Susan Slusser reports that Brandon Moss has been dealing with a severe right hip injury. (That's the front hip for the lefty batter.) She uses the phraes "bone-on-bone," which is always alarming as hell, and says that he'll be having microfracture surgery after the season to correct the problem.

Moss, as players often do, wouldn't blame his second-half shittiness on his hip, but that's a pretty obvious explanation for him to suddenly stop being able to hit. If you've ever read any swing analysis (Ryan Parker at Baseball Prospectus, for instance, or Jerry Brewer at Athletics Nation) you'll have noticed a lot of focus on what the hips are doing, how powerfully they're doing it, the timing of the movements, and so forth. I'm the furthest thing from a doctor, and even if I were a doctor, I haven't seen Moss' MRI, but it's still pretty easy to imagine how, whether through decreased mobility or simply pain, Moss' swing could have become completely fouled by this injury.

Also alarming is Moss' prospects going forward. As a late bloomer, the A's were never going to be able to count on him for years and years and years (he's already 30), but as an immobile slugger, perhaps a gentle decline into his early 30s in time for him to become a free agent in 2017 would have made for a nice confluence of skills, cost, and team control. Now the skills part of that equation is in question. A quick google shows that Moss can be expected to be on crutches for eight weeks after the surgery, so being ready for spring training shouldn't be an issue, but what about his mobility and power? Will they come all the way back?

On the other hand, if Moss is bone-to-bone at this point, is it likely that this is a sudden condition? Or did Moss post a 146 OPS+ from 2012-13 with partially degraded hip cartilage as it was, such that the surgery doesn't need to return him to 100 percent hip effectiveness for him to get back to his All Star–caliber hitting? Maybe Moss will address these questions with the media in the coming weeks or in the offseason. Maybe we'll be left speculating. For now, we're speculating about speculation, but one thing seems very likely: The A's probably cannot count on Moss to suddenly snap out of his "slump" in the next few days and, hopefully, in a deep run into the playoffs. The Moss we have is, for now, pre-surgery, the Moss we most likely have.