• Well, the initial 2015 disabled list is getting finalized. In the table below are the players who have started the season on the DL according to MLB.com’s transactions. I expect the number to increase as more players are added. I will have a complete list on Thursday.
• No velocity reports again today. Instead, I will go over the past two weeks of available Pitchf/x data and report them in my Quick Takes slot tomorrow afternoon.
• Early this offseason, I notice the Orioles have seen a huge drop in elbow and shoulder related injuries since 2009. Brittany Ghirolli at MLB.com just wrote a nice article on the subject. One key for the Orioles is more rest between starts.
The Orioles, who haven’t had a player on the 25-man roster undergo Tommy John ligament-replacement surgery since manager Buck Showalter took the helm in late 2010, aren’t on to anything new. But perhaps what sets them apart from other organizations is that they are unrelenting in keeping their guys out of harm’s way. The biggest complaint Showalter heard while serving as an ESPN analyst was about the way bullpen guys were managed. To that end, every pitch an O’s reliever throws — be it in warmups or in the game — is tracked by the team, their workouts and exercises adjusted by the trainers based off of that.
• I am a guest on today’s Effectively Wild podcast by Baseball-Prospectus doing an anti-Tommy John surgery draft. Good stuff all around except maybe Sam’s picks.
• With everyone focusing on the increase in Tommy John operations, it is nice to see Rob Arthur look at how shoulder surgeries are on the decline (great graph).
• Well, a couple of players we expect to get hurt sometime during the season couldn’t even make it to Opening Day healthy. Carlos Gonzalez’s surgically repaired knee was feeling pain. He is supposed to be back today, but who knows how often his bum knee will keep flaring up.
• Jaime Garcia is another player which can be counted on for a DL stint or four. Right now his arm is feeling sore and fatigued. He is out of the Cardinals rotation until he starts to feel better.
A couple of 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.
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.
| Grade | Hitter | Starting Pitcher | Relief Pitcher | WAR |
| 80 | Top 1-2 | #1 Starter | —- | 7 |
| 75 | Top 2-3 | #1 | —- | 6 |
| 70 | Top 5 | #1/2 | —- | 5 |
| 65 | All-Star | #2/3 | —- | 4 |
| 60 | Plus | #3 | High Closer | 3 |
| 55 | Above Avg | #3/4 | Mid Closer | 2.5 |
| 50 | Avg Regular | #4 | Low CL/High SU | 2 |
| 45 | Platoon/Util | #5 | Low Setup | 1.5 |
| 40 | Bench | Swing/Spot SP | Middle RP | 1 |
| 35 | Emergency Call-Up | Emergency Call-Up | Emergency Call-Up | 0 |
| 30 | *Organizational | *Organizational | *Organizational | -1 |
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.
3/16/15 Orioles vs Phillies
Dylan Bundy (30 CV/55 FV)
• He was horrible. No control and or any decent pitches. He is not close at all to the majors. I based the 55 FV on just this start and I think that I may have been generous. He may have a ton of upside, but he needs to find the strikezone first.
• His fastball was 88-94 mph was generally straight with some possible sink. At 93-94 mph, he had no control of the pitch. He was finally able to throw strikes in the 88-91 mph range.
• He had a loopy 72-73 mph 12-6 curveball.
• He has walked quite a few batters during spring training (13 BB vs 9 K in 15 IP). If you are wondering if it is time to buy in with him, check his MiLB walk rate and see if it has improved.
Hunter Harvey (50 CV/60 FV)
• His fastball is 93-95 mph with some release side run. The pitch movement makes it a plus pitch.
• His 12-6 curve was 78-81 mph
• He may have a 2-seamer with a bit of sink.
• He just seemed afraid/cautious of LHH and issued two walks to them.
• He didn’t show a second breaking ball and the lack of it is why I am not higher on him. Too bad he got hurt, or I think he could have made an impact early this season. Read the rest of this entry »
• Chris Sale expects to start on April 12th.
• Nick Franklin will at least miss a couple of weeks to start the season. It may not be until late May when he returns.
Nick Franklin (left-oblique strain) is “in that gray area,” according to Cash when asked if the infielder could be back by four to six weeks or six to eight
• It is nice to see the American Journal of Sports Medicine was able to verify my concussion work with zero reference to my four-year-old study.
• Last week, I noticed Jon Lester (-1.5 mph) and Hyun Ryu (-2 mph) lost velocity compared to last season. Both are now dealing with arm issues.
Lester is dealing with a dead arm and it happens regularly with him.
“You can ask every pitcher; it’s an every-year thing for everybody. It’s nothing out of the ordinary.”
There is no pain or discomfort, according to Lester.
“It’s one of those things that you have to go through to understand,” he said. “It doesn’t feel like anything. It’s more total body deadness, and everybody puts a label on it as far as ‘dead arm.’ It’s nothing to be alarmed about. There’s no point in trying to grind through it right now. These games don’t mean anything. If it was April 15, it wouldn’t be an issue.”
Ryu is dealing with soreness in his throwing shoulder which will cause him to start the season on the DL.
Dodgers starting pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu was sent to Los Angeles on Sunday to have his injured left shoulder examined by Dr. Neal ElAttrache, and manager Don Mattingly conceded that the left-hander will start the season on the disabled list.
Ryu attempted to play catch Sunday, four days after receiving a cortisone injection for the type of shoulder stiffness that sidelined him twice last year, but the discomfort returned.
Mattingly said Ryu reported immediate improvement from the injection but was barely able to lob the ball during a brief session of catch.
Just a reminder that pitchers don’t intentually throw slower without a reason.
1. Mike Trout or Clayton Kershaw will not be the #1 ranked fantasy player for 2015. These two are the consensus number one hitter and pitcher, but I will take the field that someone else will step up and surprise everyone.
2. Pedro Alvarez will lead the National League in home runs. He is an after thought for many owners after hitting 36 home runs in 2013. The move to first base will allow him to not worry about his 3B defense and just hit home runs.
3. Martin Prado will be more productive than Kris Bryant. I think Prado is getting way under valued with 2B, 3B, and OF eligibilities in some leagues. He has historically hit near .300 with some pop. Bryant’s spring has been inflating his value beyond where it should be. Also, he won’t be able to feast off scrub pitching and his strikeout rate may become a huge drag.
• 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.
• 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%.
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.
