If Josh Hamilton plays in 2017, it might not be for Rangers

Forget about this season. After his knee started hurting over the off-season and again at the start of spring training and again after one — one — rehab game, the chances that Josh Hamilton would play this season seemed fairly slim.

Go ahead and forget about next season, too.

Hamilton might never play again, and even if he does it might not be with the Texas Rangers.

He will have surgery on his left knee June 8 and miss the rest of the season, the Rangers announced on a Monday full of injury news and roster moves before the Rangers were shut out 2-0 by the Los Angeles Angels.

Frankly, all of the news is more relevant to the 2016 Rangers than Hamilton missing the rest of a season he has already missed in its entirety.

But this is Hamilton, the 2010 American League MVP who led the Rangers to their first World Series and was the best player in the game until he left the security of Globe Life Park for the $125 million Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno offered to stuff in his wallet.

Hamilton’s career wasn’t supposed to end like this, broken down and sharply declining after he shot to stardom as an inspirational story. He was and is a flawed human battling addiction who found Jesus and became a star and saw people rally around him — as long as he was going good.

He’s not a bad player now. He’s not a good player now.

He’s not a player at all. He might never be again.

“I don’t want to go down that path,” general manager Jon Daniels said. “Physically he can’t play. There’s not a lot to say about that.”

But there is, and Daniels alluded to it briefly after saying that Hamilton has every intention of playing in 2017, the last year of his mega contract. The Rangers aren’t paying any of $30 million he’s owed this season and will pay only $2 million in 2017.

Hamilton, who turned 35 on Saturday, will need to be transferred off the 60-day disabled list after the season and back onto the 40-man roster, and that’s where his future with the Rangers becomes cloudy.

He could lose his spot, depending on which free agents come off the 40 (currently five possibilities), how many minor-leaguers the Rangers want to add to protect from the Rule 5 draft (at least four, including Lewis Brinson and Ryan Cordell) and how much flexibility the Rangers want to have entering free agency.

“It’s more of an off-season thing,” Daniels said.

Hamilton played only 50 games last season after an April trade from the Angels and only 89 games in 2014, his second and final season in Anaheim. The Rangers were wary of his health when he bolted in December 2012, after five seasons of watching his big body take a pounding.

So, the injury didn’t come as a shocker to the Rangers, who signed free-agent shortstop Ian Desmond late in spring training to be their left fielder after it was announced that Hamilton would be out until early May.

The Rangers have no shortage of outfield depth, even with Shin-Soo Choo on the disabled list again and Drew Stubbs joining him there. Choo is out three to four weeks with a strained left hamstring only three days after returning from a strained right calf.

Jared Hoying arrived from Triple A to replace him, a well-deserved promotion from the career minor-leaguer. Joey Gallo replaced Stubbs in what could be temporary stint with Rougned Odor’s suspension looming, along with the need for a middle infielder.

With Yu Darvish returning Saturday, the Rangers are facing their biggest roster crunch since bodies were dropping daily in 2014.

“This is just, like, roster moves,” Daniels said. “It’s part of the game.”

At least they don’t have to worry about Hamilton, at least not until the off-season.

Dr. Walt Lowe, the knee specialist for the Houston Texans, will perform the surgery next month, and Hamilton will complete his rehab in Houston. It will be Hamilton’s third knee surgery since September, though that one and the one in October after the 2015 season were just clean-ups.

This operation will be more involved after a mid-January cortisone shot and stem cell therapy and a platelet-rich plasma injection in late February.

If it doesn’t work, it seems almost certain that Hamilton will be done. His time with the Rangers could end before the knee is even ready to be tested.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this, but it looks like it will.

This story was originally published May 23, 2016 at 10:49 PM with the headline "If Josh Hamilton plays in 2017, it might not be for Rangers."