Injury news is really beginning to come to a halt. I moved the MASH Report to just once a week and soon it may go to every other week. To keep it going  more regularly, I could look at look at specific injury types and their recovery rates. I would like to run analysis on different injuries like I did with groins today. If there are any specific injury cases you want compared, please let me know in the comments. Next week, I will probably look at pitchers who recently had Tommy John surgery, but I could use other injury types as the off-season goes on.

• The big injury news of the week was Miguel Cabrera having groin surgery which altered his game at the season’s end. He basically could not lift his front leg (source):

“The doctor said he didn’t understand how I could have played with so much pain,” Cabrera told Rojas. “It hurt so much that I almost couldn’t lift my right leg, and that was the reason I couldn’t reach the outside fastballs at the end of the season.”

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Last night, Jacoby Ellsbury had three plate appearances in his return back from a fractured foot. He had a hit and a walk after missing just 20 days. I decided to go back and look at players who fractured their foot and how they performed after returning.

With a sample size of one game under his belt, Ellsbury looks great and he feels pretty good (source)

“Yeah it was a nice game back,” Ellsbury said. “I’m definitely excited about it. I felt pretty good out there.”

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Ryan Vogelsong and Roy Halladay have returned to the big leagues. Both have had decent results so far, and ones that can’t completely be explained away by matchups. On the other hand, the underlying realities of their arsenals right now combine to make a powerful argument against trusting either veteran with a crucial late-season start for your fantasy team.

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It looks like Roy Halladay is done — at least for a while, as he is expected to hit the disabled list with a shoulder problem — but the real question is if he is Done. He’s about to turn 36 and he’s aching in the worst body part for a pitcher. Just how bad is this news?

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This week I will examine a few items, a couple pitchers making rehab starts, a couple pitchers returning from the disabled list, a couple pitchers with large velocity drops and a few hitters dealing with recent back injuries.

• Francisco Liriano and John Danks are making rehab starts. John Danks is throwing his fastball at 87 to 90 mph. These values are at or below his 2012 average value of 90.1 mph.

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When Jose Reyes slid awkwardly into second base in Kansas City on Friday night and twisted his ankle badly enough that it will keep him out until July, it wasn’t just Toronto Blue Jays fans who feared that a season already off to a poor start was quickly about to get worse. Fantasy players who had spent a high draft pick or a sizable amount of auction dollars on Reyes were suddenly left with a giant hole to fill, and few options at a shallow position to fill it. Using a random 12-team ESPN league I’m in as an example, the best available shortstops on the waiver wire today are Everth Cabrera, Pete Kozma, and Marwin Gonzalez. That’s a pretty big step down from Reyes no matter how you slice it.

However, this isn’t all bad news from a fantasy perspective. Rather than simply slide the next man in to replace Reyes, as the Yankees have done with Eduardo Nunez while Derek Jeter is out, the Blue Jays are planning to engage in a game of musical chairs that will shuffle a few pieces of their lineup into greater fantasy relevance. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, I am going to focus on some pitch speed data. While starters have pitched only once, pitch speeds stabilize quickly and the small amount of data is useful. It takes only a couple of pitches to get an idea of a pitcher’s speed.

While a loss in velocity can be a sign of injury, it can also mean a pitcher is in a transition period. All pitcher’s will lose speed over time at the rate of 0.25 mph per year. Pitchers are going to to have to adjust to throwing slower and slower if they want to stay in the league. It is a fact of life.

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The glut of Spring Training injuries is, by definition, behind us, which means in-season injuries are the order of the day. Opening Night came and went without anything notable happening, as did the first slate of games on Monday, but by dinner time 2013’s first serious injury had occurred.

The exact extent of Ryan Ludwick’s dislocated shoulder is still unknown and will be until the results of an MRI are read, which won’t happen until the swelling goes down. Whether Ludwick will miss 2-3 weeks the way Jason Michaels did in 2011 or 3-4 months the way Jacoby Ellsbury did last season depends largely on how much damage was done to the labrum and surrounding connective tissue when the ball moved away from the socket as well as whether surgery is required to fix it. It is too early to say for certain, but if I had to guess, I wouldn’t expect Ludwick back this month. Given Ludwick’s position, the likelihood of an extended absence, and the position of the team’s top prospect – one Billy Hamilton – everyone should make a major free agent bid for Hamilton, right? Read the rest of this entry »

I have been working my way through Dr. James Andrew’s book, Any Given Monday. Here are his top seven myths surrounding sports medicine.

#1: Tommy John surgery will improve pitching performance.

A few quotes on this subject

I cannot be clearer about this: There is nothing that sports medicine can do for a throwing arm that is better than how the good Lord created it. There is no surgery that enhances performance. It simply doesn’t exist. If the body entered this world whole and healthy, you can never repair something in the body to make it better than its original condition. It’s just not possible. Cutting something always makes it weaker. I cannot stress this enough: A healthy pitching arm will always be more stable and more capable than one that has been operated on.

On pitchers come back throwing better

Yes it is true that many pitchers do see an upswing in their pitching speeds after undergoing the surgery….Pitching improves because of the type of reconditioning and physical therapy that the athlete undergoes as he heals from the procedure.

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I was going to put out a little more information from Dr. James Andrew’s book, Any Given Sunday, but instead I found a nice interview with him. He mentions four main points young pitchers should follow:

Here is his response when asked, “What advice would you give pitchers, in general?”

1. Use proper mechanics. The No. 1 problem in any specific sport is improper mechanics.
2. Don’t play year-round.
3. Avoid the radar gun at a young age. Don’t try to overthrow. A lot of kids are 13 years old and checking the radar gun. That’s going to get you in trouble. The radar gun makes you want to throw harder than you are capable of throwing.
4. Be very careful with showcases. I call them “show-off” cases because kids go there Saturday after throwing the football on Friday. They jump on a mound and overthrow because scouts are there. The next thing you know, the shoulder or elbow gets injured.

Recent Injury Data

 • Phil Hughes may start the season on the DL because of a bulging disk in his back.

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