• 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.

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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.

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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.

MLB Miscellany: Rules, regulations and statistics

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.

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• 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.

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One relief pitcher trait I like to have on hand during draft season is how much of a split has a pitcher displayed over his career against right- and left-handed hitters. Most teams don’t want their closer to have a large split because with all hands on deck in the ninth, the opposing manager will use up all his available platoon options. The reason a pitcher may or may not have a split may be many, but truthfully I don’t have time to evaluate each relief pitcher in detail (and still stay married) so I use this nice little cheat sheet.

I examined which pitchers have historically small or large handedness splits and how much to take them into account when valuing the relief pitcher for a closer’s role.

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• In the comments from last week’s MASH Report, dls asked:

Any info on [Yasmani] Grandal (in particular), and catchers (in general), returning from knee injuries?

First, Grandal will start the season on the DL. Second, here is how the nine catchers in my database with major knee issues performed after the injury.  The values are from the the season before the injury to the season after the injury. Additionally, I included the outfield values I found last week.

The two sets of values are similar and it looks like Grandal should see a drop in production once he returns.

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Right before spring training starts  is the time to begin finding players on the fringe. The great to average players have been well documented. Their value is visible in early drafts. To find some fringe pitchers, I looked for ones with an above average fastball, change and breaking ball. The list contains mainly the game’s best pitchers. Instead, I am going to focus on the talent pool’s shallow end and examine Tom Gorzelanny.

First, I will step through how I found a possible sleeper in a 31-year-old left handed middle reliever. I was looking for pitchers who threw three above average pitches and had a chance to start. Using PITCHf/x data, I collected the pitchers who had any above average fastball (two-finger, four-finger, splitter, cutter or sinker), one above average breaking ball (slider or curveball) and a changeup. Additionally, I wanted to make sure the pitcher threw the pitch on a normal basis. Fastballs had to be thrown over 20% of the time and for breaking balls and curveballs it was 10%. Additionally, the pitcher had to have made at least one start (team willing to start him) and had throw at least 30 innings (a bit of MLB experience). Here are the pitchers who met the requirements in 2012 (28 total) and 2013 (16 total).

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Not much in injury news over the past week, so I decided to dive mainly into the effects of major knee injuries.

• The Mariners recently signed Corey Hart who missed all of 2013 after left knee surgery. I went through my injury database and found 60 outfielders who either tore or had surgery on a knee. Additionally, I added those outfielders who missed 90 days or more because of a knee issue. In all, I found 60 outfielders who met the criteria. I looked at the weighted average from the season before … to the season of the injury… to the season after the injury. Here are the results:

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Zack Wheeler‘s major league debut played second fiddle to Matt Harvey’s pre-Tommy John surgery season. Wheeler was a fairly highly-touted prospect since being drafted in 2009 by the Giants and then being traded to the Mets (#49 in 2010, #55 in 2011, #35 in 2012 and #11 in 2013 by Baseball America). He started his first MLB game in the middle of June and his season was combination of good and bad. Going into 2014, walks and injury concerns will be limiting his fantasy value.

The 24-year-old right-handed pitcher didn’t exactly light the world on fire. He had a 7.6 K/9 and 4.1 BB/9. His ERA was respectable at 3.42, but all of his ERA estimators were north of four (4.17 FIP, 4.21 xFIP, 4.40 SIERA). The reason for the disconnect was his 78% LOB%. Here are some comparable 2013 starters with similar walk a strikeout numbers.

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It is that time of year when players state they are in the best shape of their lives. I am going to try not to publish any best shape  information unless news exists on the player’s actual progress.

• Matt Kemp (foot and shoulder injuries) had his walking boot removed recently. Currently, he doesn’t look to be 100% by spring training, but ready for the season’s start.

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