• Sonny Gray has me perplexed a bit. First, his velocity is down compared to last season.

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A few weeks back, I talked a bit about holding or targeting players with season long injuries in ottoneu leagues. The idea in that piece was to treat injured players like Prospects – you can’t be sure when they will be back, nor can you be confident in how they will perform.

When players are underpriced (say you have a $1 Patrick Corbin), you might as well hold them (or target them in trades). But when prices rise to more typical levels (say a $10 Corbin), there may be a different path forward, particularly for pitchers returning from Tommy John surgery.

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• It is just too early for any PAIN, HURT or SLOW reports, but I do have some decent early season information on fastball velocities. Every morning I will try to Tweet out pitchers who are seeing a major increase or decrease in velocity. You can follow me at @jeffwzimmerman or to see the most recent information, go to https://twitter.com/jeffwzimmerman.

• One pitcher who I am keeping a close eye on is Ubaldo Jimenez. His velocity was down 2 mph.

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Note: With the DL sheets at the end of the article, teams are still adding players to the DL (and making last minute roster moves). MLB.com is trying to keep up, but the list of transactions is behind. I will keep the list of possible DL players for this article and then finally remove them later this week.

• Clayton Kershaw goes on the disabled list for the first time in his career with a sore back.

…Kershaw was scratched from starting Sunday night’s domestic opener because of an inflamed teres major muscle, which stabilizes the upper arm near the upper back. Now, he also will miss his projected start for the home opener against the Giants on Friday.
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And they believe placing him on the DL is the smart thing to do. Especially with four off-days within this portion of the schedule’s first 13 days, and no fifth starter needed until April 19.
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Kershaw would be eligible to come off of the disabled list early the following week — the move is backdated to March 23 — but the Dodgers are making no promises about when he will pitch again. Mainly, because there is little urgency in the season’s first few weeks given the spate of off-days, and because they want to remain ultra-conservative and make sure Kershaw is right when he returns.

It seems like the injury just needs time. It seems like April 19th may be the day to expect him back.

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Bruce Rondon is just the latest hard throwing pitcher to need Tommy John surgery (TJS). Besides Rondon, it seems like just about every pitcher who throws over 100 mph ends up needing repairs on their ulnar collateral ligament. Neftali Feliz. Brian Wilson. Stephen Strasburg. Matt Harvey. I decided to look at the injury rates of pitchers who can throw the magical 100 mph.

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• Four articles looking at the seemingly increase in pitcher injuries have recently been published.

• Clayton Kershaw will miss the Dodgers second opening day with an inflamed neck/back/shoulder.

 Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw was scratched from Sunday night’s start because of an inflamed teres major muscle, which stabilizes the upper arm near the upper back.

Kershaw underwent an MRI on Wednesday that showed the inflammation. A Dodgers news release indicated that Kershaw complained of discomfort playing catch at Tuesday’s workout. He wouldn’t say if he felt the discomfort while throwing 102 pitches in the season-opening win in Australia.
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Kershaw said he “didn’t think” the compressed Spring Training, necessitated by the trip to Australia, “had anything to do with” his injury, nor did the long flight.

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He said he feels the discomfort when he brings his arm forward “accelerating.”

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• Jurickson Profar will miss 10 to 12 weeks with a shoulder tear with some baseball activities beginning in four to six weeks. The Rangers middle infield situation is a mess with Elvis Andrus (sore forearm) also hurt. The Rangers should be making some announcements today as they figure out how they will fill the 2B gap for at least half the season.

• Manny Machado will start the season on the DL and will be ready “… sometime in April” according to Buck Showalter.

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Preseason injuries have hit the Texas Rangers pretty hard, and Jurickson Profar is the latest member of the team to suffer one.

Jurickson Profar will miss 10 to 12 weeks with a torn muscle in his shoulder. #Rangers

— Jeff Wilson (@JeffWilson_FWST) March 23, 2014

First things first. If you’ve already drafted, it will be time to hit the waiver wire once the season starts and Profar is eligible to be moved to your DL slot. If Profar was filling your second base slot, here is a list of names from which you should look to replace him in order of my preference (I realize some of these guys will not be available depending on the depth of your league): Anthony Rendon, Kelly Johnson,  Marco Scutaro, Marcus Semien. And if you had Profar in your middle infield slot, here is a list of potential replacements that includes shortstops: Brad Miller, Rendon, Alcides Escobar, Johnson, Scutaro, Zack Cozart, Erick Aybar, Semien. The list of candidates to replace Profar in Texas is fairly long and uninspiring at this point, but in the event that they go with prospect Rougned Odor (unlikely), those of you in keeper leagues might consider a stash.

It’s no surprise that the list of acceptable replacements is thin, but this is also a good time to talk about the state of second base as we head into the last week of fantasy drafts. It would seem that there are four clear tiers of second basemen. Below is a chart showing the four tiers along with each player’s ADP on ESPN.com. Read the rest of this entry »

A few years ago I broke down the disabled list (DL) chances for starting pitchers (39%). I have finally gotten around to making an initial stab at relief pitcher DL values.

The initial problem I have with relief pitchers is defining them. I didn’t want to be looking at pitchers who split their time between a relief and starting role. I decided the pitchers needed to have at least 95% of their appearances as a reliever. Also, I didn’t know what to set the minimum innings limit to. Here is a chart of the DL% depending on the number of innings pitched the previous season. Matched season data from 2002-2003 to 2012-2013 was used.
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• A cascade of pitcher injuries has happened the past few days. Here are a couple of  links looking what can be done to help prevent injuries.

• On the main FanGraphs site, Mike Pertriello looked at how how many of these pitchers were trying to throw through in game pain.
• Peter Gammons mentions some crack pots work on using PITCHf/x data to look at detecting possible pitcher injuries.

While these  injuries seemed to happen all at once, the pitchers did have a chance to end up injured.

Name: DL%, extra injury indicator
Patrick Corbin: 30%
Parker: 30%, low Zone%
Medlen: 40%
Beachy: Never re-established himself after TJS. About 30% pitchers never do.

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