• No velocity reports again today. Instead, I will go over the past two weeks of available Pitchf/x data and report them in my Quick Takes slot tomorrow afternoon.

• Early this offseason, I notice the Orioles have seen a huge drop in elbow and shoulder related injuries since 2009. Brittany Ghirolli at MLB.com just wrote a nice article on the subject. One key for the Orioles is more rest between starts.

The Orioles, who haven’t had a player on the 25-man roster undergo Tommy John ligament-replacement surgery since manager Buck Showalter took the helm in late 2010, aren’t on to anything new. But perhaps what sets them apart from other organizations is that they are unrelenting in keeping their guys out of harm’s way. The biggest complaint Showalter heard while serving as an ESPN analyst was about the way bullpen guys were managed. To that end, every pitch an O’s reliever throws — be it in warmups or in the game — is tracked by the team, their workouts and exercises adjusted by the trainers based off of that.

• I am a guest on today’s Effectively Wild podcast by Baseball-Prospectus doing an anti-Tommy John surgery draft. Good stuff all around except maybe Sam’s picks.

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• With everyone focusing on the increase in Tommy John operations, it is nice to see Rob Arthur look at how shoulder surgeries are on the decline (great graph).

• Well, a couple of players we expect to get hurt sometime during the season couldn’t even make it to Opening Day healthy. Carlos Gonzalez’s surgically repaired knee was feeling pain. He is supposed to be back today, but who knows how often his bum knee will keep flaring up.

• Jaime Garcia is another player which can be counted on for a DL stint or four. Right now his arm is feeling sore and fatigued. He is out of the Cardinals rotation until he starts to feel better.

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• Chris Sale expects to start on April 12th.

• Nick Franklin will at least miss a couple of weeks to start the season. It may not be until late May when he returns.

Nick Franklin (left-oblique strain) is “in that gray area,” according to Cash when asked if the infielder could be back by four to six weeks or six to eight

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• It is nice to see the American Journal of Sports Medicine was able to verify my concussion work with zero reference to my four-year-old study.

• Last week, I noticed Jon Lester (-1.5 mph) and Hyun Ryu (-2 mph) lost velocity compared to last season. Both are now dealing with arm issues.

Lester is dealing with a dead arm and it happens regularly with him.

“You can ask every pitcher; it’s an every-year thing for everybody. It’s nothing out of the ordinary.”

There is no pain or discomfort, according to Lester.

“It’s one of those things that you have to go through to understand,” he said. “It doesn’t feel like anything. It’s more total body deadness, and everybody puts a label on it as far as ‘dead arm.’ It’s nothing to be alarmed about. There’s no point in trying to grind through it right now. These games don’t mean anything. If it was April 15, it wouldn’t be an issue.”

Ryu is dealing with soreness in his throwing shoulder which will cause him to start the season on the DL.

Dodgers starting pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu was sent to Los Angeles on Sunday to have his injured left shoulder examined by Dr. Neal ElAttrache, and manager Don Mattingly conceded that the left-hander will start the season on the disabled list.

Ryu attempted to play catch Sunday, four days after receiving a cortisone injection for the type of shoulder stiffness that sidelined him twice last year, but the discomfort returned.

Mattingly said Ryu reported immediate improvement from the injection but was barely able to lob the ball during a brief session of catch.

Just a reminder that pitchers don’t intentually throw slower without a reason.

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• The Rays starting rotation is a mess right because of a trio of injuries. Alex Cobb has forearm tendinitis which will cause him to miss time to start the season. Drew Smyly will at least miss his first start with shoulder tendinitis. Alex Colome won’t be in the starting rotation to start the season after showing up to spring training late and then being in the hospital with pneumonia. The Rays rotation now looks to be Chris Archer, Jake Odorizzi, Nate Karns, Burch Smith and one of the following: Enny Romero, Matt Andriese, Everett Teaford, or Grayson Garvin.

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• Zack Wheeler has a torn UCL and will likely need Tommy John surgery.

Zack Wheeler has a torn UCL in his right elbow. Tommy John surgery is almost certainly inevitable. #Mets

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) March 16, 2015

I went back and looked at his injury indicators and nothing sticks out from last year. The only possible issues I spotted were that he was not an established regular starter and threw hard (95 mph fastball).

Also, let me clear up one item while the main stream media goes crazy with the huge “increase” in pitcher injuries. The current trend is only with elbow injuries. As I found this past fall, days lost to pitcher injuries are transferring from the shoulder to elbow.

Days lost to shoulder injuries reached almost 7,000 in 2008. In 2014, the total days lost was under 3,000. Much of this improvement can be attributed to better exercises for the muscles in the shoulder.

So with the number of shoulder injuries down, something had to give. The number of days lost to elbow injuries went from about 5,000 days in 2008 to over 8,000 in 2014. The days lost just seem to be transferring from the shoulder to the elbow.

People are not talking at all about the time lost to shoulder injuries being down over 50%.

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• Marcus Stroman will miss all of the 2015 season with a torn ACL. Sadly, there is just nothing to discuss about him until he returns next year. The Blue Jays talked about some of the options for his rotation spot.

Right-hander Aaron Sanchez immediately jumps to the forefront of that discussion as he’ll likely compete with right-hander Marco Estrada and left-hander Daniel Norris for the final two spots on the staff.

“Our plan for Sanchez was always the same,” general manager Alex Anthopoulos insisted Tuesday afternoon. “I think it certainly gives him a better opportunity to start but we still have Estrada being stretched out, still have Norris being stretched out, still have the remainder of camp.

• The earliest Chris Sale could be ready for the season is April 12th. It could take longer.

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The following is what happens when I go a full week without a report. The injuries are rolling in and I have quite a few updates on spring training velocities.

• I guessing most people have heard that Yu Darvish has a tear in his ulnar collateral ligament. Here is Jon Daniels going through Darvish’s options:

“We got the MRI results yesterday evening. Dr. Meister met with Yu at that time and we just all got together this morning and talked through the options, effectively, that there are three options for Yu at this point,” Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said. “One is to attempt to pitch through it, which is not a great option. Two, would be an effort for rest and rehab. I think the sentiment is that is effectively what we did in the fall and in the winter and up until two days ago, we had very good results with it. He looked very good but obviously that did not pan out as desired. The third option would be Tommy John surgery.”

I don’t think he will immediately pitch though the pain. Instead, he will rest for few months with rehab which is what Tananka did. He may be able to pitch the last couple months of the season. If he decides to get Tommy John surgery, he will likely not be competing in the majors until May 2016. He may be a late round DL stash for this season, but nothing more.

• Hunter Pence will be out six to eight weeks with a fractured forearm. Arm related injuries for hitters seem to have the most lingering effects. His power could be down quite a bit once he returns.

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• Chris Sale will miss at a minimum of three weeks with a fractured foot. Then he will need to get up to speed before being able to start.

Chris Sale sustained an avulsion fracture on the lateral side of his right foot as the result of an accident at his Arizona home Friday. The left-hander is expected to be sidelined three weeks before resuming baseball activities.

Looking back at previous pitchers with foot injuries, they saw a 0.4 BB/9 and 0.25 ERA bump. Some loss of production, but not too much. The White Sox won’t need another starter until mid-April, so they may be able to go with four starters until then.

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• OK, MASH will be twice a week for the seven or so months with all the baseball news coming in. There is just a ton of Fluff right now and useful new information is a little tough to find.

• Michael Saunders will be out until around the All-Star game with a torn meniscus in his knee. This is a mess for the Blue Jays. Right now they look to replace him with internal options.

… Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos said he expects to fill Saunders’ vacancy in left field with internal options. Kevin Pillar, Ezequiel Carrera and Andy Dirks are the early favourites to win the job out of Spring Training.

Here is the projected wRC+ for the trio.

Name: wRC+
Pillar: 92
Carrera: 83
Dirks: 99

Dirks looks to have the inside track statically, but he is current still dealing with a back injury which cost him his 2014 season. If the 28-year-old Carrera gets the job, he could be a sneaky SB play with 50 SB in 2014 between the majors and minors.

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