After parts of five seasons with the Yankees, outfielder Clint Frazier is now with the Cubs. It's long been known that a concussion in 2018 impacted Frazier's career, but there was another one in 2020 that he kept to himself.
It was September of 2020 against the Blue Jays, Frazier told NBC Chicago, and he didn't tell anyone else about the symptoms he was feeling. Here's what Frazier said:
"I obviously kept certain things to myself in 2020," he said. "They weren't really made aware until I pulled myself from that game in 2021."
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"The biggest thing is that the time I wasn't on the field, it was detrimental," he said. "It didn't really give me a chance to continue to build off of things that I had previously started to accomplish. I had a pretty bad concussion that definitely didn't just affect my baseball life, but affected my personal life."
Frazier was enjoying the best season of his career in 2020. In 39 games, he hit .267/.394/.511, good for a whopping 150 OPS+. He had six doubles, a triple and eight homers in just 131 at-bats. He went 2 for 7 with five strikeouts in the playoffs, after the concussion, though.
In the above quote, he mentioned pulling himself from a game last year. That was June 30. He was then hitting .186/.317/.317 (76 OPS+) on the season and that would be it for him. Roughly six weeks later, he played in three minor-league games, but that's where the comeback attempt ended. He just wasn't recovering from the concussion symptoms.
The Yankees released Frazier on November 23. The Cubs signed him on Dec. 1.
Frazier says he's recovered now from what were lingering symptoms. He described some of them like an everyday hangover and, again, noted that it affected his everyday life.
In terms of Frazier's baseball ability, surely the concussions have played a role in preventing him from reaching what many believed to be an immense ceiling. He was the fifth overall pick out of high school in 2013 and then in 2016 was the centerpiece of the trade that sent ace reliever Andrew Miller to Cleveland. Prior to the 2017 season, Baseball Prospectus ranked Frazier as the 17th-best prospect in baseball.
In 807 regular-season plate appearances for the Yankees, Frazier hit .239/.327/.434 (104 OPS+) with 41 doubles, 29 homers, 97 RBI, 100 runs, seven steals and 0.2 WAR. There were flashes of being a productive everyday players, notably in 2019-20. it just never consistently happened. Maybe a change of scenery and remaining clear of concussion-related symptoms will help.
For whatever it's worth, Frazier is 3 for 8 (.375) with a double, two RBI and a stolen base so far in spring training in 2022.
