It is getting into weekly/daily injury report season for each hurt player until the season starts. All of these reports will be in the spreadsheet unless there is a change is status. Otherwise, not a ton of news this week.
• Cory Luebke will miss all of 2014 with Tommy John surgery. Expect longer than a year for him to rehab since it is his second TJS.
During the 2013 season, I created three metrics to help find possible injuries: PAIN, HURT and SLOW. So far this offseason, I have looked back at the final 2013 values for PAIN and HURT. I have put off SLOW ( Swinging Late or Whiffing) because the data was a mess a to query and work with.I finally simplified the process so the following is a look at the 2013 SLOW leaders. Also, I will examine if a SLOW bat was behind the second half struggles of Jason Kipnis and Jean Segura.
I created SLOW to see which hitters struggle with fastballs right in the heart of the strikezone. The two requirements are:
It is the best side versus the worst side for the 2014 Milwaukee Brewers infield. On the left side is two players with job security and talent. On the other side is a 1000 piece blue sky jigsaw puzzle with 50 or so pieces missing. I will go from the good to the bad to the WTF.
Short Stop – With the infield being bi-polar in nature, Jean Segura suffered through a well documented bi-polar 2013 season. Last week, I looked at the significance of his first and second half stats and found most of his struggles were batted ball related (small bit of BB% decline). Looking over his batted ball data, I found one interesting fact, Segura home run power came from fastballs up in the zone. Here are his fastball home run heat maps from the season’s 1st and 2nd half.
The Mariners infield situation stabilized quite a bit when Cano signed the deal to take over at second base for the mess left there last season. The infield is generally set and decent except for the huge nested IF THEN ELSE situation at first base. I will start with the known and move to the unknown.
Second base.
No more Dustin Ackley. No more Nick Franklin. It is Robinson Cano’s job. Cano is a great healthy player. No problems here.
• Jeremy Hellickson will be out until at least mid-May after elbow surgery last week.
Rays right-hander Jeremy Hellickson had arthroscopic surgery on his right elbow last week and expected to be out until mid- to late-May, the Times has learned.
Hellickon, 26, had loose bodies removed from his elbow by Dr. Koco Eaton in what is considered a minor procedure, and is likely to miss the first 6-8 weeks of the season.
Jake Odorizzi will now get a chance in the Rays rotation.
Coming into the 2014 season, Jean Segura’s 2013 production still baffles me (I have two more pieces on him coming up in the future). He had a an amazing first half (11 HR, 27 SB, .325 AVG) and then his production dropped off in the second half (1 HR, 17 SB, .241 AVG) which no obvious signs of change. Other players showed the same decline like Chris Davis (.461 wOBA to .365) and Jason Kipnis (.387 wOBA to .317). Players exist on the other end of the spectrum. They seemed to get better in the second half of the season. Elvis Andrus went from hitting .242 with no home runs to .313 with four dingers.
Having more data is always better. Using three to fours years worth of data make the best projections. It is just human nature to remember the most recent results and quickly react off of them. Whether it is fantasy baseball or the economy, people jump immediately to action. I will look at probably the smallest set of data (besides pitch velocity) which fantasy expects use: half season data.
• With Masahiro Tanaka signing with the Yankees, some writers have been comparing his injury chances to Daisuke Matsuzaka and other Japanese-born pitchers. I decided to give a look at the numbers instead of making a guess.
Since 2001, any starting pitcher (min 120 IP) has a 39.2% chance of ending up on the DL the next season, missing 68 days on average. For Japanese born pitchers, 47% end up on the DL, missing 75 days on average.
It may seem like Japanese pitchers are a higher injury risk, but a couple of issues exist with this data. First, only 19 Japanese pitchers are in the sample. Second, the average age was 32.4 years-old for the Japanese pitchers going on the DL. For all other pitchers, the age was 29.7 years-old. If I change the overall sample to just players who would be 32 or 33, the DL chance jumps to 42% and the number of days goes to 74.3. The only reason Japanese pitcher may seem to be more injury prone is their advanced age. Otherwise there is little difference in their injury risk.
One pitcher subset I like to exploit is relief pitchers (RP) with starting pitcher (SP) qualifications. In leagues with each SP and RP slots and daily lineup changes, these pitchers can be extremely useful. Starters can only throw every five days and then can’t accumulate any stats the rest of the time. On their off days, a SP qualified RP can be moved into the SP spot to help with rate stats and in a few rare cases, accumulate Saves. These pitchers got abused in Ottoneu to the point the rules got changed. Not all leagues ban them yet. Today, I am going to look at some of the better pitchers who may fill this requirement.
Adding Holds as a category to any fantasy league opens up a new pool of pitchers to the mix. No longer are teams focused just on just starters and closers, now middle relievers have more value. Holds are an impossible category to predict, but today I will give some ideas about guesstimating Holds and some pitchers who may accumulate them in 2014.
If a reliever comes into a game to protect a lead, gets at least one out and leaves without giving up that lead, he gets a hold.
Two things must exist for a pitcher to a get a Hold, opportunity and talent. Starting with opportunity: Holds are just like Saves, the manager must trust the pitcher enough to put them in a Hold situation. Two types of pitchers are given Hold opportunities, stud setup men and LOOGYs. A setup man will pitch the seventh and/or eighth since their peripheral data is similar to a closer. They will throw one inning and be done. LOOGY’s will be used to get one or two tough left-handed batters out and be done.
• Manny Machado is ahead of schedule for his return after having knee surgery in the fall. Some good bits of information are available from the article.
First, he was supposed to be out four to six months. Right now he is at three month point and looks to return earlier than expected.
Orioles third baseman Manny Machado underwent a checkup on his surgically repaired left knee Thursday in California and, according to an industry source, it went well and doctors told the 21-year-old that he was six to eight weeks ahead of a normal recovery period …. Given ElAttrache’s prognosis, if things continue smoothly, the belief is Machado will be ready to play Opening Day.
Second, the date by which Machado needs to playing games and start in the season opener is set.
Showalter said earlier this month that Machado would need to be ready to play in spring games by about March 15 to be ready for Opening Day at Camden Yards on March 31.
As of now, it looks like he may only miss a couple weeks at most.
