MASH Report (2/26/15)

• 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.

• Joel Peralta looks to be a couple weeks behind in spring training because of a shoulder stiffness.

Dodgers reliever Joel Peralta, sidelined by shoulder stiffness, said he is hopeful he will be able to throw off a mound by next week.

That will put Peralta nearly two weeks behind the rest of the team’s pitchers and at risk of opening the season on the disabled list.
…
Peralta was acquired from Tampa Bay, in large part, for his durability. Over the past four sea-sons for the Rays, he averaged 74 appearances. The only time in his career spent on the disabled list was last year for a virus.

Peralta suspects his shoulder discomfort is related to the fact that he didn’t play winter ball for the first time in a decade. He said the reason he sat out the winter season was to be sure he was healthy for the start of his first Spring Training ….

The Dodgers bullpen is a mess right now with Kenly Jensen also out. J.P. Howell and Brandon League look to have the inside track as possible closers to start the season.

• Adam Wainwright felt a small pain in his abdomen for a few days after hurting it lifting some weights.

Wainwright said he sustained the injury on Feb. 16, while placing a 45-pound weight back on the rack at the beginning of a morning workout. He “felt a little twinge” in his abdomen, but he continued through the rest of his weight room program.

Since then, Wainwright has thrown several times — including once off the mound and multiple times on flat ground — without issue. However, he continues to feel discomfort when running and lunging, which is what prompted the Cardinals to schedule an exploratory appointment with a specialist.

“I want to be fair to you and say that anything I say about it would just be speculation,” Wainwright said. “I don’t think it’s very serious at all. I think going up there, [Dr. Michael Brunt] is probably not going to see much of anything at all. But I don’t know that. I don’t want to be answering 100 questions about it without really knowing.”

The Cardinals are expected to announce the result of that visit on Thursday afternoon. Wainwright said he will address the media again when he returns to camp on Friday.

And I get some updated news right before I was to publish the article.

Wainwright is dealing with abdominal strain, pre-scribed rest. “Best news we could have gotten,” Mozeliak says #cardinals #stlcards

— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) February 26, 2015

More details should be available over the next few days.

• It still seems like Miguel Cabrera may miss some time to start the season.

• The Astros have implemented rigorous medical assessments.

In addition to the routine medical physicals each player undergoes each spring, the Astros and Houston Methodist Hospital, their long-time health care provider, this year are introduc-ing a new sports medicine assessment designed to help prevent injuries and speed up re-covery time when players are banged up.
….
“We’re really looking for any possible warning signs that someone might be on the verge of an injury or vulnerable to an injury,” [Dr. David Lintner of Houston Methodist] said. “As you might imagine this time of year, they come in very healthy and strong and excited and ener-getic. And so we have physical testing going on, not just a routine physical exam, but athletic functional testing to very closely look for signs someone might have a tendency to get hurt this season.”
…
“Technology and statistics are progressing and advancing, and as we learn more and under-stand more about injury risks then we can look for things preemptively,” Lintner said. “We have a much more extensive testing program this year. The front office of the Astros has been very supportive about embarking on this to gather data, not just each individual, but al-so collectively across the organization, to be able inspect that very closely [and] to look for problems. This is on a scale beyond what we’ve done in the past and beyond what most any team does currently.”

More statistics for the Astros to crunch.

• The Mets are giving out coins to players who work hard through a significant injury. With so many ways to make fun of this practice, I am just going to pass.

Players with Injuries Going into 2015

(*) 15 Day Disabled List
(**) 60 Day Disabled List
(***) 7 Day Concussion List
(****) Free Agent
Red colored entries are updates since last report.