With little new injury information because of the All-Star game, I will give a bit of information on three pitchers and look at the HURT and PAIN leader boards.

• Colby Lewis’s fastball is reported to be averaging 87 mph with 89 being his top end. This about 1 mph less than he threw in 2012 which was a career low.

• Chris Carpenter’s fastball in his rehab starts is averaging between 90 and 91 mph. This value would be near his 2012 when his ERA and ERA estimators hovered around 4.00.

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Chris Davis owners are experiencing an unexpected surprise this season. Instead of a possible corner infield or injury replacement, they have one of the top players in the league for pennies on the dollar. On the other end of the spectrum is B.J. Upton who Ron Shandler picked to have “40/40 upside”, but is in the discussion has the worst everyday player in the majors. Going into the 2013 season, Davis and Upton were projected to have similar production because of a uncertain skill set and the similarities ended then.

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Injury news was slow side over the weekend and no pitchers were taken off the DL. I have a few updates, a 2013 SLOW leader board. With less expected later in the week, I will breakdown in detail the PAIN and HURT leader boards in my next article.

• Last week I examined Matt Cain‘s and Yu Darvish’s possible injuries. More news has become available on them.

Yu Darvish is said to just have shoulder fatigue.

Yu Darvish was examined by Dr. Keith Meister in Texas on Thursday, and the results showed nothing out of the ordinary in the right trapezius muscle. The Rangers feel Darvish is dealing simply with fatigue in the muscle and nothing more. Darvish did not even undergo an MRI. (Source)

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No HURT, PAIN or SLOW rankings today. Instead, I concentrated my time on looking at Cain’s possible injury and Darvish’s actual injury. Besides the those two, I examined Verlander, Jeter, the Uptons and a few pitchers coming off the DL.

• Rumors are flying around about Matt Cain being injured. Here are quotes from Cain, Bochy and Alex Pavlovic on Cain’s possible injury.

-Q: How did you feel coming out of your warm-ups?
-CAIN: I felt fine. Normal.
-Q: The conclusion someone might have after you only last two outs is that something is physically wrong. Is there anything wrong?
-CAIN: Nothing.
-Q: You’re fine?
-CAIN: Yep.
(source)

Manager Bruce Bochy said there is no health issue that has led to Cain’s struggles or the quick hook — Mike Kickham was warming up by the fourth batter and came in after Cain could not record the third out.

“I didn’t want it to become a health issue,” said Bochy, who added that he was worried about Cain’s first-inning pitch count that reached 36. “He’s fine. I had some concern there because he was a little off.
“I’ll be honest. You want to win every game, but you don’t want to risk someone to win a game. That’s why I got him.” (source)

No surprise after that first inning, but I’m told there have been in-house discussions about Cain’s health in recent days. (source)

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Today, I will examine five pitchers who came off the DL this past week and give a top 30 ranking for HURT and PAIN.

• Yesterday, Joakim Soria made his 2013 debut after his 2nd Tommy John Surgery. He came out only throwing fastballs with an average velocity of 90.2 mph.

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Just a quick update on injuries over the long holiday weekend.

• Darius Austin of MLB Injury News put together nice write up on how the Mets may handle Matt Harvey innings pitches as the season goes on with all the latest research.

• Jeff Locke is having a break out season for the Pirates with 8 wins and a 2.12 ERA. Signs of regression exist with a .233 BABIP and with his ERA estimators near or above 4.00.

He was been a leader on my PAIN index because of an extremely low Zone% (41.4%). His last start was the first since the season’s start with a plus 47% Zone%. I would be selling him right now if possible.

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In the last MASH Report, I introduced SLOW which looks for hitters having problems catching up with fastballs. From now on, I will be looking at players on HURT and PAIN for my Monday/Tuesday post and then SLOW for my Thursday/Friday post. Today, I have three closers coming off the DL, several reports of hitters playing through injuries and some other tidbits.

• Michael Pineda is looking to return to the majors soon. A week ago, I looked at the data available on him so far during his rehab. I have found a bit more recent data on his return:

Pineda threw only three innings Sunday in a start for Trenton against Binghamton, the Mets’ Double-A affiliate. Pineda allowed four runs on four hits and four walks, striking out four. He gave up two home runs, throwing only 32 of his 67 pitches for strikes.

According to one scout, Pineda’s fastball ranged from 90-95 mph, sitting mostly around 92. The scout said Pineda fell behind too many hitters, was inconsistent with his fastball command, throwing “flat” fastballs that got very few swings and misses, exhibiting a “sluggish” demeanor on the mound.

The fastball velocity still looks to be down a few mph and he seemed to struggle throwing strikes. Temper expectations for him.

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Today, I am mainly going to look at new metric, SLOW. It looks for hitters who are having problems hitting fastball in the strike zone. Besides SLOW, just a few other quick looks at Scott Kazmir, Jeanmar Gomez, Ryan Zimmerman and Felix Hernandez.

• I have read and heard many experts state a player has a slow bat and/or can’t catch up to fastballs. Finally, I have come up with an initial stab to see if a player is having problems hitting fastballs. To keep it easy, I am going to name it SLOW.

The basic parameters for the pitches examined are:
1. Pitches thrown into the heart of the plate (I don’t want to look at a chase rate)
2. Fastballs >=92 mph (looking for fastish fastballs)

I created the final metric using a weighted combination of:
1. Contact% (contact with the pitches)
2. Foul% (In play contact)
3. Pull angle on line drives and ground balls (is the hitter hitting the ball late)

The SLOW value may change a bit (I will probably put it on a 100 scale where 100 is league average) as I tweak it a bit here and there over the next couple of weeks. I have included two leader boards. One with the 2013 value. Another with players who have slowed the most from 2012 to 2013. Let me know if anything seems out of place.

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No pitchers going off the DL over the last few days, so I will just examine a few injury stories. Also, the PAIN and HURT leaderboards for younger players are posted.

• With about every pitcher who goes on the DL, I like to see if there were any glaring injury signs. With Jon Niese (torn rotator cuff), no signs really existed. His fastball velocity dropped 0.5 MPH from 2012 and his Zone% was down 0.9% points. While a declining velocity and Zone% are signs of a injury, these levels don’t usually raise any read flags. Of the 453 pitchers PAIN ranks, he was the 295 least injury prone.

Another factor I examine is his late game consistency (process is faster, it used to take over a minute to calculate and now it is almost instantaneous). Niese’s value has slow risen over the past three seasons.

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Injury information will be a little slim today, so I will examine in detail a few cases. Also, I will report the fastball speeds of three pitchers returning from the DL. Finally, I have adjusted PAIN and HURT so any value over 100 is a player at a high injury risk. Complete rankings are available.

• Albert Pujols stated he is finally feeling unhurt.

But Pujols swears he felt something.
“I was like … this is me right here,'” Pujols said. “That did it. I feel right now like my old me, like when I was in St. Louis.”
Did you ever feel that way last year?
“Not at all, man — I swear,” Pujols said. “There were some streaks here and there that I hit, but I was battling. I never got to a point where I could say, ‘Holy cow, that’s my bat speed.'”

Every player always states they feel better than they actually do, but it may be time to try to buy into Albert’s hot bat. His ISO (power) is trending up.

Month: ISO
April: .165
May: .173
June: .254

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