MASH Report (6/20/13)

Injury information will be a little slim today, so I will examine in detail a few cases. Also, I will report the fastball speeds of three pitchers returning from the DL. Finally, I have adjusted PAIN and HURT so any value over 100 is a player at a high injury risk. Complete rankings are available.

• Albert Pujols stated he is finally feeling unhurt.

But Pujols swears he felt something.
“I was like … this is me right here,'” Pujols said. “That did it. I feel right now like my old me, like when I was in St. Louis.”
Did you ever feel that way last year?
“Not at all, man — I swear,” Pujols said. “There were some streaks here and there that I hit, but I was battling. I never got to a point where I could say, ‘Holy cow, that’s my bat speed.'”

Every player always states they feel better than they actually do, but it may be time to try to buy into Albert’s hot bat. His ISO (power) is trending up.

Month: ISO
April: .165
May: .173
June: .254

Or if an owner still believes he is hurt, it may be time to sell “high”.

• Chris Capuano’s sinker velocity is good.

• John Lannan’s fastball velocity was near a three year low.

Besides his velocity, his release points and Zone% were good. It will be interesting to see where is talent level stabilizes.

• Nathan Eovaldi (shoulder) came out firing with an average 97 mph fastball which is two mph faster than his 2011 and 2012 averages.

Also, his Zone% stood at an outstanding 61%. It is not all rainbows and unicorns for him though. His release point was all over the place.

He may be healthy for now, but he will need a consistent delivery to stay off the DL.

HURT (Hitter’s Under-performance from Recent Trauma) Rankings (no minimums)

Today, I included all the hitters for reference. Any player with a HURT value over 100 (red) has the traits of a batter playing through an injury.

Notes

• Justin Turner has been near the top of the HURT rankings for a while now. I don’t believe he just got hurt as his power and contact skills have been suffering all season long. I believe the injury finally got bad enough he needed to take some time off.

• Seth Smith may seem injury free, but he struggled while battling tonsillitis early in the season. He was putting up good numbers until the injury and may still be a buy low candidate as his ISO is finally head north.

PAIN (Pitcher Abuse INdex) Rankings (no minimums)

Again, I included all the pitchers for reference. Any player with a PAIN value over 100 (red) has the traits of a pitcher likely to be hurt.

• Quite a bit of talk exists about Josh Johnson turning around his season. For example, Buster Onley wrote the following in a recent article:

Rival evaluators continue to have great things to say about Josh Johnson. “His velocity is down a tick or two from when he was at his best, but he’s throwing the ball great,” said an AL evaluator. “He’s got a pretty good mix of pitches going right now, and he’s got that great downhill delivery going.” 

Everything seems all great so far in June with a 1.86 ERA (3.26 FIP and 3.00 xFIP). Some under lying issues remain. He has yet to throw a game where half his pitches are in the strike zone. In his last start, only 35% were in the zone. His 2013 Zone% stands at 41.4%. Not good at all. Temper you expectations of Johnson until he is able to find the strike zone consistently.

Players on the DL

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