The spring training fastball velocities are live and available in this spreadsheet with other spring training tidbits.

Note: I’m not sure not detailed and often I’ll be able to go with future notes. MLB.com had a nice free RSS feed with all of their stories and I could quickly find needed information. They ended the feed with no explanation. So now, I’m forced to go to each website to get information. I’m working on a solution but I haven’t found one I’ve liked.

Injuries

● I’m not tracking every injury unless it’s going to cost a position player some regular season time. For pitchers, I never assume they are healthy so they may see more notes. For example, Odubel Herrera has a hamstring strain but should be back in a week. I don’t care … for now.

Odubel Herrera has a Grade 1 hamstring strain and is "coming along," #Phillies manager Gabe Kapler said. Herrera has missed the first four games of spring training and the team is not sure when his first game will be.

— Matt Breen (@matt_breen) February 25, 2019

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I’m not going to lie. I’m being a little selfish as today’s article is a ranking I needed to personally work through and it’s now an article for everyone. I am grouping and ranking actual/potential closers to know who to reach for on draft day when it comes to Saves.

Note: I’m going to call all these pitchers closers even though some won’t close this season. All these pitchers have the potential to accumulate Saves though the chances for some are slim to none.

I went through the guidelines I use to value closers detailed in my book, The Process. For me, closers have three factors adding to their value:

1. Talent: Bad pitchers rarely become closers.
2. The Job: Possession is 9/10ths of the law.
3. Contending Team: Losing teams trade away their closers at the deadline.

If a closer has all three factors, they make my top tier. Every closer below them is missing one or more of the three traits. Some owners may want to mix tiers or use ADP to find values. Each owner should find the rankings they are the most comfortable using.

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I’m going to be working through news and game action this spring providing bits which may change a player’s talent or playing time projections.

Injuries

● Carlos Martinez’s playing time and role are unknown after his latest injury.

Continuing concerns about areas of weakness around Carlos Martinez’s right shoulder prompted the Cardinals to transfer the right-hander to a two-week, no-throwing program that now puts his readiness for Opening Day in jeopardy.

Manager Mike Shildt relayed the change in plan on Tuesday, one day after Martinez was sent away for an MRI of his shoulder. Though the scan showed no change from a baseline test in 2016, the club is concerned about possible adverse effects if Martinez was to continue pitching through weakness in the surrounding muscles.

Martinez was candid, too, in telling the Cardinals’ medical staff that he “felt a little bit of inflammation and weakness” while throwing his last bullpen session. He won’t throw again until at least March 5.

This injury is not good for a pitcher with already suspect health. I wonder if it pushes him more towards the bullpen. I’d not be surprised to see his ADP drop from 126 to near 200 with the news.

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A few days back, I determined the replacement levels for hitters who will miss some time this upcoming season. Today, the pitchers take center stage.

It’s tough to give any pitcher a full season of innings with almost half of them heading to the IL. Today’s focus is to find those pitchers who won’t see a full workload for one reason or another. Workload limits. Injuries. Time in minors. Since the missed time is known, an owner can the fill in the rest of the season with a replacement pitcher. It’s time to dive in.

Injured or coming off Tommy Surgery

Note: The standard minimum return time from Tommy John surgery is now 14 months. No one in years has come back in 12. I’m skipping any pitcher who had a mid-season or later surgery since they may just be back for a few September starts. I’m not going to worry about September starts in Spring Training.

Brandon Morrow
Out until: ~May 1st

While it may be a mistake, I’m fading Morrow hard. He’s an injury-prone pitcher who is starting the season hurt. And for a closer, he’s good (~2.00 ERA the past three seasons) but not great (9.1 K/9 in 2018). I could see Pedro Stroop take the job and run with it over the first month. When Morrow returns, he may never get another Save. He’s a late round DL stash for now.

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News broke on Friday that Francisco Lindor would be out seven to nine weeks with a strained calf. The reaction to the injury was swift. In NFBC’s Online Championship before the injury news, he had a 4.8 ADP in ten contests. In the two contests over the weekend, his ADP dropped to 16.5 after Jose Altuve, Javier Baez, Alex Bregman, and Trevor Story. So, is the drop deserved or did they drop him too far or not far enough? I’m going to fully breakdown how much I would change his value in a sample league.

With so many league variations, I need to pick a lane with his value adjustment. I going to take a 15-team roto league using AVG. For this league, I’ll use the Standing Gains Points (formulas in my book) as a shortcut to help determine his value and use couple tools to help speed along the process.

Add in replacement level

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Injuries analysis is becoming a pain in the butt. First, MLB goes and changes the days missed from 15 to 10 thereby nullifying several projection models. And now they’ve gone and renamed the Disabled List the Injury List. I think of naming it the BDL (Broke D__k List). I’ve been waiting for a few more seasons of DL data to create a new formula which will become obsolete with the 12-day DL but why wait. I have two seasons of 10-day IL information to create a few comparisons, especially for pitchers.

While I’ve historically collected the data, Ryan Brock jumped in and completed the 2018 season. I’m not sure if I would have gotten to pulling it together because when I normally do it (post-season), I was finishing my book. I can’t thank Ryan enough.

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The Sunday night chats are back in business and I’ll begin answering questions at 8 CST Sunday night with the queue hopefully opening up one hour earlier. During the season, I’ll normally focus on FAAB and waiver wire questions but anything goes for now. -Jeff

The “Beat Jeff Zimmerman League” date has now been set for February 22th at 8:00 PM ET. It’s an NFBC 12-team, FAAB league with a $115,000 grand prize. Click here for more details.

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I’m finally at the point where I need to start working in replacement level production into my projections. Today’s focus is on hitters will miss a set time frame or just assume will miss some time. I’m not going to work in players who will miss time here and there (e.g.the Ryan Braun special) for this or that nagging injury. Instead, I’m focusing on batters who can be DL’ed and someone else can take their place.

To evaluate these players, their time off needs to be determined (my goal today) and then replacement level stats can be added in for these off weeks. The replacement level stats will be an average of the available waiver wire batters. While these replacement level players aren’t great, they will provide some production until the rookie/injured/suspended player returns. With every league being unique, owners are going to need to find this talent level for their own league.

And remember, these are my estimates (link to on-going updates). Each owner should make their own adjustments for their own risk tolerance.

Injured with a known time frame

Gregory Polanco: He had shoulder surgery in mid-September and had a seven to a nine-month recovery time frame with a mid-April to mid-June return.

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