MASH Report (8/23/13)

Not a ton of injury information over the past few days. I promise to get a month-to-month, vice a year-to-year, PAIN leader board. Instead, I examined the HURT and PAIN leaders for well established starting pitchers and hitters.

• I wanted to start by talking about the rash of catchers going on the DL and the fantasy impacts. First off, catching is tough. Kneeling for every pitch, having foul balls hit your head and nads, collisions at the plate. To put it in perspective, six of the last players to go on the concussion DL have been catchers. On the season, 9 of the of the 17 concussion DL trips have been by catchers.

A general fantasy rule is to never pay above or at market price for a catcher. This theme has been backed with such catchers as Joe Mauer and Buster Posey spending significant time on the DL in recent seasons. For these reasons, I try to minimize the risk I take early in a draft or with top auction dollars and not look for catcher then. Additionally, in advanced leagues, all the owners may take this rule to the extreme and catchers can be picked up for a fraction of their value.

• Roy Halladay was topping out at 89 mph and averaging 87 in his last minor league rehab start.

Halladay is done for the night. 6 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 K. He threw 90 pitches, 52 strikes. Ave FB was 87, touched 89 early.

— Jim Salisbury (@JSalisburyCSN) August 21, 2013

Again, keep his expectations in check when he returns.

• Reader Dolemite asked the following on Jon Niese:

Are you buying that he may be back in vintage form and worth an add down the stretch (esp this coming week with the phillies at Metco and the nonhitting lefties Nats)

Niese has several things going for him. His velocity is trending up. He is throwing strikes. I don’t like his inconsistent release point. This spread usually leads to future injuries, but for now I would take a chance on him for those two games. There are a lot worse choices available.

Coco Crisp is playing hurt. Expect his stats to suffer:

Pitchers returning from the DL

• Ross Ohlendorf’s average fastball velocity looks fine:

Looking over the rest of his stats, nothing sticks out as a warning sign.

• Franklin Morales finally got into a few games after returning for the DL over a week ago. His velocity is up compared to earlier in the season and closer to 2012 levels.

HURT (Hitter’s Under-performance from Recent Trauma) Rankings (hitters with at least 1 PA in 2013 and 1000 PA from 2010 to 2012):

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

Name	HURT	PA (2013)	PA (2010-2012)
Seth Smith	182.4	359	1372
B.J. Upton	181.2	367	1883
Jason Kubel	153.6	260	1554
Albert Pujols	140.4	443	2021
Aramis Ramirez	120	242	1763
Melky Cabrera	120	372	1716
Lance Berkman	115.2	282	1165
Alex Avila	114	289	1318
Chris Johnson	111.6	419	1295
Delmon Young	110.4	291	1724
Tyler Colvin	108	78	1069
Miguel Montero	106.8	376	1457
Paul Konerko	104.4	393	1868
Robert Andino	100.8	85	1008
Mark Teixeira	99.6	63	1920
Giancarlo Stanton	98.4	355	1498
Josh Willingham	97.2	356	1629
Pablo Sandoval	97.2	448	1524
John Jaso	97.2	249	1038
Kevin Youkilis	96	118	1461
Matt Kemp	93.6	251	1806
Ty Wigginton	92.4	63	1455
Brandon Inge	91.2	110	1214
Ryan Roberts	91.2	173	1115
Vernon Wells	87.6	391	1437
Nick Markakis	86.4	555	1896
Jay Bruce	82.8	545	1870
Prince Fielder	79.2	563	2096
Jimmy Rollins	79.2	521	1724
Troy Tulowitzki	79.2	387	1338
Danny Espinosa	76.8	167	1428

• The above table is a who’s who of the walking wounded of the 2013 season.

• Seth Smith was ranked high for the entire season, but he had no reported injuries until now. It was just reported he was dealing with an eye astigmatism. I can’t believe a baseball player with blurry vision is having problems making solid contact with a baseball.

PAIN (Pitcher Abuse INdex) Rankings (min 120 IP in 2012, 1 IP in 2013)

Any player with a PAIN value over 100 (red) has the traits of a pitcher likely to be hurt.

Name	PAIN	IP (2013)	IP (2012)
Jason Marquis	212.2	117.2	127.2
Lucas Harrell	194.4	131.1	193.2
Scott Feldman	115.5	139.1	123.2
Matt Moore	112.1	121.1	177.1
Matt Harrison	102.4	10.2	213.1
Francisco Liriano	94.4	121.0	156.2
Felix Hernandez	90.7	178.2	232.0
Luis Mendoza	89.2	88.2	166.0
Jake Westbrook	62.8	114.1	174.2
Hiroki Kuroda	56.4	160.1	219.2
Zack Greinke	55.5	133.0	212.1
James McDonald	54.0	29.2	171.0
Gavin Floyd	51.8	24.1	168.0
Ivan Nova	50.6	93.2	170.1
Yovani Gallardo	47.2	134.2	204.0
Jarrod Parker	46.5	155.1	181.1
Ryan Dempster	42.6	145.1	173.0
Josh Johnson	42.4	81.1	191.1
Rick Porcello	38.7	135.1	176.1
Tim Hudson	34.4	131.1	179.0
Marco Estrada	33.7	86.1	138.1
Ricky Nolasco	28.4	157.2	191.0
Ricky Romero	25.4	4.1	181.0

• With a large sample of previous data, PAIN picks out hurt and/or struggling established pitchers decently. A few exception exist (Liriano, but it is decent with established starters.

• Hiroki Kuroda doesn’t have a +100 PAIN value which indicates a likely injured pitcher, but he is showing some signs common with an injury. His velocity is down 0.5 mph from 2012. His Zone% dropped from 47% to 45%.

Players on the DL

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