• The Rays starting rotation is a mess right because of a trio of injuries. Alex Cobb has forearm tendinitis which will cause him to miss time to start the season. Drew Smyly will at least miss his first start with shoulder tendinitis. Alex Colome won’t be in the starting rotation to start the season after showing up to spring training late and then being in the hospital with pneumonia. The Rays rotation now looks to be Chris Archer, Jake Odorizzi, Nate Karns, Burch Smith and one of the following: Enny Romero, Matt Andriese, Everett Teaford, or Grayson Garvin.

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• Zack Wheeler has a torn UCL and will likely need Tommy John surgery.

Zack Wheeler has a torn UCL in his right elbow. Tommy John surgery is almost certainly inevitable. #Mets

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) March 16, 2015

I went back and looked at his injury indicators and nothing sticks out from last year. The only possible issues I spotted were that he was not an established regular starter and threw hard (95 mph fastball).

Also, let me clear up one item while the main stream media goes crazy with the huge “increase” in pitcher injuries. The current trend is only with elbow injuries. As I found this past fall, days lost to pitcher injuries are transferring from the shoulder to elbow.

Days lost to shoulder injuries reached almost 7,000 in 2008. In 2014, the total days lost was under 3,000. Much of this improvement can be attributed to better exercises for the muscles in the shoulder.

So with the number of shoulder injuries down, something had to give. The number of days lost to elbow injuries went from about 5,000 days in 2008 to over 8,000 in 2014. The days lost just seem to be transferring from the shoulder to the elbow.

People are not talking at all about the time lost to shoulder injuries being down over 50%.

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Weekly update:

• Add a bunch of times to first.
• On batted ball, I am trying to correctly combine categories batted ball categories. With categories combined, it will take less time for a hitter’s batted ball profile to stabilize. I hope to have a major update on this area in the next week or two. After that, I can start getting some real values for the stats begin to stabilize.
• Here is a link to the data in an Excel format. For some reason I can only embed OpenOffice files.

Pitchers’ Approach Attacking Hitters

Robert Arthur at Baseball Prospectus has shown pitchers will change their approach depending on the hitter’s talent level. Here is a complete list of the number of fastballs (including sinkers) thrown to each hitter of the past two years divided into half seasons. Also the number of pitches in the strike by half season is included along with the fastball percentage in the strike zone. I will begin adding 2015 information as it becomes available.

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A couple of Quick Look changes for Spring Training. I am going to be doing more players, but with less information. Some pitchers I watch will only throw an inning or two. Also, some broadcasts don’t have radar readings. Finally, the camera angles are horrible to be kind.

Another change I will be implementing is grading the players on the scouting scales of 20-80. I will Kiley McDaniels scale he discussed in this article.

I will give a value for where I think the pitcher could currently fit in on the average team (CV=current value) and where they could end up (FV=future). I am sure I will disagree with some grades from others, but I am only looking at one game.

Note: If I say a pitch moves 11-5, it is from the pitcher’s perspective.

3/8/15 Padres vs Rockies (no velocities)

Tyson Ross (60+ CV/65 FV)

• He was the reason I picked this game. He has talked of the expanded the role of his change-up.
• He throws very over the top.
• His fastball was had some downward motion.
• His slider had a sharp 12-6 down breaking action.
• Now to the change. It looked to be same speed (I checked previous speeds and it was the same) and broke the direction as his slider. The break was less and not as sharp. It was basically his slider, but worse. I can see why he hasn’t used it.
• I wonder if he could add a cutter to give himself a third pitch.

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• Marcus Stroman will miss all of the 2015 season with a torn ACL. Sadly, there is just nothing to discuss about him until he returns next year. The Blue Jays talked about some of the options for his rotation spot.

Right-hander Aaron Sanchez immediately jumps to the forefront of that discussion as he’ll likely compete with right-hander Marco Estrada and left-hander Daniel Norris for the final two spots on the staff.

“Our plan for Sanchez was always the same,” general manager Alex Anthopoulos insisted Tuesday afternoon. “I think it certainly gives him a better opportunity to start but we still have Estrada being stretched out, still have Norris being stretched out, still have the remainder of camp.

• The earliest Chris Sale could be ready for the season is April 12th. It could take longer.

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The following is what happens when I go a full week without a report. The injuries are rolling in and I have quite a few updates on spring training velocities.

• I guessing most people have heard that Yu Darvish has a tear in his ulnar collateral ligament. Here is Jon Daniels going through Darvish’s options:

“We got the MRI results yesterday evening. Dr. Meister met with Yu at that time and we just all got together this morning and talked through the options, effectively, that there are three options for Yu at this point,” Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said. “One is to attempt to pitch through it, which is not a great option. Two, would be an effort for rest and rehab. I think the sentiment is that is effectively what we did in the fall and in the winter and up until two days ago, we had very good results with it. He looked very good but obviously that did not pan out as desired. The third option would be Tommy John surgery.”

I don’t think he will immediately pitch though the pain. Instead, he will rest for few months with rehab which is what Tananka did. He may be able to pitch the last couple months of the season. If he decides to get Tommy John surgery, he will likely not be competing in the majors until May 2016. He may be a late round DL stash for this season, but nothing more.

• Hunter Pence will be out six to eight weeks with a fractured forearm. Arm related injuries for hitters seem to have the most lingering effects. His power could be down quite a bit once he returns.

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I am putting all my Quick Look “Final Thoughts” together for the start of spring training. Remember these looks are a little more fluid since pitcher are now throwing, changing and breaking down.

Henderson Alvarez
Henderson Alvarez is what he is. Without a swing-and-miss pitch, he will likely continue on the Doug Fister mold of a High GB/Low K pitcher. He doesn’t have much of a ceiling or floor right now.

Chase Anderson
He has some OK thinks going on. He gets has good swing-and-miss numbers across the board, but the fly ball tendencies (40% GB%) in his home park in Arizona scares me. I think he is best used as a matchup starter versus weaker teams or in pitcher friendly parks.

Chris Bassitt
I wasn’t impressed, but he could work out in Oakland’s large park since he is a flyball pitcher. I see a 5th starter/longer relief future for him.

Mike Bolsinger
I expected to find a horrible pitcher and he wasn’t. His 13% K%-BB% is comparable to Lance Lynn and Francisco Liriano. It would be nice for him to throw a pitch which broke horizontally. If he finds regular playing time, he could be a serviceable pitcher in deeper or NL-only leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

• Chris Sale will miss at a minimum of three weeks with a fractured foot. Then he will need to get up to speed before being able to start.

Chris Sale sustained an avulsion fracture on the lateral side of his right foot as the result of an accident at his Arizona home Friday. The left-hander is expected to be sidelined three weeks before resuming baseball activities.

Looking back at previous pitchers with foot injuries, they saw a 0.4 BB/9 and 0.25 ERA bump. Some loss of production, but not too much. The White Sox won’t need another starter until mid-April, so they may be able to go with four starters until then.

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Some updates

• A form has been added for people to added some times. Some players have already been submitted by some readers. Thanks to those helping.
• I have the projected strikeout and walk rates added.
• I have cleaned up the verbiage a little.
• I have 100 scale information for every hitter for each of nine batted ball categories over the past three seasons.

Note: Some people were not able to open the spreadsheet on an Apple. I tried to save the spreadsheet as a .xls, but the embed feature didn’t work. Here is a like to downloadable .xls. I am trying to figure out a solution.

Pitchers’ Approach Attacking Hitters

Robert Arthur at Baseball Prospectus has shown pitchers will change their approach depending on the hitter’s talent level. Here is a complete list of the number of fastballs (including sinkers) thrown to each hitter of the past two years divided into half seasons. Also the number of pitches in the strike by half season is included along with the fastball percentage in the strike zone. I will begin adding 2015 information as it becomes available.

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This will be the last week where I will look back at 2014 starts unless something comes up which requires going back. Since I am not 100% sure I will have games to watch week, I will publish all of the Quick Take Final Thoughts before the upcoming season. I plan on giving some pitchers a second look if they need it.

Note: I usually try to pick the most recent game the player pitched. Sometimes the MLB video has issues and other games are picked. Also, if a say a pitch moves 11-5, it is from the pitcher’s perspective.

Henderson Alvarez

Why I watched: About no strikeouts with a 94 mph fastball.

Game(s) Watched: 9/28/14 vs. Nationals

Game Thoughts

• Everything the 25-year-old righty throws breaks down. This downward action has him at a 55% GB% for his career. Of those pitchers with 400 IP thrown over the last three seasons, his ground ball rate is the fifth highest.

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