• On Monday, Tom brought up looking at the rest of season effects on Ryan Zimmerman’s thumb injury. Tom was looking for the effects for different types of thumb injuries. Well, I can’t get that detailed. The injury database I have only goes goes down to the thumb level, not location on thumb. Even looking just at thumbs, only 28 documented players went on the DL since 2002 for thumb issues. I like to have around 50 players for a good sample, but cutting 28 in half (or more) would just not yield a decent sample size. So here is the information.

Average Age: 29.7
Median age: 29
Average DL Days: 35.2
Median DL Days: 30

Decline rate for hitters with a thumb injury
Stat: Year-1 to Year, Year to Year+1, Year-1 to Year+1
AVG: -0.010, -0.002, -0.015
OBP: -0.012, -0.004, -0.021
SLG: -0.015, -0.028, -0.044

Decline rate for hitters from age 28 to 30 season
Stat: Year-1 to Year, Year to Year+1, Year-1 to Year+1
AVG: -0.002, -0.003, -0.005
OBP: 0.000, -0.001, -0.001
SLG: -0.004, -0.006, -0.010

This season, he should see a 10 point drop in his expected AVG which will felt in his OBP and SLG. Next year, the there should be no more than the expected decline in AVG or OBP, but his SLG should drop more than expected by 20 points.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Velocity changes from 2013 to April 2014. Enjoy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s edition is really short. I was working on a detailed analysis to see how Kershaw may produced with a fastball around the 89 to 91 mph range. Basically I ran out of time. So I will finish up the analysis later tonight and write it up and we will run it tomorrow.  But the short answer is …. he looks like he will be fine.

• Clayton Kershaw’s average velocity in his last minor league start was around 90 mph

89-91, touched 92 a few times. RT @gq2scoops: Anybody know how Kershaw’s velocity was tonight?

— Dustin Nosler (@DustinNosler) May 1, 2014

With him expected to start Monday, how will the loss of velocity effect him? Wait until tomorrow for the details, but he should be fine.

Read the rest of this entry »

Some things are great by themselves, but together they are even better. Peanut butter and chocolate: Reese Cups. Chips and cheese: nachos. Vodka and tomato juice: Bloody Mary. Man and spouse: chicka-chicka-bow-bow. Well, today I will take two of favorite baseball topics, aging curves and injuries for hitters, and combine them in an aging curve based on injury history.

A few years ago, I found one issue with projections, they did not know if a player played through an injury during the season. If a batter played through an injury, the next season the player would, on average, exceed his projection. The player was most likely to see an improvement in the power department.

Read the rest of this entry »

• One item to follow for DL return dates is what the team says for timetable. Mark Trumbo predicted he will be out only six weeks, but the team expects the delay to be longer:

D-backs manager Kirk Gibson corroborated the prognosis of left fielder Mark Trumbo, specifying that the length of his absence due to a stress fracture in his left foot might be even longer than the six weeks Trumbo predicted.

“The summary I got on it confirmed six to eight weeks probably,” Gibson said. “He’s got a boot on there with something on it called a bone enhancer that sends some stimulation down there. I know that he had [an injury] previously on the other foot and that was lengthy. We don’t expect that to be that lengthy.”

Read the rest of this entry »

• Chris Sale finally went on the disabled list after years of people saying he would be an injury risk. He is expected to only miss the minimum 15 days. Looking at his last game data, he had no injury indications. Since he is on the White Sox and they have a great history of minimizing injuries, I see the trip a small inconvenience for better health as the season goes on.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Updated and complete HURT and PAIN rankings.

• Mike Reinold looked at five reasons Tommy John surgeries are on the rise:

1. Injuries Are Higher in the First Month of Season
2. Preparation for the Season
3. Velocities are Increasing
4. What Goes Around Comes Around (Youth Injuries)
5. Pushing Past Our Physiological Limits

Read the rest of this entry »

• All right, home work time. Here is a must read article by Tom Verducci from SI on Tommy John surgeries. A key point for fantasy baseball owners is this:

But in a sport in which 24.2 percent of players on Opening Day rosters grew up in Latin America, only one of the 20 Tommy John patients came from there (Detroit reliever Bruce Rondon, of Venezuela).

“Latin American pitchers are allowed to grow into their velocity,” said one international scouting director. “It’s a common story to sign a guy throwing 84, 85 [mph] who eventually winds up throwing in the 90s. Michael Pineda is one. You’re looking for someone with a good, athletic body who can throw the ball around the plate and has a feel for spinning the ball. The velocity comes in time, with training and better nutrition and physical growth. Here? The statistics don’t lie. We need to look elsewhere around the world to learn a better way. It’s time.”

Young American kids throwing hard for long time may be a major factor in tearing their UCL.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Alex Cobb will be out four to six weeks with a strained quad muscle.

Cobb admitted that he “felt something grab” on his final pitch Saturday to Reds leadoff man Billy Hamilton. But he thought it was just a cramp or a slight pull and went on to throw 82 more pitches over seven impressive innings, feeling more pain between pitches than during, before finally taking himself out of the game. He thought he might miss at most one start.

It does seem a little long, but he may have made the problem worse by throwing 82 more pitches after he felt the “grab”.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Matt Moore has a torn UCL and in the best case scenario, he will return late in the 2014 season. More likely he will under go Tommy John surgery. I had an idea the injury was pretty bad right after it happened.

Matt Moore’s in game2game velo was fine, but a 38% Zone% and late game velo plunge http://t.co/3PfqkWQjpr have me concerned about the injury

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) April 8, 2014

Late game velocity plunges are usually not healthy for a pitcher. We will have more information on Moore in the up coming days, but for now, don’t expect any useful production from him in 2014.

Read the rest of this entry »