• OK, this is the final MASH for the regular season. During the offseason, I will be posting MASH every Thursday. Hopefully by next Thursday, I will get the projected 2016 disabled list completed. Additionally, I will begin the process of putting together the 2016 disabled list information.
• Giancarlo Stanton is done for the season. Even though I didn’t say he would likely miss the whole season back in late June, the estimates were way low.
• Freddie Freeman has been dealing with a wrist injury since going on the DL to help heal it.
Freeman didn’t start on Wednesday against the Mets due to his bothersome right wrist, although he pinch-hit in the seventh inning and finished 2-for-2 with a homer and five RBIs. He then vowed on Friday that he’ll play through the injury, and started the past two games in Miami heading into Sunday.
However, he said the wrist felt worse than usual during pregame — eventually causing him to make a bunt attempt prior to lining out in his second at-bat.
“I still went out there and tried,” Freeman said. “It was a tell-tale sign when I tried to bunt, though. …I don’t know if it was because of the quick turnaround and it didn’t heal enough like it does with a night game.”
Said manager Fredi Gonzalez, “He’s tried to play through it, but I think today was just a little bit too much. I didn’t want to continue to run him out there.”
Before going on the DL in June for the injury he was hitting .299/.367/.520 and since the injury he is at .248/.380/.408. Just remember when the 2016 projections come out, they don’t know Freeman played through a wrist injury and will be on the low side.
Josh Hamilton is playing in the Rangers outfield.
“I’m surprisingly good,” Hamilton said. “I knew I would be swollen and I knew I would be stiff. The big tell-tale was this morning, and the swelling was down and the moving parts were better. It responded really well, a lot better than I thought, especially playing nine innings.”
Saturday was the first time Hamilton played left field since Aug. 15, and he went 1-for-4 with a single and three strikeouts. The original plan was for Hamilton to play five to six innings and get three at-bats, but he felt good enough to play the full game.
“I felt like I had good at-bats,” Hamilton said. “I felt comfortable at the plate. I didn’t feel overwhelmed or out of place. Three strikeouts but I felt OK. If I wasn’t seeing the ball or my timing was off, it would be a different story. But I didn’t feel out of whack.”
…
“I thought it went well,” Banister said. “For him to complete the game and get the full complement of at-bats, and still feel good and no real issues, was good. The more at-bats he gets, the more locked in he’ll be.”
It looks like the Rangers will be deciding Hamilton’s playing time day-by-day so he may only be useful in leagues with daily lineups.
• Carlos Martinez will miss the rest of the season with a strained shoulder.
A season that right-hander Carlos Martinez opened with a promise to his late best friend ended abruptly on Saturday after an MRI revealed a Grade 2 strain in his throwing shoulder. The diagnosis came a day after he exited his start after just seven pitches, and it will preclude him from pitching in the postseason.
“If this happened, say, Aug. 1, he probably would pitch again,” said general manager John Mozeliak as he held yet another media gathering to address an injury. “But unfortunately, where we are on the calendar, it’s just not going to work out.”
The Cardinals are confident that the issue can be treated with rest, which means Martinez can avoid surgery, and he is expected to be fully healthy by the start of Spring Training.
Players who are now done for the year.
• Huston Street (Groin)
Non-player notes
Velocity Readings
• Jake McGee’s average fastball velocity is on the low side for this season which puts it 2 mph lower than 2014’s value.
Players on the DL in 2015
The Red players have had updates since the last report. Click on the “Date” for a link to go to the latest article on the player.
Players who should be on the DL
• It as been a slow few days for any important injury news. Most of my work was concentrated on the unofficial disabled list.
• Yadier Molina got some good news after injuring his thumb earlier in the week. He may be back before the season’s end.
Molina said his thumb isn’t as swollen or tender now as it had been a day earlier, and he’ll continue to ice it while refraining from all baseball activities. He’ll be reevaluated by early next week to determine what the next step may be. Asked if he thought he’d be back behind the plate before the end of the regular season, Molina said: “I think so. I hope so.”
“Obviously, you follow what the trainers say,” he added. “You want to follow their lead. But you have to be patient. You can’t rush things. Right now, I’m in that period. I want to take my time until it feels good.”
• Sorry about not getting Thursday’s MASH report out, so today’s post covers the past seven days.
• Jung-ho Kang will miss the rest of this season and probably part of next with a fractured tibia and torn meniscus.
Kang’s native Korea did not take the news well, either. The fans are reportedly irate over the Chris Coghlan slide that took Kang out at second, and out of action until possibly late-May of next season.
This injury sucks in so many ways.
• Troy Tulowitzki is expected to miss two to three weeks with a cracked shoulder.
Toronto won’t definitively know whether Tulowitzki can make it back for at least another week. His progress will be closely monitored, and not only does the bone have to heal, but some internal bleeding has to subside and the muscles need to recover.
“I think there is a chance,” Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos said Sunday morning. “Just talking to the doctors, they do think it is a little early to try to set a timetable on it.
“We’ll know more in the next few days, but if they had to guess, and it really is only a guess at this point, could be two to three weeks and then he could be back for October. Hopefully we’re playing at that time. That’s really all we have, but we’ll know more as the next few days come along.”
To me, it sounds like they have no clue when he will be back. I went and looked through my injury databases and only found one player who had a fracture in his shoulder. Carlos Gomez missed 37 games in 2011 because of a fractured shoulder.
Flags fly forever, or so they say. And yet…not really. I mean, they kind of do, but how many Giants fans out there are like, “Eh, we had our run, good on the Dodgers!” Right.
So in fantasy, particularly keeper or dynasty leagues, you have to make a tough call when that title is in reach – how do you maximize your chances at that eternal flag without ensuring a collapse the next year? I am struggling with a situation right now that puts that balance to the test.
• Ryan Zimmerman will miss significant time with an oblique injury.
Nationals first baseman Ryan Zimmerman remains out of the lineup because of a left oblique injury. Although he is listed as day to day, two sources expected Zimmerman to miss a significant amount of time because of the injury.
• Manuel Banuelos will be shut down for the rest of the season with elbow discomfort.
Banuelos exited Sunday’s disappointing outing against the Nationals with some elbow discomfort. The Braves held out hope that the pain would subside as this week progressed. But before Wednesday’s series finale against the Phillies, Atlanta manager Fredi Gonzalez revealed the rookie left-hander would be re-evaluated by Dr. James Andrews next week.
“We don’t think there is anything significant there, he’s just in pain right now,” Braves assistant general manager John Coppolella said. “He wasn’t feeling great. We had hoped he might come in and feel really good today. That didn’t happen.”
• I better give my two cents on the Matt Harvey situation. In my opinion, there should not have been any big blow up on his innings limit this past weekend. Both sides should have gotten together before the season and discussed how Harvey should be handled in case the Mets make the post season. The general outline of this agreement should have then been made public so everyone has an idea of what is going on. This discussion should not be happening now in early September, but when the season started. The Mets, Harvey, and Boras created this mess and now they need to figure it out. Anyone who wants to point fingers needs to do so at all parties.
• September 1st is such a mess with all the transactions. A bunch of semi-hurt players came off the DL. Also, several minor league DL players moved to the MLB 60-day DL to increase roster spots. With no real reason to put players on the DL with the expanded rosters, I will try to keep track of those players in another table after the official DL players. I hope I got everything, but let me know if I missed anything.
• Mark Teixeira’s bone bruise is going to keep him out at least two weeks. Historically, hitters take a little longer to return, but the time frame is close.
We’ve reached the Naked Lunch point of the Fantasy Baseball season—that moment when everyone sees what’s on the end of every fork. That of course doesn’t mean that we all know where we’re going to finish in our leagues. But it does mean that we know pretty much whom we’re going to finish with or be finished by. Sure, there will be unforeseen September call-ups galore, and also some waiver deals that send role players to contenders. But except for the prime prospects—Hector Olivera isn’t in the majors to sit on the bench, and Javier Baez probably isn’t either—no one knows which of the newly-summoned hitters might play regularly, or which pitchers might get plugged into a starting rotation and have some chance of success there.
Anyway, we certainly don’t. And this created a quandary for us, in our capacity of would-be timely bloggers. Thirty blog installments in, we’ve already told you about the guys we like and don’t like who’ve been around during the season. We don’t know any more than you do about who among the newbies is going to (a) play and (b) be good. And if you’re reading this, need stolen bases and nothing else, and thus can afford to have an otherwise-uninhabited spot in your starting lineup, you’ve probably already acquired the amazing Quintin Berry and his spotless SB record; you don’t need our input.
So we had nothing to blog about, until we heard that one of our heroes had died. That would be the writer/neurologist Oliver Sacks, the Mickey Mantle of his hybrid profession. Casey Stengel, marveling at Mantle, said that he “has more speed than any slugger and more slug than any speedster.” Similarly, Sacks wrote better than any doctor—we mean English prose, so don’t tell us about Chekhov or William Carlos Williams—and doctored better than any writer. His specialty was describing the strange things a brain can do when its owner isn’t looking or hasn’t been nice to it. And this, needless to say, made us think of Justin Morneau. Read the rest of this entry »