Braves catcher Bethancourt undergoes knee surgery to repair torn meniscus
Atlanta Braves catcher Christian Bethancourt underwent arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee on Monday night. Bethancourt expects to return to his offseason training regimen before December.
The 24-year-old catcher announced the procedure on his Instagram page, writing, "Not the best way to start the offseason but oh well I guess this is life. Last night I had surgery on my left knee to repair one of my meniscus. Thank God everything went well and will be back to work in less then 2 months."
Catcher remains one of the Braves' offseason question marks. The team relied heavily on 38-year-old veteran A.J. Pierzynski this past season as Bethancourt struggled to produce at the major-league leavel. He finished the season hitting .200/.225/.290 with two home runs.
In the team's post-season meeting with the media, Bethancourt's surgery was not mentioned, but the team's front office was very clear about its concerns behind the plate.
"Catching is going to be an interesting dynamic going forward," president of baseball operations John Hart said. "We absolutely love the skill set of Bethancourt. I think it's been a slow-developing process. I didn't know him before I came here. I think the view of baseball is this guy has an exception skill level, skill set. I think with all the young pitching, you've got a young catcher, it just didn't work out the way we'd hoped, especially the first six, eight weeks.
" ... I wish that we could have stayed the course with Bethancourt and had a better feel of exactly where he is. There's absolutely no denying the level of talent, the level of skill he has, that he does possess. At some point he has to seize it."
Hart left open the possibility that the team could try to bring back Pierzynski for another year.
