• Adam Wainwright may be done for the season with an Achilles injury. More information will become available later today.

An official season-ending diagnosis could come on Monday, after Wainwright undergoes an MRI on his ankle. The scan will determine the severity of the injury and give the Cardinals a better idea of the recovery timetable to follow. Most Achilles injuries required several months of rehab.

• Yasiel Puig is headed to the DL to help make his hamstring all better. The injury has been lingering for a couple weeks and the Dodgers decided “that’s long enough”.

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• Not a whole lot of injury news, but I did make quite a few changes to the disabled list return times.

• Sadly, it looks like Joe Nathan’s career may be done with a torn UCL. He will need to have Tommy John surgery to throw again.

Joe Nathan Out For Year With Torn UCL & Tendon http://t.co/O8vSXFspU6

— MLB Trade Rumors (@mlbtraderumors) April 23, 2015

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• Well it looks like a time line exists for a possible return of Josh Hamilton to the Angels.

The Angels have mapped out a comeback regimen for Josh Hamilton, under which the troubled out-fielder could rejoin the team in early June.

Under the tentative plan, Hamilton would report to the Angels’ Arizona training complex for two to three weeks of work with the team’s extended spring program. He would then proceed to a minor league rehabilitation assignment and could rejoin the Angels thereafter.

Hamilton is expected to report to Arizona “sooner rather than later,” according to a person familiar with the plan but unwilling to discuss it publicly until the Angels announce it. The person spoke before the Angels’ 6-3 loss to the Oakland Athletics at Angel Stadium on Monday.

The plan does not guarantee that Hamilton plays again for the Angels, but at the least it buys time for owner Arte Moreno. If Hamilton appears sound enough that his presence on the roster could give the Angels their best chance to win, the players might be discouraged if Moreno lets Hamilton go.

The best case scenario is an early June return. Worst case seems to be a legal nightmare with Hamilton not playing this season. This situation could get really ugly.

• Jonathan Lucroy big toe broke on a foul tip. No information on a return time is available yet.

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Weekly update:

• First release of 2015 data.
• I combined some of the categories and found some stabilization points with the details in this article.

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.

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I will continue to implement player grading on the scouting scales of 20-80. I will use 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 value). 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.

Chris Heston (CV: 55, FV: 60)

4/13 vs Rockies

Game Thoughts
• Man I expected less. The 27-year-old righty was not ranked here at FanGraphs, but in the 2015 Baseball America Handbook says he is “… without any pitch that grades out as even average.” The biggest key from the BA book is the mention of his 86-89 mph fastball in 2013 (45 grade) and 2015 (40 grade). Also it mentions his change and curve. Not much is the same now.
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Mike Podhozer put out the following question the other day asking if is luck or skill that Brandon McCarthy has such a high HR/FB%.

Prove that Brandon McCarthy‘s HR/FB Rate is Not Just Bad Luck

I started looking at the question several ways and came up with a final conclusion that HR/FB is probably not the perfect stat to use when trying to determine if a pitcher has been lucky or unlucky giving up home runs.

Let me start by going off on a tangent. I am of the camp that players with a huge upswing are the reason groundball pitchers, like McCarthy, have a higher than expected home per fly ball rates. All but the most upward swings will get on top of a sinking ball and drive the ball downward into the ground. The hitter with an upswing will be the ones hitting this sinking pitch. In my opinion, each pitcher will have a subset of players who swing in line with his pitch plain and crush those pitches for home runs.

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• David Wright is off to the DL again and this time it is for a strained hamstring.

One day later, an MRI revealed a mild strain of Wright’s right hamstring. He will miss at least two weeks with the injury, though general manager Sandy Alderson called three weeks a more realistic estimate.

• As I predicted on Monday, Henderson Alvarez went on the DL. He is only expected to miss the minimium 15 days.

• Alex Rios is out for at least month with a broken wrist. It may be a while before he is 100%.

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Recently, I made an initial push to get a deeper look at hitters. I felt people have enough information on pitchers, especially with the Pitchf/x data available. I finally had some time to dig into the information a little more and have come up with a couple updates.

Nine batted ball categories is too many

Inside Edge makes avaialble nine non-bunt categories for batted balls. Here are the original nine with the xBABIP and wOBAcon:

Batted Ball Type: xBABIP, wOBAcon, % of batted balls
Groundball – Weak: .151, .112, 31.4%
Groundball – Medium: .461, .416, 9.5%
Groundball – Well-Hit: .647, .610, 3.8%
Line Drive – Weak: .622, .579, 2.3%
Line Drive – Medium: .650, .638, 7.3%
Line Drive – Well-Hit: .719, .815, 11.1%
Flyball – Weak: .078, .074, 18.5%
Flyball – Medium: .069, .081, 8.2%
Flyball – Well-Hit: .641, 1.168, 7.8%

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• The Yan Gomes injury is devastating for him, the Indians and his owners. The time he is supposed to miss is around 6-8 weeks.

Cleveland placed Gomes on the 15-day disabled list on Sunday with a right knee injury and is expecting him to be sidelined for six to eight weeks.

Reading a little too much into that comment, I could see him not even be moving in six weeks, yet alone ready to catch in the majors. I would not be surprised if he returned at the All-Star break.

• It doesn’t look good for Henderson Alvarez who will have an MRI on his shoulder and elbow today. His velocity is down almost 3 mph compared to last season which isn’t good for a pitcher who has a career K/9 under five.

• Mike Minor’s shoulder isn’t feeling any better and the next step may be surgery.

Minor also had shoulder soreness last spring that delayed the start of his season. He finished 6-12 with a 4.77 ERA, a significant decline from his 2013 performance, when he was 13-9 with a 3.21 ERA.

Tests have shown no structural damage. Hart said exploratory surgery could be an option if the dis-comfort remains, but ”we are not there yet.”

I think he may be droppable if a person doesn’t have a bunch of DL slots.

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• The Tigers have put both Justin Verlander and Joe Nathan on the DL. Verlander’s trip is not a surprise since he was dealing with the strained tricep during spring training. Nathan’s strained elbow was unexpected though. Right now his status is a little vague and hopefully more information will be available soon.

• James Loney went on the DL with a strained oblique. The team expects him to only miss the required 15-days.

• Matt Cain is on the DL with a strained flexor tendon. Sounds like more information on the extent of the injury will be coming soon.

• Jenrry Mejia went on the DL with a strained elbow.

An MRI exam taken Tuesday on closer Jenrry Mejia’s right elbow revealed inflammation but no structural damage, the club announced. The Mets placed the right-hander on the 15-day DL, retroactive to Sunday, and recalled Erik Goeddel from Triple-A Las Vegas to take his place. Mejia received a cortisone shot in New York, and he’ll rest for at least 10 days to ease the inflammation.

To find his replacement and other bullpen issues, check out our daily Bullpen Report.

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