MASH Report (5/5/14)

• Velocity changes from 2013 to April 2014. Enjoy.

• Chris Sale is working without a return timetable, but he will throw a bullpen session today to get a better idea of his progress.

• Doug Fister may return either Wednesday or Friday to the Nationals.

• Dane de la Rosa could be a nice deep league saves stash. Rosa didn’t look the best in his first appearance after his first DL stint. Reports right have his velocity up now though.

De La Rosa, the 31-year-old right-hander who’s rehabbing from irritation in his right s/c joint, is “very close” to starting a rehab assignment and “his velocity is significantly better right now,” the Angels’ skipper added.

The Angel have unexciting Joe Smith as their current closer. I would not be surprise if Rosa gets the closer role at some point during the season.

• Mike Pelfrey (25 PAIN) went on the DL with a strained groin. He has some injury signs, but not as many as some pitchers on top of the PAIN leaderboard. His fastball velocity was down from 92.4 mph to 90.8 mph.

Additionally, he Zone% was down from 51.3% to 49.8%.

 

• Tony Cingrani is on the DL also. He had both a small drop in velocity (-0.9 mph) and Zone% (-3.4% points). Again, not enough tobe among the worse offenders, but still both line up.

• Bruce Chen’s bad back put him on the DL. He saw is Zone% (-6.3% points) and velocity (-0.8 mph) drop. These drop may seem like quite a bit, but other pitchers are seeing even more of difference. Here are the declines from the top five rated starters by PAIN.

Cingrani, Pelfry and Chen each saw signs of possible lingering injuries, but other pitchers have more obvious signs.

• The Dodgers Hyun-Jin Ryu went on the DL for an inflamed shoulder. No decent signs existed to point to an injury so the Dodgers may have caught it early on. It may seem like his velocity was declining, but generally his velocity jumps around. He had almost an exact same pattern last season without a DL stint.

• Stolmy Pimentel’s trip to the DL should not be a surprise with a near four mph drop in fastball velocity.

• My final take on the Clayton Kershaw hysteria which will happen tomorrow. The Dodgers made Kershaw have a second rehab start after Kershaw said he was fine. In the second start, Kershaw’s fastball averaged 90 mph, so I am guessing the Dodgers noticed the drop in the first game and gave him another start. I could see owners scramble a bit if they see the drop, but as I have shown, Kershaw will probably be fine at the lower velocity.

Fastball Velocities for Pitchers Returning from the DL

Jacob Turner’s was fine

• Jake Arrieta’s was down about one mph from last season.

• Hisashi Iwakuma’s was down 2.5 mph

• Tim Collins‘ looked more inline with 2013 than he previously did.

HURT (Hitter’s Under-performance from Recent Trauma) Rankings :

Any player with a HURT value over 100 (red) has the traits of a batter playing through an injury.

(Min 100 PA in 2014 and HURT > 100)

Name	HURT	ISO (2014)	ISO (2013)	Diff	Contact (2014)	Contact (2014)	Diff
Will Venable	214	0.068	0.216	-0.148	70.5%	77.2%	-6.7%
Curtis Granderson	186	0.096	0.178	-0.082	69.2%	69.5%	-0.3%
David Wright	179	0.064	0.207	-0.143	79.5%	83.4%	-3.9%
Brad Miller	158	0.135	0.154	-0.019	75.3%	82.7%	-7.4%
Khris Davis	158	0.195	0.316	-0.121	65.6%	73.4%	-7.8%
Ian Desmond	155	0.137	0.173	-0.036	69.3%	75.3%	-6.0%
Nate Schierholtz	133	0.043	0.219	-0.176	78.3%	79.7%	-1.4%
Brandon Phillips	132	0.098	0.135	-0.037	75.5%	79.4%	-3.9%
Tony Sanchez	131	0.027	0.167	-0.140	63.8%	78.1%	-14.3%
Marcell Ozuna	131	0.169	0.124	0.045	68.5%	75.3%	-6.8%
Derek Jeter	125	0.031	0.063	-0.032	84.5%	85.8%	-1.3%
Domonic Brown	121	0.068	0.222	-0.154	76.6%	79.1%	-2.5%
Miguel Cabrera	112	0.150	0.288	-0.138	83.1%	80.8%	2.3%
Matt Carpenter	110	0.050	0.163	-0.113	87.5%	88.8%	-1.3%
Starling Marte	109	0.087	0.161	-0.074	72.8%	75.4%	-2.6%
Brett Gardner	108	0.061	0.143	-0.082	85.0%	86.8%	-1.8%
Marlon Byrd	103	0.170	0.220	-0.050	71.8%	72.7%	-0.9%
Hanley Ramirez	101	0.172	0.293	-0.121	78.6%	80.7%	-2.1%

Thoughts on a couple of the players:

• Will Veneable is probably still dealing with a back issue he had right before the season started.

#Padres injury updates: Back “acted” up on Venable leading to scratch before game; Thayer probably just bruised on comebacker off forearm.

— Jeff Sanders (@JeffSanders_UT) March 29, 2014

• Curtis Granderson hurt his ribs earlier in the season running into a wall. The effects could easily be lingering.

Players on or Probably on the DL to Start the 2014 Season

(*) 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