• Reader Cason Jolette asked about Jason Kipnis possibly still being hurt. He basically lost the entire month of May because of a strained oblique. Since coming back off the DL, his injury indication stats show he may still be injured.

Stat: Pre-injury, Post-injury
ISO: .160, .037
HR&FB Dist: 272ft, 257ft
K% (contact issues): 14%, 18%

It would be nice to see him hit more than two extra base hits over the time frame. For owners looking to see if he gets back, there two places I would look. Go to Baseballheatmaps.com’s individual player batted ball distance page, set it to the past couple weeks and see if his distance is improving.  Also, check out his ISO graph here at FG and look to see if it starts to final trend up (not stay constant).

Read the rest of this entry »

•Bronson Arroyo has been hurt for a while now.

Arroyo, 7-4 with a 4.08 ERA, said the right elbow has bothered him his past six starts but has gotten progressively worse.

“I can’t keep going out there and putting different inflammatory (medicines) in my body and beating myself down because I can just see the arm is going south,” he said. “If it would have stayed the same as it was five to six starts ago I could deal with the pain, but it continues to get more swollen. I’m waking up every day not being able to touch a ball for two to three days.”

I have noticed the problem for a while, especially with him near the top of the PAIN ranking (146 value the last time I ran it).

Bronson Arroyo says his elbow doesn’t hurt while his manager says it does. I am guessing it does. His fastball velocity is down 1.4 mph from 2013 and his Zone% is down over 10% points (56.1% to 45.6%). His current PAIN value, comparing 2013 to 2014, is at 154 (more than 100 means he has traits of an injured pitcher). I believe he is hurt and is just trying to throw through it which I don’t think will turn out well.

His velocity is down 2 mph and has been trending even lower. He hasn’t been able to throw strikes (Zone% down from 56% to 48%).

Read the rest of this entry »

The data is a little thin today. My RSS reader is down/under attack so I had to go old school and check as many websites as I could manually.

• Carlos Gonzalez had a “fatty mass with tentacles” or a “Cheeto” or a “shrimp” removed from his hand. Which ever  it was, it is probably good it is no longer in his hand.

• After scoring a 158 the last time I ran my PAIN report, Francisco Liriano now heads to the DL with an oblique stain. These core injuries for pitchers usually take about two months to heal.

• The Rangers have just been snake bitten with injuries. Tanner Scheppers is back on the DL and Jim Adduci re-broke his finger on a minor league rehab assignment. Grantland’s Jonah Keri looked in detail at the Rangers struggles to stay healthy.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Alex Avila sustained a mild concussion a few days ago.

Trainer Kevin Rand joined Ausmus in checking on Avila after Ortiz got him with his massive backswing, something he’s prone to doing. Rand asked the catcher a few questions to test for a concussion.

“He didn’t get one right,” Ausmus said. “When I had a concussion, I remember being asked particulars about the game and remembering I had to look at the scoreboard to figure out what the count was, and look in the dugout to figure out who we were playing.”

It seems and makes sense that catchers will be more concussion prone with foul balls and balls flying around their heads. So far this season, six players have gone on the DL for concussions and three have been catchers (Travis d’Arnaud, Carlos Santana, Jarrod Saltalamacchia) and the other three are outfielders (Denard Span, Aaron Hicks, Sam Fuld). I went back and looked at how many players went on the DL for concussions since the 7-day concussion DL was implemented in 2011. I didn’t just limit the search for just 7-day DL stints since a few players went immediately on the 15-day DL.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Jedd Gyorko’s struggles at the plate (.162/.213/.270) could be related to plantar fasciitis in his left foot. He says his foot only started bothering him on May 30th, which I don’t buy one bit.

Read the rest of this entry »

• MUST READ: The American Sports Medicine Institute released a position statement on Tommy John injuries. Read the whole thing. Orders.

• Angels pitching coach Mike Butcher has two theories on the increase in Tommy John surgeries. The first:

He’s one of many who believes it’s bad for kids to play only baseball year-round, which often results in them putting too much stress on arms that have not yet matured.

The second one theory I have not heard before:

And just as importantly, Butcher says too many professional pitchers are throwing from the opposite side of the rubber (meaning, a right-hander throwing from the first-base side and a left-hander throwing from the third-base side).

Butcher has found that more than 30 of the pitchers who have undergone Tommy John surgery this year fit that description.

“Some guys do it because they feel like they’ll be in the strike zone more, they’ll have better command that way — there’s all sorts of different philosophies about it,” Butcher said. “But for me, if you’re on the opposite side of your throwing arm on the rubber, you are constantly pronating [Definition] your arm at a higher rate than if you are on the other side. There’s no leverage behind the baseball.

Looks like another stat to track and it will nice little research project for me to do later on this year.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just one MASH report this week as the holiday and other commitments took up my time. Next week, I will be back on a regular schedule of a Monday and Thursday post.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Just a bit more analysis on Jose Fernandez. He admits the pain started during the game and pitched through the pain.

Fernandez said he felt discomfort in his elbow during his last outing on May 9, a loss to the Padres in San Diego when he was roughed up for six runs in five-plus innings. He discounted speculation that the injury occurred because he might have altered his delivery after being hit in the knee by a line drive against the Dodgers on May 4.

Even after feeling discomfort during his next start, Fernandez said he didn’t think it was anything serious.

“It never popped, it was just a little pinch,” Fernandez said. “I don’t think I altered my delivery. Everything was the same because I was trying to not let anybody see that I was in a little pain. I was trying to pitch with it without anybody knowing, not even [catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia]. I didn’t think it was anything to worry about.”

A theory I have been pondering is “Pitchers throwing at the extreme limitations of their body have to be more cognizant of possible injuries/changes”. One small change in motion could just destroy them. For pitchers who aren’t throwing as hard, a little bump isn’t as big a deal. Take a car getting a flat tire. If a Civic is driving 30 mph and hits small unexpected bump, not much damage could happen. Now if a sports car hits the same bump doing 120 mph, th resulting crash will make the 10 o’clock news.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Mash Report is on the paper thin side today. I have been a bit busy. I was able to go through all the injury updates and add them into the DL spreadsheet. I plan to go into more detail on some players such as Cliff Lee, Andrew Cashner,  Carlos Gonzalez and others in an additional Mash Report tomorrow. I will also have up-to-date PAIN and HURT reports.

Read the rest of this entry »

• It is looking like Matt Wieters may not play again in 2014. Additionally the earliest he could be back is in July.

After Wieters fully rests from the injection, the Orioles expect to get a more definitive idea about what’s going on with the elbow. Showalter has said he would like to know by July 1 whether Wieters can return behind the plate this season.

For owners in shallow leagues and short benches, I could see him as droppable right now.

Read the rest of this entry »