• Christian Yelich is on the DL with a knee contusion (official report). Here is the report from the team’s website.

Yelich bruised his right knee last Sunday at Atlanta. He’s been dealing with swelling in the knee. If the knee doesn’t respond in another couple of days, Yelich likely will return to Miami and get an MRI.

So we have possible swelling, bruising, and/or contusion of the knee. With the wide variance in possibilities, here are the possible return times for players with any of the three injuries to the knee.

The return times are all over the place, but an estimate of three weeks is reasonable with the chance it could last until this season’s end.

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• It may be time to pick up Hector Olivera if you want him as rehabs his hamstring injury in the minors. The Braves are saying he is two weeks off from debuting in the majors so I think it is now or never to pick the player up.

Olivera, who hasn’t played since injuring his hamstring in Triple-A in June while still a member of the Dodgers’ organization, will play two or three days in the GCL according to Hart, and he’ll be moved up through the system from there.

“Get his legs under him a little bit, and we’re satisfied that the hamstring is not an issue — with the idea that we’ll bring him to Atlanta at some point.”

Hart feels that Olivera could make his Major League debut in two weeks, barring any setbacks.

• As expected, Jose Fernandez went on the DL with a strained bicep. I expect him to do a full recovery, pitch a game or two, and then be shut down.

• Koji Uehara is on the DL and will miss the rest of the season with a fractured wrist. Follow the Bullpen Report to find out who may end up with the Save chances in Boston.

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• Jose Fernandez will likely go on the DL later today with a strained bicep. Less than 10 previous pitchers (2002 to 2014) officially going on the DL with a strained bicep and their median and average return times was 25 days.

• Denard Span may be getting to the droppable in redraft leagues with his personal return time being the playoffs.

Span was able to run sprints and play catch without problem Saturday. He may go to the team’s complex in Viera, Fla., next week to continue baseball activities.

There are days when Span doesn’t know if he is going to play in the second half of the season. But when he has a day like Saturday, he believes he can make it back for the postseason push. There is no timetable on when Span will return to action.

Even if he does returns this season for a bit, do we know if he will be productive? I doubt it.

• Howie Kendrick will likely go on the DL today with a pulled hamstring.

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• I have been working on ways to better determine DL return times. Well, I have a BETA graphic I would like to use from now on. Let me know what you like or don’t like about. I have included another one to show the time Freddie Freeman is likely to miss.

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• Steven Souza will supposedly miss four-to-six weeks with a broken wrist.

“Certainly wasn’t [the best news on Saturday],” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “We got a phone call [after Souza’s hand was X-rayed] that it is a fractured hand. Four to six weeks. Obviously not an ideal thing for us or him, because his at-bats are crucial right now. But he’s going to go back to Tampa, probably get re-evaluated there in two or three weeks and we’ll go from there.”

With wrist injuries, the average return to MLB time is over two months. I had this same argument when Giancarlo Stanton hurt his wrist (median 56 days)

Stanton estimates low IMO @soumyajeetghosh Avg. historic return time for a broken wrist is 77 days. If fractures included, down to 65 days

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) July 16, 2015

Now news comes out that Stanton will take longer to return than originally estimated.

The recovery for the broken hamate bone in Giancarlo Stanton’s left hand is taking longer than initially expected, the Marlins’ All-Star right fielder admitted prior to Saturday night’s contest against the Padres.

“Definitely slower,” Stanton said of his progress from June 28 surgery.
….
He added that while he has been hitting off a tee recently, he still feels pain and is swinging “as strong as it allows.”

“Getting decent — the ball’s coming off OK,” Stanton said. “It’s just the pain level of it.”

If I can come up with a reasonable return estimate, I am not sure why teams can’t.

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• Not much injury-related news to write about since most information coming out over the past week or so has been associated with trades.

• Mookie Betts is on the 7-day concussion DL after falling over a wall to make a catch. There will be fairly constant updates on him since the Red Sox aren’t in the playoff picture and the Boston media needs to cover something.

• Manuel Banuelos is on the DL from pain caused by a bone spur.

The Braves gained some concern as Banuelos’ velocity steadily dropped as he made the first five appearances of his Major League career this month. His fastball averaged 90.3 mph during his July 2 Major League debut. But that number dropped with each subsequent appearance and stood at 87.8 mph during last Friday’s start against the Cardinals.

It seems like the Braves and Banuelos are waiting for his elbow to calm down before giving a full evaluation.

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• Just about no one went on the DL this past weekend, so a short MASH report today.

• During his Hall of Fame speech, John Smoltz said the following about young pitchers and Tommy John surgeries.

“Before I hand it over to next inductee, I’d be remiss if I did not talk about Tommy John. I’ve been given an opportunity as one of the only players, the only one right now, to be inducted into the Hall of Fame with Tommy John Surgery. It’s an epidemic. It’s something that is affecting our game. It’s something that I thought would cost me my career, but thanks to Dr. James Andrews and all those before him, performing the surgery with such precision has caused it to be almost a false-read, like a band-aid you put on your arm.

I want to encourage the families and parents that are out there that this is not normal to have a surgery at 14 and 15 years old. That you have time, that baseball is not a year-round sport. That you have an opportunity to be athletic and play other sports. Don’t let the institutions that are out there running before you guaranteeing scholarship dollars and signing bonuses that this is the way….

I want to encourage you, if nothing else, know that your children’s passion and de-sire to play baseball is something that they can do without a competitive pitch. Every throw a kid makes today is a competitive pitch. They don’t go outside, they don’t have fun, they don’t throw enough — but they’re competing and maxing out too hard, too early, and that’s why we’re having these problems. Please, take care of those great future arms.”

I agree 100%

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• Here is a starting point for a dataset I have wanted to put together for a while, the return times for various injuries. I started with just a few requests today, but if you want more, please feel free request more in the comments.

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• Over the weekend,s reports have really been slowly coming in on the status of several players so make sure to check out the spreadsheet at the end.

• Chad Bettis is on the DL with an inflamed elbow. It seems like more information will be available soon on the injury.

• Chase Anderson was placed on the DL because he has been pitching horribly with an inflamed tricep. This DL trip totally looks to be a phantom DL trip.

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• No real injury news has been released over the All-Star break so far. I did though add a few status updates to the spreadsheet. Today, I am going to focus on the some updated PAIN and HURT reports.

HURT (Hitter’s Under-performance from Recent Trauma) Rankings (introduction/explanation) :

Any player with a HURT value over 100 (red) has the traits of a batter playing through an injury.

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