The Mash Report is on the paper thin side today. I have been a bit busy. I was able to go through all the injury updates and add them into the DL spreadsheet. I plan to go into more detail on some players such as Cliff Lee, Andrew Cashner, Carlos Gonzalez and others in an additional Mash Report tomorrow. I will also have up-to-date PAIN and HURT reports.
• It is looking like Matt Wieters may not play again in 2014. Additionally the earliest he could be back is in July.
After Wieters fully rests from the injection, the Orioles expect to get a more definitive idea about what’s going on with the elbow. Showalter has said he would like to know by July 1 whether Wieters can return behind the plate this season.
For owners in shallow leagues and short benches, I could see him as droppable right now.
• I hate to see Jose Fernandez needing Tommy John surgery (TJS). His owners really should not have been totally surprised the injury happened. While it is impossible to predict exactly which pitchers will get injured when, Fernandez had some injury risk signs coming into the season.
1. He threw hard. When Matt Harvey had TJS last season, I looked at extreme hard throwers to see if they have more injury risk. Among only 15 starters, there was a heightened risk. I would hate to draw too many conclusions from a sample of 15, but the trend continues.
2. He threw a ton of curve balls. Over 30% in 2013 and in 2014. Previously, I found pitchers who throw their curve more than 25% of the time have a 50% chance of going on the DL.
3. He hadn’t yet established himself in the majors. Pitchers who have been able to make in the majors for three complete season are about 10% points less likely to be DL bound.
All three factors put Fernandez at a higher than normal injury risk.
• I don’t think Manny Machado’s knee is close to 100% yet. I timed him to 1B on a double play he sprinted on (5/7, 3rd inning). He got to 1B in 4.6 secs which is a 20, the worst possible scouting rating. The rest of his stats back this lack of speed up. No doubles since returning (51 last season). No stolen base attempts. Three grounded into double plays (1 GDP per 43 PA in 2013, 1 GDP per 14 PA in 2014). Speed score down from 3.7 to 1.4. The knee just can’t be 100% yet.
If fans thought they saw a bunch of shifts in last season, the numbers are really up even higher this year. Some players’ productions are really suffering because of the ideal defensive alignment. Today I am going to give a quick look at how often a batter hit into a shift compared to the same time frame in 2013.
Just a couple of reminders on the data. The data is for major infield shifts (3 or more players on one side of the infield). The data is only available on batted balls, so if a player was shifted and struck out, the data wasn’t available. Also, I did not include home runs. Finally, the data is a few days behind, so all data was taken from May 4th and earlier for both 2013 and 2014.
• On Monday, Tom brought up looking at the rest of season effects on Ryan Zimmerman’s thumb injury. Tom was looking for the effects for different types of thumb injuries. Well, I can’t get that detailed. The injury database I have only goes goes down to the thumb level, not location on thumb. Even looking just at thumbs, only 28 documented players went on the DL since 2002 for thumb issues. I like to have around 50 players for a good sample, but cutting 28 in half (or more) would just not yield a decent sample size. So here is the information.
Average Age: 29.7
Median age: 29
Average DL Days: 35.2
Median DL Days: 30
Decline rate for hitters with a thumb injury
Stat: Year-1 to Year, Year to Year+1, Year-1 to Year+1
AVG: -0.010, -0.002, -0.015
OBP: -0.012, -0.004, -0.021
SLG: -0.015, -0.028, -0.044
Decline rate for hitters from age 28 to 30 season
Stat: Year-1 to Year, Year to Year+1, Year-1 to Year+1
AVG: -0.002, -0.003, -0.005
OBP: 0.000, -0.001, -0.001
SLG: -0.004, -0.006, -0.010
This season, he should see a 10 point drop in his expected AVG which will felt in his OBP and SLG. Next year, the there should be no more than the expected decline in AVG or OBP, but his SLG should drop more than expected by 20 points.
Yesterday, I ran out of time while writing my MASH Report to look at how the possible effects of diminished velocity could have on Clayton Kershaw. Well, using a couple of untested, but promising ideas, it seems he will be may not struggle with less fastball speed.
The worries with Kershaw stem from this tweet.
89-91, touched 92 a few times. RT @gq2scoops: Anybody know how Kershaw’s velocity was tonight?
— Dustin Nosler (@DustinNosler) May 1, 2014
He could be getting some of his strength back, but a possible 2+ mph drop could mean trouble for him. Kershaw’s fastball has at least averaged 92.5 mph in each of his six previous season. By looking at how he has produced previously at times with a lower velocities my indicate how he will do in the future.
Today’s edition is really short. I was working on a detailed analysis to see how Kershaw may produced with a fastball around the 89 to 91 mph range. Basically I ran out of time. So I will finish up the analysis later tonight and write it up and we will run it tomorrow. But the short answer is …. he looks like he will be fine.
• Clayton Kershaw’s average velocity in his last minor league start was around 90 mph
89-91, touched 92 a few times. RT @gq2scoops: Anybody know how Kershaw’s velocity was tonight?
— Dustin Nosler (@DustinNosler) May 1, 2014
With him expected to start Monday, how will the loss of velocity effect him? Wait until tomorrow for the details, but he should be fine.
With about a month of baseball played so far, let’s take a look today at some of the players hitting into an infield shift. Some players have always been shifted like David Ortiz and Ryan Howard, but other hitters are seen the shift deployed against them for the first time. Today, I will look at some early season trends on some players and the effects they may be seeing.