• 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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A week ago, I participated in a new Tout Wars league which is called the Head-to-Head league, but it has a roto component. It was interesting to prepare for a highly competitive league with no previous similar leagues to reference. With the new format, first I had to decide how I would approach the league and second how my opponents would approach it, and how to find some advantages. Today, I will go over the rules and then ask you, our readers, about how you would approach the league. Later, I will go over my approach.

Here are the simplified rules with the full set being available at the Tout Wars website.

Rules Read the rest of this entry »

• Tomorrow, March 25th, is the date when most players who start the season on the Disabled List get their DL stints backdated to. Being able to backdate the DL days means players can have shorter DL stints when the season starts.

• Andre Ethier will be out two to four months with a fractured leg.

Dodger’s outfielder Andre Ethier has a broken leg and will be sidelined 10-14 weeks. Ethier suffered the injury fouling a pitch off his leg on Friday.

Initial x-rays were negative, but continued pain led to a bone scan on Monday that revealed the right tibia fracture that the club announced Tuesday afternoon. President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said the injury is not expected to require surgery.

“Obviously it’s a freakish injury,” Friedman said. “We’ll re-X-ray it in four to five weeks and to the extent it’s healing properly, it might be sooner. If not, it might be longer. The range is not incredibly precise.”

This move solidifies Joc Pederson in the outfield and may bring Carl Crawford and/or Scott Van Slyke off the bench.

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• Brad Boxberger will miss about eight weeks with a core injury (hernia).

News Friday that the nagging discomfort Brad Boxberger felt in his core area resulted in surgery to repair a muscle tear means the bullpen will be without its only experienced closer for at least the first six weeks of the season, and potentially into early June.

Which means to say hello to Alex Colome or Danny Farquhar or Steve Geltz or someone else who hasn’t done it much trying to protect ninth-inning leads for a team expecting to compete in the American League East.

It will be interesting to see who picks up the Saves in Tampa. In shallow leagues, I may stay away from the situation, but in deeper leagues where every Save is huge, I would take a chance on Colome.

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• Lance McCullers will start the season on the DL with a sore shoulder.

“There’s just not going to be enough time to build him up for the role in which we anticipate him doing,” manager A.J. Hinch said Wednesday morning. “I told him that this morning so he’d be assured he’s not trying to hit a deadline of Opening Day trying to impress anybody. We want him back healthy as soon as possible, but it’s not going to be Opening Day.”

McCullers has been sidelined since a March 6 throwing session. He reported soreness the following day, and when it didn’t subside quickly, an MRI was done. That MRI was clean, but McCullers still has some soreness and doesn’t know when he’ll resume throwing.

“We’re kind of taking it day by day,” McCullers said. “I’m feeling a lot better. It’s just up to the training staff and the team. They have my best interests in mind. We have the long-term goals in mind. I’m taking it day by day and going off what they say. It’s just getting all the soreness out.”

I am not surprised McCullers has an arm injury with four major injury factors (throws hard, throws a ton of breaking balls, unestablished starters, previous injury). I like his potential, but I may look to be selling once he comes back healthy.

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• It is an extra-long MASH Report today because I spent last week in Costa Rica. Much of the older injury news I will just give a small mention.

• Jhonny Peralta will be out 10-12 weeks with a torn thumb ligament.

It’s uncertain when Peralta will be able to return to normal baseball activities, but it likely won’t be for at least two months or more.

“I haven’t heard an exact date that I feel comfortable passing around, but that’s been kind of the earmark date, 10-12 weeks,” Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said Wednesday, prior to the Cardinals’ 7-2 loss to the Mets at Tradition Field. “There’s been some people who said even less, so we’ll wait and hear what the doctor says, when he thinks he can get back into activity and when he could likely be back to play.”

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• Jarrod Dyson is reportedly out for at least six weeks with a strained oblique

Royals outfielder Jarrod Dyson, expected to be the team’s Opening Day right fielder, left Wednesday’s Cactus League opener against the Rangers after two innings because of a strained right oblique.

Strains happen and it will be interesting to see if the Royals pick up a player or promote from within.

The one point of contention I have with injury articles is the estimated time lost. Earlier in the offseason, I created a tool which looks at the average disabled list time for injured players. For hitters with oblique injuries, the average time lost is 36 with a median value of 27 days.

Try to keep this tool in mind when hearing about player injury return times.

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