MASH Report (4/16/13)
Sorry for the one day delay. I had some html issues which caused the injury status links to be broken. I have gone to new format which will hopefully solve the issue, but I took me a while to find a solution.
Also, I will be changing the format a bit. I am wanting to do more in-depth looks at players returning and players possibly headed to the disabled list. More on the changes in the next report.
Recent injury data
• Zack Greinke broke his collarbone in a fight and reports have him returning in a couple of months. I looked through my injury database going back to 2002 and I could only find one instance of a broken collarbone for a reference and it was Clint Barnes in 2005. Clint broke it while carrying a deer up his stairs. Broken collarbone = good story.
• Jose Reyes is gone for 1-3 months with a sprained ankle. This injury could be pretty devastating to his owners in AL-only leagues. When he comes back, it will be interesting to see how fast he is able to run. I should find a good first base time for him and then compare it when he returns.
• Yoenis Cespedes is headed to disabled list with a sprained hand.
• Johnny Cueto landed on the DL with back issues and should be back in a few weeks.
• The list just keeps going with Wilson Ramos needing some time off with a pulled hamstring.
• Jason Kubel is another player headed to the DL with a strained quad.
• The Angels sent both Erick Aybar (bruised heel) and Kevin Jepsen (shoulder) to the DL.
• Kyuji Fujikawa, who was closing for the Cubs, will be missing some time with a strained forearm.
• Michael Saunders hurt his shoulder and should spend the minimal 15 days on the DL.
• Sergio Santos is placed on the DL with a tricep strain. He has been dealing with soreness for a while and in the few innings he as pitched, his Zone% was 42% after being near 48% when he was healthy in 2010 and 2011.
Warning, unsubstantiated theory. A pitcher dealing with pain may take longer between pitches to wait for the pain to lessen. The pitcher may increase the time between pitches. Santos was effectively healthy in 2010 and 2011 and had a pace of 22 and 24 secs between pitches. In 2011 and 2012, when he has dealt with injuries, his pace went up to 26 and 27 secs.
• Stephen Pryor was placed on the D.L. with shoulder issues. He was having a nice start to the season with a 0.00 ERA.
Warning, another unsubstantiated theory. It seems to me that pitchers who throw greater than 95 mph (Pryor as near 96 mph) get injured more often. The arm and all its parts break down faster the faster a pitcher throws. The theory makes sense on the surface, but I need to look into the numbers at some point to prove the difference.
• For the irrelevant injury of the week, Steve Clevenger is out six weeks with strained abs.
• David Ortiz is having still having problems with his ankle.
• Brett Lawrie is returning from the DL today and may see time at 2B.
• Jason Giambi was activated from the DL.
Player Return Timetables
(*) 15 Day Disabled List
(**) 60 Day Disabled List
(***) 7 Day Concussion List
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
Carlos Gomez broke his collarbone in 2011.
Jeff,
Regarding the higher velocity = more injury angle, in the Tommy John surgery research series that I was working on, I did see pitchers who underwent Tommy John surgery threw harder on average than the average pitcher across all pitch types (after controlling for starter/reliever and age). Click on my name to get to that article. TJS is only part of pitcher injuries, of course, but it does give some weight to your hypothesis.
Love the MASH reports, keep them coming!
Oh, and in another recent study I also noticed that relievers that increase their relative fastball velocities more as strikes mount in the count (i.e. with 2 strikes vs. 1 strike vs. 0 strikes) *appeared* to hit the DL more often (when I looked at 0 DL times vs. 1 DL vs 2+ DL). So maybe another data point to consider.
You describe Fujikawa’s injury as a shoulder strain in the body of your post. You correctly report it as a forearm strain in your chart.
Because this discrepancy caused me great emotional pain, you owe me two million dollars. I am represented by Lionel Hutz, attorney at law. He is currently “deposing” a bottle of the brownest of the brown liquors, but he will contact you soon.
This just keeps getting better and better. Well done Jeff.
The injuries keep mounting, Bourn, Hill, Hanrahan officially DL’d.
Don’t forget Joel Injured Ham-rahan
I wonder if there has been a DL analysis of the past few years vs. the recognized steroid years. A simple summation with normalization (accounting for outliers) would do the trick. My intuition tells me there has been a significant rise in number of DL days today vs 10 years ago.
I look forward to seeing why the deer that broke Barmes’ collarbone charged the mound
My notes:
D. Barney has been activated from the DL.
M. Bourn (stitches) placed on the 15-day DL, supposedly will spend the minimum from SUN 4/14.
D. Gregorious is incorrectly spelled and has been activated from the DL.
A. Hill (hand) placed on the 15-day DL, expected to miss 4-6 weeks.
A couple of developments:
(1) Mastroianni to the 15-day DL so Oswaldo Arcia quickly recalled after 1 day back in AAA. Gardenhire says he plans to use Arcia often, not in center, obviously, but presumably in the corner OF and DH. If Arcia sticks beyond two weeks as a starter he could be a rookie-of-the-year candidate.
(2) Jason Kipnis misses 4th straight game with sor elbow and could be placed on the DL. Mike Aviles the primary beneficiary.
On velocity and injuries: a contrary theory.
Pitchers with higher velocity get injured less often because they they only dial up that velocity on occasion; pitchers with lesser velocity must throw at their max or risk throwing batting practice. Case in point would be Justin Verlander, who last year seemed to only approach triple digits later in games.