MASH Report (4/28/14) – Zone% Laggards

• One item to follow for DL return dates is what the team says for timetable. Mark Trumbo predicted he will be out only six weeks, but the team expects the delay to be longer:

D-backs manager Kirk Gibson corroborated the prognosis of left fielder Mark Trumbo, specifying that the length of his absence due to a stress fracture in his left foot might be even longer than the six weeks Trumbo predicted.

“The summary I got on it confirmed six to eight weeks probably,” Gibson said. “He’s got a boot on there with something on it called a bone enhancer that sends some stimulation down there. I know that he had [an injury] previously on the other foot and that was lengthy. We don’t expect that to be that lengthy.”

• Chris Davis (75 HURT) may be out for as long as a month.

Showalter said there are three levels to this type of injury and that the time table for Davis’ return would depend on where they “caught” the injury. The skipper said Davis’ problems are not at the highest level, but to assume the first baseman will return as soon the DL stay is over might not be a safe bet.

“I’m not expecting it; it wouldn’t be very smart to think it’s a given,” Showalter said. “Chris told me yesterday, ‘I’ve always been a very fast healer.’ We’ll see, but the normal time on these things is more than the DL period, but we’ll see.”

The injury may have affected his swing since his contact rate and ISO are each at a four year low.

• Jose Veras is out with an oblique issue he says he has dealt with for a few games.

“It bothered him for a couple days and we decided this is the best thing to do for him to get him back on track and make sure he’s good, and we’ll go from there,” manager Rick Renteria said Saturday.

Veras, who has made six appearances this season, said he’s had some discomfort for a few days.
“I didn’t pay attention to it, and then little by little, it got worse,” he said. “I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t think it was a big deal, and I felt I could pitch like that.”

It would not be a surprise if he dealt with the injury all season. His zone percentage was down from 49.6% to 44.5%. Also, his fastball velocity dropped from 93.4 mph to 92.1 mph. The two main injury red flags where out.

• A.J. Burnett’s results, since stating he would throw with a sports hernia all season, have been good.

Total: 21 2/3 IP, 2 ER (0.83 ERA), 14 H, 3 BB, 18 K

Don’t buy the results. His velocity is down.

So is his Zone%.

Sell as high as you can, while you can.

• A.J. Griffin may eventually need elbow surgery.

• Jayson Stark takes his own look at the Tommy John surgery craze.

Fastball Velocity of Pitchers Returning from DL

• Matt Harrison’s velocity is down 2 mph from his 2012 values

• Brandon Kintzler’s velocity is fine.

• David Robertson’s is also fine.

• Juan Oviedo is down 4 mph from 2011.

Zone% Laggards

A couple of years ago, I found pitchers who have a Zone% under 47% have an increase DL chance. One issue with the data was looking at pitchers who could get hitters to chase pitches out of the strike zone. With PAIN, I take this issue into account by comparing values from one season to the next. I wanted to take the chase rate into account. After a couple of wasted hours, I have nothing. At best, a 12% point change in a pitchers chase rate, would lead to barely a 1% point jump in Zone%. It really isn’t a big enough difference to adjust Zone%. I am going to continue to see if I can find a better solution and include the OOZ Swing% and OOZ Contact% for reference.

For reference, here are the league average values for pitchers with 60 or more innings pitched in a season from 2008 to 2013

Stat: Average, Median
Zone%: 50.1%, 50.1%
O-Swing%: 29.0%, 28.8%
O-Contact%: 64.7%, 65.1%

Table

Players on DL

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

Major League Report

On DL

Minor League Report