• I have had a couple people ask if Adam Wainwright is hurt. Going through some signs, he may just be.

First, he is in the window for needing a second Tommy John surgery after his one in 2011. Here is a description of when a second operation is needed from some of my previous work.

In the 2013 THT Annual, we found pitchers had about 650 innings between their first and second procedure, though the sample size was miniscule. Recently, I ran a brief study using the up-to-date TJS database and found those pitchers who had their first TJS from before 2011 averaged 4.5 years until they needed to go under the knife again, with a median time of 4.0 years. These numbers are in the ballpark of the 650 innings value we originally found.

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Thanks to both of you for caring enough about injuries on the trade deadline day to read my article. Well, I here is the latest injury information. Now I need to get back to reading about potential trades.

• James Paxton is an interesting pitcher who should be coming off the DL soon, possibly on Saturday. Before going on the DL, he was putting up some good numbers: 30% K%, 5% BB%, 56% GB% in two starts. According to recent reports from his minor league rehab appearances, his velocity may be down ~2 mph from his early average of 94 mph.

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Not much injury news over the weekend, sorry.

• A reader asked if Chris Davis may be injured. The short answer for those with little time, probably. Now here is the long answer.

The concern for Davis centers on his low .199 AVG and 17 home runs. He spent spent 15 days on the DL early in the season for a strained abdomen. No other reported news. Before the injury he hit .250/.372/.382. Since returning, he has mainly  seen a huge drop in his AVG, .183/.288/.394. Looking through my injury indicators, his ISO is down from .240 career average to .192. His Contact% is down for 69% to 67%. These values put his HURT value at 155 which is one of the top values among the league regulars. So, yes his is probably still hurt.

The other issue he is dealing with is the shift. In 2013, he had a .425 BABIP with no shift on and a .302 with the shift employed for a difference of .123. So far this season, he is hitting .375 without the shift on and .236 with a shift for a difference of .141. The shift related decline was almost the same overall for each season. This season he is not hitting the ball as hard (probably from the injury), so both BABIP values are down. I would look at Davis as a possible buy low candidate for next season, but expect the batting average to stay low.

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This past offseason, I found an xBABIP equation which correlated better than just BABIP when looking at season 1 to season 2 values . By using the the new Inside Edge data and player speed score, I kept the process  simple yet accurate. I have tweeted out the results a few times during the season, but it is time for another  full updated list.

The Inside Edge data tracks the normal bunts, grounders, fly balls and line drives. In addition to the four groups, they classify the batted ball into weak, medium and hard contract. For the xBABIP equation, I looked at all the line drives and all the hard hit fly balls and grounders. Additionally, speed is a component of getting on base so Bill James’s Speed Score is also added into the calculation.

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• In keeper leagues, it is time for the top teams to stabilize their teams with healthy players. This is an opportunity for teams buy low on know health risks. Take Jason Kipnis for example. he has been limited by an oblique injury all year. If a top team has him and you have healthy Ian Kinsler, look to trade for Kipnis. Most owners will do about anything for a win and will take the stability for this season and you get an upgrade for next season. Another player to target is Shin-Soo Choo who has had a bad ankle. Additionally, look over the HURT lists below for more injured players.

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Well, I finally got through all the news after a week in New Mexico with my family. No injury prediction reports (PAIN or HURT) today, but will look at publishing them on Thursday (if not before).

• At the Hardball Times, Dan Farnsworth goes into detail on how wrist injuries affect hitters.  Here is his conclusion:

From these case studies, I suspect that hitters who tend to flatten out the bottom hand early and keep it flat through contact put greater strain on their wrist joints. This forces them to use more of their bones and ligaments to stabilize their swings, rather than their muscle mass. Muscles can be strengthened, while bones and other connective tissue cannot. Just like pitchers who are suffering from diminished velocity due to developing elbow instability, I expect hitters with this type of movement pattern to be more likely to suffer downturns in productivity.

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Bryce Harper’s production has not be at high level since he has returned from the disabled list. Some people, including his manager, are saying his timing is off. In my opinion, I think his left thumb is not yet 100% for several reasons which is causing his timing issues.

In case someone has not been following the train wreck, here are Harper’s stats before and after the injury:

Before: .289/.352/.422, 23% K%
After: .129/.250/.161, 35% K%

The after is only 37 PA, but the results are abysmal.

To look a little deeper into Harper’s production, here is his batted ball placement before and after the injury (embiggen).

He has yet to hit one ball to the outfield’s right side after the injury. Historically, 81% of his home runs have been to center (30%) or right (51%) field. Since he is hitting nothing to the right side, I expect no substantial power from him.

This situation reminds me of left-handed David Ortiz from a few years back. He hit the ball weakly to left field after a wrist injury and then slowly began to pull the ball with authority to right field  as he got healthy. For a sign Harper is turning it around, look for him to start hitting to right field consistently.

The second key factor telling me the thumb still bothers him is he acts like it does. Players with injuries will physically show signs the body part bothers them. Here is Harper after a foul ball from Wednesday  night.

He concentrates on and re-grips with the injured thumb. I went back a looked at him plate appearances before the injury and he never did anything close to the re-grip. If a Harper owner wants to know if he is healthy, watch a couple of games and see if favors the thumb in any way.

Bryce Harper’s thumb is probably not 100% yet and it is behind his offensive struggles since returning from the DL. Two items can be tracked to see if he is turning his season around. First, look to see if he is beginning to pull the ball with some power. Second, watch some of his at bats and see if he favors the thumb in any way.

Next week I am taking a vacation. I am thinking I will publish just the DL table mid-week and that is probably it. Last time I went on vacation, it took forever to catch back up on it.

• Masahiro Tanaka ended up on the DL with an inflamed elbow. Looking over his past starts, nothing points to a possible injury. Velocity was fine. Consistent release point. He was throwing strikes. Hopefully the Yankees caught the injury in time.

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After talking a bit with Eno Sarris about his pitch type benchmarks, we decided to change up the process a bit. Instead of taking the full average of all of the pitches thrown in a category, we limited the pool to only pitchers who had thrown 20 innings from 2011 to 2013. And we limited the number of pitches we counted to ones that had been thrown 50 times. Hopefully this takes out gimmick pitches and small sample anomalies, for the most part. We’re focusing now on regularly-thrown pitches from somewhat-established pitchers.

We also decided to take the median value within each pitch type. This is a better representation of what’s out there — the old way could have allowed the very excellent pitches to pull the benchmarks north of what could actually be considered an average pitch. We also decided to show you where the 40% benchmark was — the ‘good’ but not ‘above average’ pitches. There are a lot of pitches thrown here that are neither ‘show-me’ pitches nor are they ‘strong’ — think ‘useful.’

Eno will take a look at Matt Cain to bring this all into focus after the new table of benchmarks.

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• On July 4th, Gerrit Cole was removed from his start with a sore lat. Here are his velocity readings from the game.

For his next start, look for a fastball velocity near 97 mph vs 93 mph which is where he ended the game at.

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