• The most impactful injury this week is the hamstring injury sustained by Carlos Carrasco.

The severity of the setback is not immediately known, but manager Terry Francona said Carrasco will be placed on the disabled list, meaning Bauer could be poised for a move back to the starting rotation.

….
After his abrupt departure in the third inning, when he sustained the injury while hustling to cover first base, Carrasco headed back to Cleveland to undergo an MRI exam.

Francona said the team will likely have more details on the extent of the issue on Monday, when the Tribe opens a three-game road series against the Twins.

Right now we know he is out at least 15 days with more information coming today (the news might be available by the time this article runs). Just looking back at pitchers with hamstring strains and sprains, they usually return in just over 30 days.

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• I added quite a few updates on players in the spreadsheet like Tyson Ross’s setback. It seemed like the MLB.com beat reporters were each required to write and injury related article over the past couple of days.

• Joe Kelly is on the DL with a shoulder impingement.

“That was all I got right there,” said Kelly. “It was as hard as I could throw the ball at that time. It didn’t feel that great, obviously. Hovering around that 89-90 [mph] range was what I had, and I tried to push through it and got the last pitch up to 94 luckily for the strikeout, obviously. It didn’t feel very good.”

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• Just a handful of players moved on or off the DL over the weekend. Most of the injury information was on return times which are located in the last spreadsheet.

• Daniel Nava is on the DL with knee tendinitis.

Nava expects to return to the majors at the start of May, as soon as he is eligible.

To replace him until then, the Angels called up Rafael Ortega from triple-A Salt Lake.

• Nick Hundley is the first player placed on the 7-day concussion DL this year after experiencing damage to the brain from a foul tip.

Hundley, hurt on a foul tip on Wednesday night, hit in the batting cage and attempted to do 10 sprints on Friday. However, he only made it through four before feeling woozy. It took the Rockies a while to reach the decision because Hundley felt good standing still. It took activity for symptoms to show. He also suffered a forehead contusion from the way the impact spun his mask.

Hundley said his only previous concussion was in 2012.

I could see his return take a while because of the 2012 concussion.

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• Sorry for the delayed report. Real life got in the way. I hope to have the season’s first PAIN report on Monday

• Charlie Blackmon lands on the DL with turf toe. Not a lot of news on his injury yet. I expect more today after the Rockies have a news conference. Looking back at past turf toe injuries, a three to four-week timetable is about right.

• Well, the Pablo Sandoval’s DL situation seems like a great drama, but not much more. Sandoval basically put himself on the DL after hurting his shoulder (probably trying to tighten his belt).

Sandoval, who lost his starting job to Travis Shaw late in Spring Training, made just one start in the Red Sox’s first seven games. He is 0-for-6 with four strikeouts in seven plate appearances.

“I woke up this morning with soreness, so something happened,” Sandoval said. “We’ll see what was going on later on, when the doctor gets here. I had this injury before, in 2011, but that was swinging a bat during the game. I don’t know what happened right now.”

“To give you an exact moment when it took place, I don’t have that, to be honest,” said Red Sox manager John Farrell. “He’s been hitting a lot extra before [batting practice] and during the game and in the cage. He’s got very limited range of motion. That was revealed after he went through a battery of tests with the medical staff. He’s unavailable.”

I think his time as a Red Sox regular is done. The issue keeping a trade from happening will be how much of his contract the Red Sox will have to eat to find a taker. Truthfully, they may need to eat nearly all of it and only a get a 40-grade prospect in return. In shallow leagues, I would move on past Sandoval. In deeper leagues where he can be DL’ed, wait to see how the situation plays out and if he finds playing time on another team.

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• Daniel Winkler fractured his elbow after throwing a pitch this weekend which leads to a bigger story.

Medicine will help Daniel Winkler deal with the physical pain that he will feel over the next few days. But there might not be a remedy for the mental anguish the Braves reliever will feel as he deals with the reality that his promising start to this season was derailed by a gruesome injury that casts some doubt about his future as a Major Leaguer.

…

An X-ray taken at the stadium showed Winkler fractured his right elbow. A MRI exam, which could be performed as early as Monday, will show whether the 26-year-old right-hander incurred any other structural damage to the elbow, which was surgically repaired via Tommy John surgery during the 2014 season.

A fractured elbow is the injury Jarrod Parker is dealing with again. After reading some of Jeff Passan’s book, The Arm, this elbow breakage shouldn’t be a surprise for a pitcher who has had Tommy John surgery. The doctors need to drill holes in the pitcher’s arm and in the case of Parker, his bones may look like Swiss cheese at this point. The bone is weakened to a point where the new UCL is stronger and the old bone just breaks.

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• Ben Revere is headed to the DL with a strained oblique.

Revere injured the oblique during his first at-bat in Monday’s season opener against the Braves. After he struck out, Revere decided to stay in the game, but he had a hard time breathing during his next at-bat two innings later because of pain in his rib cage. After he grounded out, Revere decided to take himself out of the game.

Revere said he felt pain even while trying to make a play on a home run by Freddie Freeman in the first inning.

At first, the Nationals didn’t think the injury was serious but, according to manager Dusty Baker, Revere was more sore on Wednesday even though he came in for treatment at Turner Field on Tuesday.

Looking at return times for hitters with a strained oblique, the average time is 29 days with a median time of 24 days.

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• I am still trying to fill in as much information into the disabled list spreadsheet at the end of ht article. I have checked twice and I have all the players added. Right now I am trying to find the information on some lesser known players. Also, I need to do some updates on players who haven’t really seen their status change. I am going to keep updating the sheet and it will hopefully be done in the next day or so.

• Go ahead and bookmark this spreadsheet for April. It will have all the pitcher velocity speed changes from 2015:

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• Don’t expect a bunch of analysis on Monday (I will write up any major injury though) as I will be dealing with transferring the injury database from off-season to in-season mode. I hoped more teams would have officially placed some players on the 15-day DL, but I only have three as of this morning. I expect I will have 50 or so to do come Monday with a few unreported injuries.

• Andrew Miller is out with a bone chip in his non-throwing hand.

The Yankees have been blessed with good health for most of the spring, but those fortunes took a turn on Wednesday afternoon when lefty reliever Andrew Miller was hit on the right wrist by a line drive.

Initial X-rays were negative, but a CT scan revealed a chip fracture in the wrist. Miller will visit a hand specialist to determine the next step, but it is possible that the Yankees will begin the season lacking two-thirds of their vaunted bullpen trio.

I tried to look back to find any past occurrences of this exact injury, but could find any. Looking at just a hand fracture for pitchers, the average return time is 66 days with the minimum at 42 days. I think I will go with 45 days lost until more information is available.

Last minute update. It seems like Miller will try to pitch through the injury.

"It's my right hand; I don't really need it"- #Yankees' Andrew Miller vows to pitch despite fractured right wristhttps://t.co/XF3zsRsvSE

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) March 31, 2016

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Last Friday, I asked our RotoGraphs readers on how they would approach my Tout Wars mixed 12-team head-to-head auction. The strategies stated in the comments were similar to the approach I took. But that is not how the rest of the teams operated and it threw me for a loop.

A person must remember the rules to this league are fairly unique with a head-to-head component making up 80% of  the league’s wins and a roto component being the other 20%. A full rule set can be found here and the abridged set here.

Going back to the comments from Friday’s, here are the approaches the various readers would have taken.

Pitching Strategy

Few high K starters to make minimum IP, RPs otherwise
dparker713
jbona3
David
schulni
HappyFunBall
OutOfTheBox
Brad Johnson Read the rest of this entry »

• Injury information is being reported more frequently, but with fewer details. Make sure you check the spreadsheet at the bottom for the latest details as I wasn’t able to write a blurb on every player. If you want more information, click on the “Source with Link” date for the player’s latest article.

• Ryan Braun and David Wright look to be couple headaches for their owners in leagues with Weekly lineups. It has been reported each will not be playing full time and take days off when needed. The playing time in weekly leagues may drive an owner nuts. They may drive owners in daily lineup leagues also nuts, but, at least, those owners can move them out of the lineup if they aren’t playing. They may be bought on the cheap a month or two into the season when their owners are tired of dealing with them.

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