• Sorry for the lack of material as I am continually dealing with my basement taking on ground water after a flood last Friday. I sort of have the situation under control, but I see my work being sporadic over the next few weeks as I deal with the situation.

Putting a value on Felix Hernandez

I am not going to sugar coat this, the 30-year-old is performing like he is done as a fantasy option. Kaput. First, his velocity is at a career low with his previously deadly sinker averaging just over 90 mph. The velocity loss has his K/9 (7.4) at a career low. Additionally, the pitch is not sinking as much as it previous did and it is getting hit hard. Posting a career high 1.1 HR might be keeping him away from the strike zone. His Zone% (42%) is at a career low which has pushed his walk rate to 3.9 BB/9 (career high).

Some of Felix’s struggles could be related to a calf injury he spent time on the DL nursing it. Since returning, he has hasn’t performed any better. Sadly, pitchers can age quickly to a lower talent level. Right now that Felix’s talent level is an unplayable pitcher and I would guess he is projected near a 4.50 ERA for next season.

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Another great Monday to you all! I don’t have as many specific players to go over, but the ones I do have listed I want to go into a little more detail on.

To start with, let’s go with Stephen Strasburg and his curious elbow/forearm.

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Today’s MASH Report is being brought to you by Ryan Butcher and Wade Davis. The pair were given a few days off recently to get themselves back together. Butcher was sent to the minor and Davis to the DL. While both may have needed a break, one interesting note exists about them missing time, both pitchers experienced a drop in their fastball spin rate right before the decision was made

These are the first two times I have seen a major league team admit that a pitcher’s spin was used to decide on how they handle a pitcher. It has been known for a while that changes in spin rate can help detect injuries. Eno Sarris talked to FanGraphs friend, Kyle Boddy about this issue.

From that discovery flowed others. “Spin-rate changes are actually one of the best predictors of injury,” pointed out Boddy, a fact that was confirmed as a known within many parts of the baseball community by multiple sources. At Driveline, pitchers have their spin rates monitored constantly for the earliest signs of unhealthy fatigue.

The problem for the general public, we have not had good access to pitch spin data until StatCast began releasing data last year. Here is a detailed look at the two pitchers whose spin rate change cause their team to act and can we make any conclusion from them.

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A fine extra-day-off to you all…unless you have to pull the “work on a holiday” thing. Props to you for sure. Either way, thanks for reading and for all of the comments in the previous weeks.

I mentioned this last week, but I want to camp on this topic for a second. The number-one purpose of a team’s minor league farm system is to develop future talent, we all know that. However, there is a extra fringe benefit that having lower-level teams provide, and that is a place for their injured MLB guys to go down and get some valuable game experience before their official return back to the show. You can “simulate games” all you want, but that extra kick of adrenaline that comes from real competition is something practice can’t provide. For the majority of the season, it’s a regular thing to send a guy down to the minors for a game or tow or three. Now we are the point in the year where most minor leagues begin playoffs today or tomorrow, and it is a little much sometimes for a minor league manager fighting for a title to be expected to throw a random guy from the big-league team into their mix for one game.

Which leaves really the fall instructional leagues as a team’s only viable option for rehab assignments for their players at this point in the season. Made up mainly of AA-and-below level players, and even then, doesn’t start for about another 2 weeks. This “black hole” of games is definitely something to be factored into how fast/slow a team decides to bring an injured player back, or to shut him down altogether.

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Last week, I examined hitters who had a known injury they were playing through and then determined how their Stat Cast exit velocity changed. Today, I am moving on from back looking at injuries (reactive) to forward-looking (predictive). Any important conclusions drawn this early in the process should be taken with a grain of salt, but I will trudge along on anyway.

One issue I will continue to run into when looking at this data is the lack of data. Having less than two season’s worth of data is frustrating to work with. Five to six years from now, we will likely be laughing at the work that was done with so little information. Just be skeptical of the information provided as I am trying to be at the tip of the spear so I am likely to get cut a few times.

The more I looked at the data, it seemed a large drop of around 5 mph to 6 mph was indicative of a major injury. The one problem I ran into was players like A.J. Pollock who have both speed and power. Charlie Blackmon and Starling Marte as other similar players. They have wider normal ranges in exit velocity, so instead I went with looking at a half of the standard deviation of the player’s exit velocity to help flag injured players. Most of the time this value is around 5 to 7 mph.

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Chad Kuhl: Quick Look

The 23-year-old righty has been getting some love because of his improved second half when he has posted a 2.37 ERA with 11.3% K%-BB% and a 50% GB%.

I will start with his 2016 MLB.com grades of:

• Fastball: 60
• Slider: 50
• Changeup: 45
• Control: 50
• Overall: 50

His grades weren’t this high until this year. Most places saw him as a low-level bullpen arm.

Year(publication): Overall grade
2016 (BA): 40
2015 (BA): 45
2015 (MLB): 45

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Some interesting injuries to go over this week….some new things, but also a few updates on older injuries. Many of you are either just starting your league playoffs or it’s coming soon, so the most recent news is going to be of value. That being said, let’s get into what I have seen for the MASH report. If you’ve read this for the past couple of weeks, you know that I try to be responsive to the “Comments” section. If there’s someone specific you feel I missed, please jump in. I never want to over-promise/under-deliver, but I will make every effort to get to your question.

Andrew Benintendi, the Red Sox’ rookie phenom, definitely dodged a bullet with “only” a knee sprain, according to manager John Farrell. It is interesting to note that he says there’s no “structural damage” but it is a ligament sprain. But if they are saying he could still return, then that tells me it’s a minor (grade 1) sprain…remember that time you “rolled” your ankle trying to cross that dude over on the court? You hurt real bad for a while but then you were better? Yeah, something like that.

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The following is an experiment. I wanted to see if hitter exit velocity (EV) drops and by how much when a batter players through an injury. I am not sure before starting it where it would head and after a small stab at the data, I seemed to end up with more questions than answers.

The following may sound like a scientific study and in many ways, it is one. I am trying to take a theory and find a solution. Let me start with the theory.

First, injured players perform worse while playing through injury. I have tackled this idea as I looked back at the players’ stats the season before, of, and after the injury.

Talking to several hitters, they say they know when something is bugging them. They just can’t get hit the ball as hard as when they are healthy. Instead of trying to figure out if a player’s slump is from bad luck or injury, we have StatCast’s exit velocity to help us see if they are hitting the ball as hard.

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Let’s get to the injury updates/analysis….

Jung Ho Kang is on the 15-day DL with a left shoulder injury. No official word as to what he hurt, but the way he landed on it gives me some pause. Hopefully it is minor, and he did run off the field afterwards. These impact injuries could be anything in such a complex joint as the shoulder, from a collarbone fracture to a ligament sprain to a labral tear. Yes, non-pitchers can tear their labrum too. Tough timing because he was starting to hit the ball well.

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In last week’s MASH Report, I ran an up-to-date ranking of the of my pitcher injury finding metric, PAIN. The metric is supposed to find pitchers who are displaying traits of possible injuries. Reader, lostatlimbo, wondered:

“I’m also a little disappointed to see no mention of the % of actual injuries from high PAIN scores vs low to validate the data. Plenty of the pitchers with even negative scores have still been injured this season and naturally anything can happen at any time, but is there a significant statistical difference between the upper tiers and lower?“

Besides some initial testing on that season’s pitchers, I haven’t extensively run a recent test on the data. While information has always passed the eye test, it is time to dig a little more.

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