From now on I am not going to look at individuals heading to and from the DL, but a more detailed look if an injury is affecting a player with the MASH Report. If any reader wants an opinion on a player, let me know. I am going to start by looking at a request from KMen in yesterday’s Roto Riteup.

Question 1:

Mat Latos has decreased velocity from 93 to 91mph over first 3 starts. Apparently velocity is pretty much stabilized after 3 starts, so that’s a significant drop. However, his SwStr% is just as good as always, and he’s definitely still getting the results (off to best start in his career). What do we make off all of this?

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Sorry for the one day delay. I had some html issues which caused the injury status links to be broken. I have gone to new format which will hopefully solve the issue, but I took me a while to find a solution.

Also, I will be changing the format a bit. I am wanting to do more in-depth looks at players returning and players possibly headed to the disabled list. More on the changes in the next report.

Recent injury data

 • Zack Greinke broke his collarbone in a fight and reports have him returning in a couple of months. I looked through my injury database going back to 2002 and I could only find one instance of a broken collarbone for a reference and it was Clint Barnes in 2005. Clint broke it while carrying a deer up his stairs. Broken collarbone = good story.

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Relief pitchers who have starting pitcher qualifications are a valuable resource in leagues who have both starting pitcher (SP) and relief pitcher (RP) slots and daily moves. If a team can’t use all their starting pitcher slots on a particular day, a good SP qualified reliever can be used to help with rate stats and maybe holds. These type of pitchers have become so useful, they were effectively outlawed in Ottoneu because of a rules change (only pitchers starting can get stats for SP slots and non-starters can only get stats on the RP slots). Today I am going to look at few useful candidates to use with this strategy.

Truthfully, the list of ideal candidates are slim this year. I far as I could tell, no SP qualified pitcher is currently a full time closer or set up man. A few fall into the category of middle relief, but most are long relievers. Here is a quick look at some of the better option in 2013.

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Recent injury data

 • Matt Harrison was placed on the DL because of continuing back discomfort. He displayed several signs of injury with his Zone% going from 51.3% in 2012 to 41.3% in 2013. Also, his fastball velocity went from 92.1 mph to 91.2 mph over the same time frame. The more I follow injuries, a low Zone% is more of an indicator or injuries than loss of velocity. Here are the current starter laggards in Zone% (min. 2 starts).

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Today’s MASH report is the first a couple players, Hughes and Tillman, returning from the disabled list. I will give pitcher velocities right after they come back and then re-examine then after a few games.

Recent injury data

 • Aramis Ramirez is out at least 2 weeks with a knee injury worse than the one he had in spring training.

 • Freddie Freeman is out 3-4 weeks with an oblique strain.

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Today, I am going to focus on some pitch speed data. While starters have pitched only once, pitch speeds stabilize quickly and the small amount of data is useful. It takes only a couple of pitches to get an idea of a pitcher’s speed.

While a loss in velocity can be a sign of injury, it can also mean a pitcher is in a transition period. All pitcher’s will lose speed over time at the rate of 0.25 mph per year. Pitchers are going to to have to adjust to throwing slower and slower if they want to stay in the league. It is a fact of life.

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Mainly I have spent my time over the last couple of days getting the list of players officially on DL updated. I have divided out the players officially on the DL and others who may not play because of injuries. These list will become clearer over the next few days as teams must decided if the player is healed enough to play.

To start the season, 104 players were placed on the disabled list. Last season almost 500 trips were made to the DL, so a fifth of the DL trips have happened before the season starts.

Recent injury data

 • Johan Santana is done for 2013 with a re-torn shoulder. No fantasy value here.

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Not as many updates today as I expected. Quite a few players were officially moved to the D.L., but new injuries have been limited over the past few days.

Third base is just seeing a ton of injury issues. I went and looked at an early draft from ESPN. Six of the first eleven draft 3B have a chance of starting the season on the D.L.

(#3 David Wright, #4 Hanley Ramirez, #6 Chase Headley, #8 Brett Lawrie, #9 Pablo Sandoval, #11 David Freese)

Recent injury data

 • Bryce Harper is dealing with a thumb issue which seems to keep getting worse. If he tries to play through it, his production may be down a bit.

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After a Mendoza-like .200 average last season, I hope to improve on my predictions this season. Some are based on facts, others on my gut, all BOLD. Let your mocking begin.

Torii Hunter will improve on his 2012 season.

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In the general injury material for this week, I have found a couple interesting articles.

Kyle Boddy’s piece at the Hardball Times where he looks at how different injured pitchers at different levels were handled by their coaches.

Second, Bill Petti examined claims by Bill James about groundball pitchers. Bill James claims groundball pitchers are more injury prone while Bill found the exact opposite.

Recent injury data

 • Roy Halladay is not close to the same pitcher we have seen in the past. He got only 7 of 18 minor league batters out in his last start. He hasn’t been able to put together one good start this season, but according to him, nothing is wrong besides a stomach virus. The virus caused him to lose 10 pounds in 2 days. No one should expect to be 100% after losing 10 pounds quickly.

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