Misagenes "Snooks" Foebinder is 33, in year two of a six-year, $28.7 million per year contract, and he is not playing baseball. He is not close to playing baseball. The Dunharrow Devils announced today that the veteran third baseman suffered sharp pains during a light workout, team doctors examined him, found further damage, and have declined to offer a return timetable. That last part is the one that matters.
Foebinder had been responding to treatment for back spasms. That was the good news. Then a light workout — not a game, not a full practice — produced sharp pain and confirmed damage. Back injuries that reassert themselves during light activity do not tend to disappear quietly.
Eleven years of professional service have produced a player worth building around. The switch-hitter at third base is exactly the kind of veteran presence that shapes a lineup, and Dunharrow is not so deep that they can absorb his absence indefinitely. The Devils are 9-10, six games behind the Raiders in the Orc Division, in a conference where Isengard is already running at 15-6. The window for damage control is not wide.
The contract complicates everything. Six years at $28.7 million means Dunharrow is paying Snooks whether he is on the field or sitting in a trainer's room watching his back betray him again. That word — again — does real work here. This is not a first incident. That is the kind of injury history that front offices brief scouts about, and it is the kind of history that tends to get longer, not shorter, as a player ages past 30.
Foebinder crossed 200 career stolen bases this season, a milestone that speaks to what he has been. The question is what he is now, and whether the body that accumulated those numbers still cooperates at the same address.
Dunharrow has no timetable. That means the medical staff does not want to guess. When doctors decline to guess, the news is usually not good.
The Devils needed Snooks at third base. They need him there now.