MASH Report (7/23/15) With Specific Injury Return Times
• Here is a starting point for a dataset I have wanted to put together for a while, the return times for various injuries. I started with just a few requests today, but if you want more, please feel free request more in the comments.
| Injury | Average Day | Max days | Min Day | Standard Dev | Samples |
| Fractured Wrist | 63 | 185 | 13 | 40 | 55 |
| Broken Wrist | 77 | 182 | 25 | 46 | 10 |
| Fractured Finger | 39 | 103 | 6 | 23 | 46 |
| Plantar Faciitis | 43 | 133 | 15 | 33 | 11 |
| Strained Hamstring | 30 | 178 | 4 | 20 | 177 |
| Strained Oblique (pitchers) | 32 | 86 | 6 | 16 | 43 |
| Strained Oblique (hitters) | 29 | 100 | 7 | 17 | 104 |
| Sprain/Torn/Dislocated Finger | 43 | 101 | 10 | 22 | 29 |
• An interesting article by BelievePerform summarizes from several sources the effects of birth date on athletic success.
In summary, the relative age effect is present in a wide range of elite sports and sheds light on the flaws of many talent identification systems. Due to the short-term approach to success in elite sports, coaches select players that will win them games in the immediate future. This means selecting players who are physically and emotionally more mature. The implications of this process will lead to a big pool of talent being overlook and misrepresented.
Here are the number for players who have played in the majors this season who were born in a specific month:
Month: Number of MLB Players
January: 97
February: 92
March: 96
April: 95
May: 85
June: 90
July: 95
August: 119
September: 113
October: 107
November: 98
December: 99
The number of MLB players born in August to October is 339 while the number from May to July is 270 (25% more).
• Steve Pearce in on the DL with a strained oblique which has bothered him for a while.
• While not officially on the DL yet, it looks like David Freese will go on the DL later today with a fractured finger.
• Jason Vargas came off the DL, threw a few innings and torn his UCL in his elbow. Now he is looking at Tommy John surgery and probably not seeing MLB action until 2017.
• Jordy Mercer will be out at least 6 weeks with a sprained knee and leg contusion.
Upon examination Monday in Pittsburgh by the club’s medical staff, Mercer was diagnosed with a sprain of the medial collateral ligament in the left knee, and a lower leg contusion.
“That’s the way we look at it,” manager Clint Hurdle said. “One injury turned out to be a contusion that is already feeling better. And for the Grade 2 sprain to be nonsurgical — yeah, I think we caught a break.”
• Manny Parra is on the DL with a strained elbow. It seems like he would not go on the DL expect the Reds don’t want just an 8-man bullpen with a double header on the horizon.
• The All-Star break didn’t help Adrian Beltre recover from his injured thumb.
Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre was quite succinct and candid when discussing his left thumb before Monday’s game with the Rockies.
He was asked if the four-day All-Star break helped at all.
“Not one bit,” Beltre said.
He was asked if he is doing the right thing by playing through the injury.
“Good question,” Beltre said. “I don’t have an answer. It’s a good question with many answers, but I don’t have one.”
Great, expect the low production to continue.
Velocity Readings
• Tony Cingrani’s velocity is down compared to before he went on the DL.
• Matt Garza’s velocity is fine.
• Kris Medlen’s average fastball velocity is within the range before he had TJS. At the time he was a starter and now is throwing out of the bullpen, so the velocity could actually be down.
Players on the DL in 2015
The Red players have had updates since the last report. Click on the “Date” for a link to go to the latest article on the player.
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.
Great link to an article on Springer. It sounds really positive about how effective he’ll be when he gets back. Believe it or not I only need him to perform starting 9/9 for my H2H playoffs. I can cruise to the playoffs without him. Based on your experience and research, do you think there’s good chance he’ll be at least 95% by then?
I’d love to here your thoughts on the prognosis for Werth and Rendon too.
Werth, no idea yet but I could really see him struggle and Rendon is just frustrating.
Using some historic numbers from here, his production should be down:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/2014-disabled-list-information-and-so-much-more/
95% could be right. The key I would look for when he returns is if he can pull the ball at all.
WOW! Thanks! What terrific answers. Love the tip about being able to pull the ball at all. He was at 34% pull when he went down, so something close to 30% would be OK? I don’t suppose I can find how he does in his eventual minor league rehab anywhere.
Since June 29 Beltre is hitting .296/.359/.437. Below his standards but not bad for a guy playing through a hurting thumb. Sapping his power.
What happened on June 29th which changed with Beltre. I am not a fan of just some arbitrary end points. Since the All-Star break he has a .087 ISO.
True enough. It was a few games after he came back from the injury. Of course he had missed a month with no rehab time, so I cut him some slack for his first few games back. But including all games since the injury, .263/.311/.368, so yeah, he’s struggling. In July he’s at .274/.348/.419. They’re all arbitrary endpoints.
Awesome chart. I like the separate data for pitchers/hitters you did for obliques, seems like you could also do that for a few of the other types, such as hamstrings? Ex: Hammel recently strained his hamstring but came right back. Paxton has the finger issue which has kept him out a long time. Also, maybe lat and lower back issues are common for both?
OK, thanks.
another great update. Thank you.
I think this “The number of MLB players born in August to September is 339” was supposed to read “August to October”.
But I am curious, does it change the ratios if you just use U.S. born players? I wonder if the Dominican or other countries would have a different month bias than U.S. given likely different schedules for the playing season (and different age cutoff dates for little league equivalents).
Yeah, probably right that different countries would differ (same is true, I think, in hockey when you take Canadians and their juniors system and the US youth system).
This reality is given great treatment in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point (he’s also the author of Blink).
The foreign-born players are under the same bias since the players signed on July must follow this rule:
“Teams can sign international free agents starting July 2 in the year they turn 17 by Sept. 1.”
Maybe less August players, but some kids will have a whole year of age on the others.
What should we expect from Freddie Freeman ROS?
All the possible injury effects information is near the end of this article and the linked spreadsheet:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/2014-disabled-list-information-and-so-much-more/
The injury table is great data! One addition that would be cool to have is median time to return. If the average (mean) is skewed by outliers, the median can help establish reasonable expectations.
I am working on that with a possible outcomes type graph for different date ranges. The information was pulled at the last moment.