MASH Report – (6/17/13)

Quite a bit injury news happened over the weekend. I will examine several pitchers returning from the D.L. and several more acting hurt.

• Stephen Strasburg returned from the disabled list to make a start yesterday. The biggest concern for me was the 4 BB in 5 IP with a Zone% just over 47%. His overall. velocity was consistent with his past speeds.

He did see a 2 mph drop in velocity in the 5th inning he threw.

It was a wait and see type of start. Not bad enough for doom and gloom. Not good enough to give an “all’s clear”. Just perfect to wait and see how his next start goes.

• Johnny Cueto’s velocity was fine:

• So was Huston Street’s

• And Ross Detwiler’s

• And Shawn Camp’s

• And Jake Westbrook’s (finally in 2013

• Charlie Morton bucked the trended with a three mph jump from before his Tommy John surgery.

REQUEST: I am trying to figure out the best way to scale HURT and PAIN. I previously have anything over 100 to be a player at risk or playing through an injury. Last week and this week, a 100 value is the max value. I am not sure I like it this way and am thinking ot moving back to 100 being the imaginary injury threshold. Any suggestions?

HURT (Hitter’s Under-performance from Recent Trauma) Rankings (min 30 PA in 2013 and min 600 PA from 2010 to 2012):

Note: Previously, I used an IFFB% component in the ranking, from now on I will remove it as it masks some of the real power declines of some players.

Rank	Name	HURT
1	John Jaso	93.6
2	Ike Davis	79.8
3	B.J. Upton	76.8
4	Seth Smith	66.0
5	Matt Kemp	64.2
6	Albert Pujols	64.2
7	Alex Avila	63.6
8	Chris Johnson	56.4
9	Brandon Inge	55.2
10	Chris Iannetta	55.2
11	Justin Turner	51.0
12	Miguel Montero	50.4
13	Robert Andino	50.4
14	Mark Teixeira	49.8
15	Aramis Ramirez	48.6
16	Victor Martinez	48.6
17	Melky Cabrera	48.0
18	Garrett Jones	48.0
19	Lance Berkman	48.0
20	Kevin Youkilis	48.0
21	Cesar Izturis	47.4
22	Jeff Keppinger	45.0
23	Adrian Gonzalez	43.8
24	Mark Kotsay	42.0
25	Lonnie Chisenhall	42.0

Notes

• Last Thursday, I mentioned the following on Mark Teixeira:

Mark Teixeira shows up after returning recently from the DL because of a wrist injury. Two stats are causing the high value, Contact% and IFFB%. His contact rate is way down from around 90% to 80% and cause his K% to jump from 16% to 33%. Besides not make contact, he is hitting a ton of weak pop flies. His IFFB% has gone from near 10% the last few seasons to 27% in 2013 … Teixera may still be feeling the effects of his wrist injury.

Teixera looks to maybe headed back on the DL. While not everyone on the HURT leader board is going to the DL, quite a high percentage do.

• Aramis Ramirez (knee) is another player who missed time early in the season to the DL. His ISO (.148) is 50 points lower than any value over the past three seasons. Also his Contact% and Speed Score are down a bit. It would be nice to see Ramirez get some of his power back and get off the list.

PAIN (Pitcher Abuse INdex) Rankings (min 20 IP in 2013 and 20 IP in 2012)

Rank	Name	PAIN
1	Jeff Locke	115.7
2	Jared Hughes	106.5
3	Jason Marquis	89.2
4	Lucas Harrell	83.8
5	Jonathan Broxton	78.7
6	Francisco Liriano	74.0
7	Alexi Ogando	73.0
8	Craig Stammen	65.9
9	Tanner Scheppers	65.0
10	Cory Gearrin	61.1
11	Esmil Rogers	56.6
12	Ryan Dempster	56.6
13	Wily Peralta	55.4
14	John Axford	55.1
15	Matt Moore	53.9
16	Luis Mendoza	49.3
17	Carlos Villanueva	47.5
18	Burke Badenhop	42.4
19	Jason Grilli	40.5
20	Brett Myers	40.5
21	Darin Downs	40.0
22	Michael Gonzalez	38.3
23	Cody Allen	37.2
24	Scott Feldman	36.5
25	Carter Capps	35.5

Notes

• Jonathan Broxton is currently the 5th highest ranked pitcher in PAIN and is heading to the disabled list with an elbow strain. Broxton is the perfect example of a injury risk pitcher with his dropping velocity and inability to throw strikes.

• While not a corner stone of any fantasy team, Luis Mendoza is ranked 16th in PAIN and has been trying to pitch through a knee issue.

• An interesting name on the list is Jason Grilli. Grilli is currently dominating hitters with a 0.88 ERA and an even lower FIP of 0.52. The reason he is showing up on the list is a sub-47% Zone% which dropped almost eight percentage points from last season. It is not like he is walking a ton of batters with a 2.1 BB/9. His release points are one of the tightest I have seen for pitcher during a season. I see no reason to worry about him for now.

Players on the DL

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