MASH Report (8/26/13)
Well, after a couple weeks of talking about having a mid-season PAIN metric, I finally got around to coding one up. Besides mid-season PAIN, I have a quick look at Halladay, Buchholz and a handful of others.
• Clay Buchholz was averaging over 92 mph on his fastball before going on the DL. In his first rehab game, he was in the upper 80’s (source).
Red Sox manager John Farrell said. “His velocity was in the upper 80s. He came out of it physically fine, which is the biggest thing. We’ll have a chance to discuss where and when his next outing will be, probably tomorrow.”
And by upper, it seems to mean just barely more than 85 mph.
Here's the moment of truth as Clay Buchholz first pitch since June 8th, is unofficially an 85 MPH fastball upstairs for ball one
— Thomas Prizeman (@TPrizeman) August 25, 2013
Expect Buchholz to spend a while longer rehabbing or to struggle once he returns to the majors.
DL Returners
• Roy Halladay made his first start since May. Jeff Sullivan and Zack Sanders has already broken down the start in detail, but I will look at a few injury factors.
First, his velocity was down around an average speed of 88 mph.
Eno Sarris just detailed how Halladay’s fastball velocity should play out.
Other injury signs were more encouraging. His Zone% was almost 49% after throwing on 30% in his previous start and averaging 46% to start the season. Also, his release points were extremely consistent.
• Paul Maholm saw his velocity in his game back near his season low.
His release points were all over the place leading to a low Zone% (45%).
I would stay away until he begins to find some form of consistency.
• Josh Tomlin was activated after Tommy John surgery and sent to AAA. Remember back in 2011 when he was 6-2 with a 2.74 ERA after two months. Probably not, but oh the past memories of hot starts.
PAIN (Pitcher Abuse INdex) Rankings (min 800 pitches in 2013, comparing July and August results to the rest of the 2013 season)
Any player with a PAIN value over 100 (red) has the traits of a pitcher likely to be hurt.
Leaderboard
| Name | Pain | Velocity (Apr – June | Zone% (Apr-June) | Velocity (July-August) | Zone% (July – August) | Total Pitches |
| Brandon McCarthy | 159.9 | 90.9 | 57.0% | 89.3 | 49.7% | 1377 |
| Ryan Vogelsong | 137.2 | 89.9 | 48.7% | 87.9 | 46.0% | 1236 |
| Yoervis Medina | 131.7 | 94.5 | 42.6% | 93.3 | 39.7% | 867 |
| Bartolo Colon | 130.7 | 90.1 | 60.2% | 89.0 | 52.3% | 2214 |
| Chad Gaudin | 120.9 | 91.8 | 52.2% | 89.8 | 49.5% | 1550 |
| Jason Vargas | 105.1 | 87.8 | 47.7% | 86.8 | 44.5% | 1693 |
| Brian Duensing | 101.4 | 91.9 | 51.0% | 92.5 | 42.3% | 817 |
| Jorge de la Rosa | 98.4 | 88.6 | 46.9% | 87.6 | 44.3% | 2525 |
| Jerry Blevins | 93.4 | 90.2 | 47.7% | 89.5 | 43.9% | 846 |
| Lucas Harrell | 90.0 | 91.9 | 41.2% | 91.7 | 38.5% | 2447 |
| Hisashi Iwakuma | 89.5 | 88.5 | 52.5% | 87.9 | 47.4% | 2496 |
| Oliver Perez | 84.0 | 92.8 | 55.7% | 91.9 | 50.9% | 802 |
| Wade Miley | 77.7 | 90.9 | 49.3% | 91.1 | 43.6% | 2561 |
| Adam Warren | 77.4 | 92.2 | 45.9% | 92.8 | 40.2% | 1057 |
| Tony Cingrani | 73.8 | 92.2 | 51.3% | 91.6 | 47.5% | 1703 |
| Trevor Cahill | 72.6 | 89.3 | 46.7% | 90.1 | 40.6% | 1786 |
| Scott Feldman | 71.8 | 89.3 | 46.7% | 89.0 | 43.5% | 2409 |
| Jerome Williams | 68.5 | 91.3 | 49.8% | 91.5 | 44.6% | 2066 |
| Lance Lynn | 67.6 | 92.1 | 54.3% | 92.5 | 47.3% | 2758 |
| Derek Holland | 65.8 | 93.6 | 52.6% | 93.3 | 48.1% | 2685 |
| Adam Ottavino | 65.5 | 91.6 | 50.7% | 90.9 | 47.8% | 1091 |
| Jacob Turner | 63.7 | 91.1 | 46.3% | 90.4 | 44.7% | 1494 |
| Jose Fernandez | 63.0 | 94.5 | 57.6% | 94.7 | 50.5% | 2317 |
| Fernando Rodney | 61.0 | 96.3 | 47.3% | 96.3 | 43.8% | 992 |
| Jim Johnson | 60.8 | 93.6 | 46.8% | 93.6 | 43.2% | 918 |
| A.J. Griffin | 60.5 | 88.9 | 52.0% | 88.9 | 47.2% | 2634 |
• Brandon McCarthy just can’t keep his velocity and Zone% up after returning from the DL.
These have diminished his output with a K/BB going from 3.9 to 2.0 mainly because his walk rate has gone from 3.5% to 8.8%.
He blames the struggles on head injury from last year (source).
If there was a positive to come from Diamondbacks right-hander Brandon McCarthy’s awful outing on Wednesday night, it’s that he believes he’s identified the mechanical issue that led to his poor command and mediocre stuff.
And he wonders if that mechanical flaw might be related to the line drive that struck him in the head last year with the Oakland A’s.
McCarthy says he’s inadvertently raised his arm angle from where it has been the past two years, something that he attributes to his front side drifting. He wonders if he’s hurrying his delivery in part so he can get himself in better position to be ready for a ball coming back to the mound.
We will find out tonight when he starts against San Diego
• Again, sorry for the delay for finding out about Bartolo Colon.
• Eno looked at Vogrlsong’s struggles in an article earlier today.
• The one name which jumps out is Jose Fernandez. His velocity is fine (just a bit up). His main issue is a drop in Zone% from 58% to 51%. A 51% Zone% is not bad at all, actually pretty decent. I would worry too much about him being on the list and move on.
Also, here are the pitchers showing health improvements in the season’s second half.
| Name | Pain | Velocity (Apr – June | Zone% (Apr-June) | Velocity (July-August) | Zone% (July – August) | Total Pitches |
| Robbie Ross | -247.1 | 92.1 | 54.7% | 93.1 | 63.7% | 854 |
| David Phelps | -198.7 | 89.9 | 48.9% | 90.0 | 59.5% | 1425 |
| J.A. Happ | -184.1 | 90.3 | 48.2% | 91.4 | 55.1% | 1049 |
| Aroldis Chapman | -169.9 | 97.5 | 48.8% | 99.4 | 52.7% | 929 |
| Carlos Villanueva | -143.0 | 87.1 | 44.9% | 87.8 | 51.5% | 1757 |
| Brandon Maurer | -140.0 | 91.8 | 45.9% | 94.5 | 46.5% | 1084 |
| Josh Roenicke | -136.2 | 89.5 | 46.1% | 91.8 | 47.6% | 886 |
| Joe Smith | -133.7 | 89.5 | 44.9% | 89.6 | 53.0% | 805 |
| Kelvin Herrera | -130.4 | 97.1 | 47.7% | 97.3 | 54.4% | 858 |
| Rafael Soriano | -129.5 | 91.0 | 49.1% | 91.6 | 54.4% | 960 |
| Kevin Slowey | -128.7 | 89.1 | 55.5% | 89.8 | 58.4% | 1466 |
| Bronson Arroyo | -124.2 | 86.5 | 55.2% | 87.5 | 57.1% | 2378 |
| David Carpenter | -121.0 | 94.8 | 51.3% | 95.1 | 56.1% | 818 |
| Anthony Swarzak | -117.0 | 91.3 | 51.3% | 92.8 | 52.3% | 1252 |
| Doug Fister | -112.7 | 87.8 | 48.3% | 88.1 | 53.6% | 2715 |
| Wade LeBlanc | -111.7 | 84.8 | 48.1% | 86.0 | 50.8% | 971 |
| Tom Gorzelanny | -111.0 | 90.7 | 43.1% | 91.2 | 48.9% | 1250 |
| Charlie Furbush | -105.7 | 91.3 | 47.1% | 92.3 | 50.2% | 871 |
| LaTroy Hawkins | -105.4 | 91.7 | 58.8% | 93.3 | 56.8% | 861 |
| Josh Collmenter | -102.4 | 87.4 | 46.5% | 87.5 | 52.2% | 1266 |
| David Price | -101.5 | 92.3 | 52.7% | 92.3 | 57.0% | 1945 |
| Bruce Chen | -100.5 | 85.0 | 54.5% | 85.2 | 57.5% | 1393 |
Additionally, I have a full list for people to reference.
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.
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.
MATT HARVEY. =(