I am working my way through Dr. James Andrew’s book on sports injuries, Any Given Monday. While the book is focused mainly on youth sports injuries, some of the information applies to older athletes. I found the entire chapter on baseball injuries is free online for viewing. I would highly recommend reading the entire chapter for some good information on baseball injury prevention.
Recent injury data
I finished last in 2012 in the FanGraphs Experts League on the ottoneu platform. There’s a lot of shame in that for me — I played hard all the way to the end and rarely have teams that finish at the bottom of the table, this team was fourth in the inaugural season, and finishing last changed the meaning of the team name in a bad way (Eno’s Slaughter). I may argue with Dave Cameron that more major league teams should do full rebuilds, but when it comes to my own dynasty teams, I usually try to remain competitive every year. Especially if there are prizes at stake. Cause, hey, you never know.
The process I went through with this team might represent, for me, a new understanding of how best to treat a bad team. I think I’d recommend it for real-life teams, even. While I maintain that the Mets should have traded Jose Reyes, maybe there’s room for them to sign David Wright in order to keep building for the future. Prospects aren’t the only way out of the basement, in other words.
The Milwaukee Brewers no longer have Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum pitching two out of every five games, but don’t sleep on the Brewers’ potential rotation for the 2013 season. It should still provide fantasy value for owners on draft day.
The starting rotation for Milwaukee last year compiled a combined 8.37 K/9 strikeout rate, which ranked best in all of baseball. Not all of that can be attributed to Greinke and Marcum, either. Four starters struck out more than a batter per inning — Mark Rogers, Mike Fiers, Marco Estrada, and Yovani Gallardo — and all four could secure roles in the Opening Day starting rotation for the Brewers.
This offseason proved to be rough on the Milwaukee Brewers. Their star player has been linked to performance enhancing drugs, and their right-fielder will miss the beginning of the season with a knee injury, and will now be playing first base. All of this seems strangely familiar, no? But both issues proved to be overblown last year. Ryan Braun’s test was overturned, leading to another strong performance. Corey Hart returned from his knee injury and didn’t miss a beat, basically posting his career-averages with slightly more power. If they hope to contend, the Brewers need a repeat performance this season.
In 2006, ESPN Home Run Tracker (then known as Hit Tracker Online) launched to provide us stat fiends with data about every home run hit in baseball. It wasn’t enough anymore to know that Ryan Howard led all of baseball with 58 long balls. No, we craved more information, and more information we got, in the form of distance, speed off the bat and a classification into a specific bucket depending on how far past the fence the ball flew. For years, I have been referencing a hitter’s percentage of “Just Enough” or “No Doubt” home runs, operating under the assumption that they have some predictive value. Although I had done a small scale study several years ago which did seem to support this thesis, nothing exhaustive has been done since. Until now.
Yesterday, Alexi Ogando struggled against the Kansas City Royals in his first appearance of the year. While it is not uncommon for a pitcher to struggle during spring training, it was how he struggled which worries me. He struggled with his delivery and maintaining his velocity. His next few outings should be monitored closely to see if he has a possible injury.
Oakland’s bullpen should be largely unchanged from 2012 save for the addition of a couple pieces in the middle relief department. Their late inning relievers have impressive peripherals and should serve again as a core strength as they look to repeat as American League West champions. They also seem likely to be a nice collection of guys for rate-hungry owners since their home park should help keep their HR/FB% suppressed and their ERAs slightly lower than their park-regressed xFIPs.
The closer:
Grant Balfour
Balfour had an up-and-down 2012. He opened the season as closer, but eventually lost the gig in early May. All was not lost for Balfour owners who stashed, however, and he reclaimed the role in August and didn’t look back, holding opponents to a .125/.200/.167 triple-slash down the stretch. He’s now 35, but still had a firm grasp on a mid-20’s K% last year and should remain effective in ninth inning. His age and contract does make him a trade candidate for a team that has traditionally moved closers (such as Andrew Bailey) near the apex of their value, so owners should keep an eye on that come June and July.
The Angels enter 2013 as at least a contender — if not the favorite — to win a suddenly-stacked AL West. The Astros are the only team that appear out of contention from the outset, and even there we see an organization that is improving by leaps and bounds every day. The Mariners have an impressive stable of pitching prospects, and the Rangers and A’s are no doubt fresh in our minds as the two clubs who battled it out down the stretch.
But you don’t necessarily care about division races. You want to know what the depth chart looks like for the Halos this year. Let’s do this. Read the rest of this entry »
The Pittsburgh Pirates enter 2013 with higher expectations than what we’re probably used to. They are, after all, the same Pirates that haven’t had a winning record since before there was anything called the National League Central division (1992) and their 79 wins in 2012 matched their best season in fifteen years. So the bar might not be set terribly high. But after starting the season 47-38, there is residual optimism left over, and much of it is wrapped up in some of the great young talent they will feature in 2013. And the Pirate outfield happens to be one of the bright spots.
Let’s a give a big round of applause to the idiots at the IOC, shall we? The need to draw more attention and revenue to the Olympics led these buffoons to killing the Games’ integrity by removing the amateur status requirements to participate so they could draw in more professional and marketable athletes. While that may have been fine and dandy for the basketball world, as the NBA season ends in June and the summer Olympics don’t start up until late July, it was an epic fail for baseball as players were asked to leave their MLB teams in the middle of the season to go and compete. MLB complied and allowed players to play, but there were no marquee names headed for the games and in the 2004, the United States didn’t even field a team. Read the rest of this entry »