Fantasy Baseball: Chase Utley To Have Surgery??

I was getting caught up with yesterday's baseball action last evening and came across this on CBS Sportsline:

The Sports Xchange reports Phillies OF Jayson Werth doesn't think teammate Chase Utley, who went on the 15-day DL on Tuesday with a thumb injury, will have a short stint on the DL. "I hope we get (Placido Polanco) back in a couple of weeks, but Chase it seems like is going to be out for a while," Werth said.

I assume he will be out longer than 15 days when i originally heard the news, and the fact that he flew back to New York to a hand specialist tells me surgery is definitely on the table. We should hear more about the timeline for Utley later today.

Here is what ESPN's Stephania Bell had to say in her Tuesday chat:

Matt (NJ)

Stephania, just read that they have diagnosed Utley with a sprained ulnar collateral ligament of the right thumb. Assuming this is correct, please let us know whether that changes his time frame. Also, any reason to expect Freese to miss more than the minimum time? Thanks.

Stephania Bell

  (3:25 PM)

Matt: Just want to follow up on previous Utley post - yes, this is the ligament most commonly sprained when the thumb hooks the base and gets stretched backward. It all depends on the degree of sprain and instability. The good news is that in very severe cases (complete tear), it requires surgical stabilization...and we're not hearing anything like that. While it might exceed 15 days, there's no reason to think that yet.

Fantasy owners can hope that Stephania is right, but something tells me Werth may know a little more about Utley's injury than she does. 

I read yesterday that the Phillies were scouting Mariners 2B/3B Jose Lopez, so he could be one of their targets, along with Kelly Johnson.

We'll soon find out.