot speed.

    OTOH, Crawford is just in time to place his toe in the pro waters, successfully. Now there should be little doubt that he will begin next season as Lakewood’s SS with a hope that he answers the call and does well enough to finish the season at Clearwater.

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      2. Maybe, it will be close he would need to not only not have any stumbling blocks but he would have to master each level. The key will be the defense, there is no way the bat will be ready (especially any power), but if he is a plus defender you could see them plug him in and let him learn on the job.

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  9. Are there any other guys who’s game was based on speed that had this injury and how did they come back?

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    1. I don’t know of anyone, it would be small sample size anyway. I doubt the speed is anywhere near pre-injury (if it gets all the way back) until spring 2015

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      1. Trying to be ultra positive, maybe Quinn learns better positioning and baserunning while he recovers. Then maybe he gets both the technique and the speed as he becomes an all star.

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    2. Although not a baseball player, Demaryius Thomas is the perfect example. His game was built entirely on speed and he recovered in nearly no time. The injury happened in Feb of 2011 and he was ready to play by the beginning of the season, if not for a broken pinky. And in 2012 he put up elite #’s with over 1,400 and 10TDs.

      The only issue is, he seems to be one of the few outliers for athletes that have had torn achilles. But, maybe modern medicine is really making strides… look at the success rates of ACL injuries 10 years ago compared to today.

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      1. Also, Michael Crabtree has surgery for his Achilles tear in May and is due to return to the field later this month. 6 months for an elite athlete with the best physicians.

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  10. This is horrible news–the Phillies farm system seems to be a little bit snake-bittern regarding injuries to key players

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  11. My dad actually tore his achillies twice (tore it and then came back too soon and re-tore it) and he was a professional athlete and said that he pretty much made a full recovery and was as fast after the injury as before. He believes that Quinn can make a full recovery.

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  12. Are there any cases of young athletes with elite speed that have made full recoveries and gotten back all their speed??? (MLB, NFL, or any other professional sport that may apply)

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      1. That is good news Drew , for the 49ers ‘ all jokes asides I work physio and have seen a mixed bag on recoveries all done by the same surgeon, I mean look how bad Ryan Howard looks running , yikes Another thing to is you have gain the confidence back again, to be able to push yourself as hard as you can takes a little bit of time , Roman however is young and with a good support system of friends, family and of course physical therapists he should be able to return to very close to if not just as good as he was

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        1. I think 1 of the reasons Howard looks so bad is because he has never been fully healthy since coming back.A lot of how bad he looked last year had to do w/ his knee not being right. That being said, Howard was never known for his speed. However, I do think something on Quinn’s side is his age. We all know that the older you are the tougher it is to recover . The hope should be, in my mind, that he comes back and plays at some point in the 2nd half and maybe in the fall next year.Regardless if he’s 100%,if he gets on the field and looks OK it’ll be a relief heading into the next offseason.

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          1. Of course, the knee issues probably stemmed in large part from the previous achilles injury and his associated weight gain from not being able to do cardio during that rehab…so yeah.

            Dan Marino was another guy who was never the same after his achilles surgery.

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            2. you know I would say the surgery now is better than it was when todd pinkston had it but yes and dont forget Dominque Wilkins , and now Kobe too

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            3. Jason Peters looks pretty good and he is a large man but probably faster than Ryan Howard in a foot race as well, and Peters ruptured his twice and not in a very good place from what i remember his was distal and didnt leave a great area for grafting

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            4. I really doubt that Roman Quinn will go to the level of rehab that Kobe Bryant did. He doesn’t have the same connections and financial ability and I doubt the team thinks enough of him to have him be over in Europe for stem cell treatments.

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          2. Id probably give him the year off of organized baseball and allow him to hit in the cage and maybe depending on how he looks then maybe send him to a trusted organization in a winter or fall league, but Im not worried about a lost year , im more worried about a lost career

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          3. Howard also gained added weight from , as he says, sitting on the couch a lot last winter. Added weight is detrimental.

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            1. Howard may well have injured a knee compensating for an ailing ankle. Howard’s initial return from surgery in ST was bizarrely stupid. Here is a guy with his ankle still bloody, which turned out to be infected, and he is attempting to engage in baseball activities and the team is foolishly allowing him to do so. Where was the medical supervision. Isn’t there a pre-season medical exam where somebody points out the obvious that the ankle has not healed?

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  14. Well… could have been worse, could have been Franco/Biddle/JP … ok not much worse… couldn’t really have happened to a more vulnerable player. That said, if a player is going to have an elite tool, speed is less valuable then hit and power by a large margin… sooo maybe he’ll develop one of those instead of relying on his speed and we’ll end up with a better all around player! Ok that was really optimistic, his odds of being an above average major leaguer were just cut in half… this SUCKS

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    1. Hopefully, now with advance medical procedures and the fact he is all of 175/180 pounds, and probably has all of 5% body fat, he should be on the field in July raring to go.

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    2. Tools don’t work that way. You’ve got them or you don’t. The Phillies have learned this to their sorrow with guys drafted for other tools, who lacked the hit tool. He can learn to improve his approach and compensate for a weaker hit tool and lack of a power tool, but he can’t just say that if the super speed is gone he’ll come up with a replacement tool. That’s like saying Ruf will decide that if he can’t reduce his K’s and get the hit tool thing going, that he’ll just turn into a base stealer instead.

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      1. Allentown, come on man, I wasn’t being seriously about that comment… I’ve been a member in good standing on this site since the beginning… I know tools don’t grow on trees 🙂

        That said, I partially disagree with you if you describe the hit tool as “ability to hit for average”… did anyone think carlos ruiz as a 26 year old MiLB catcher, would have a season where he put up a 5.2 WAR in only 400 ABs to go with a .325 BA???? or a second season where he had a .302 average? a third at .291? In his prime, his hit tool was a 65-70… definately plus, even if it took him a long time to get there. In the minors it looked far more like a 35-40…

        Being completely realistic, it was said best above by another commenter, it’s time to just forget about Roman, and if we get suprised in a year and a half by great scouting reports and good numbers, then fantastic.

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