MASH Report (8/29/13)

I narrowed down the PAIN list to just August vs. the rest of the season for today. Additionally, I looked at Justin Verlander and ran an updated HURT list.

• In our Tuesday night chat, someone asked Paul Swydan and me if Verlander’s decline is because of an injury. Challenge taken. The 30-year-old’s average fastball velocity and Zone% are down over the last few seasons.

Season: Average Fastball Velocity, Zone%
2010: 95.4, 52.3%
2011: 95.0, 51.0%
2012: 94.3, 51.9%
2013: 93.1, 50.7%

Normally, a pitcher would expect to lose 0.25 mph per season, so over these seasons it seems Verlander has lost a little more zip than expected. He has been able to maintain the velocity during this season though. With the loss of speed, he is not able to pound the strike zone as much therefore the low Zone%. Additionally, I went and looked at his late game consistency over the past two seasons

It is a nice even level this season.

I don’t think he is injured. Age is catching up with him. Since 2008, he is just one of seven different starters who averaged a 93 mph fastball at age 30 or more. He has this season’s 15th highest WAR total so far. He is no scrub, just not the MVP Verlander from a couple of seasons ago.

• For Matt Harvey coverage, see my article on his injury from a couple days ago.

• Matt Moore is going to throw a rehab game tonight before starting Tuesday for the Rays. Check to see where his velocity stands in the start.

• Neftali Feliz will join Rangers on Saturday. I would stay away until he has a few games under his belt and his role is defined.

• Brandon McCarthy stated he found a problem with his delivery and was to correct it in his Tuesday night start. His results were great, 5 K, 0 BB, 0 Runs. Looking over his Pitchf/x information, not much of a change in his pitches though. The big concern is the ~2 mph drop in his sinker speed compated to earlier in the season.

DL Returners

• Brett Anderson was at 92 mph in a relief appearance yesterday which is consistent with his previous velocity.

• Matt Thornton’s velocity looks fine.

HURT (Hitter’s Under-performance from Recent Trauma) Rankings (all hitter with at least 400 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 in

Name	HURT	2010 to 2012 PA	2013 PA
Albert Pujols	140	2021	443
Chris Johnson	127	1295	439
Paul Konerko	110	1868	419
Starlin Castro	101	1912	579
Vernon Wells	97	1437	404
Prince Fielder	90	2096	592
Nick Markakis	84	1896	575
Troy Tulowitzki	82	1338	407
Jimmy Rollins	78	1724	555
Jay Bruce	73	1870	569
J.P. Arencibia	73	895	427
Victor Martinez	72	1133	556
Jarrod Saltalamacchia	65	864	406
Colby Rasmus	64	1685	439
Joe Mauer	62	1558	508
Pablo Sandoval	62	1524	476

• Could an injury be behind Starlin Casto’s decline? Let’s look.

ISO (.093) is a career low.
Speed Score (3.8) is a career low.
Contact% (81.4%) is a career low.

Yep, he has all the signs of a player hurt. After searching the interwebs, I found he had a hamstring injury in spring training, but that was it. I figured is decline may have been from suckitude (and still could be), but maybe an injury is behind the drop.

PAIN (Pitcher Abuse INdex) Rankings (min 100 pitches, comparing 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.

Name	PAIN	Velocity (BOS)	Zone% (BOS)	Velocity (August)	Zone% (August)
Sergio Romo	221.4	87.8	44.9%	86.8	35.8%
Bartolo Colon	196.3	89.9	58.0%	87.6	50.0%
Scott Downs	192.6	88.0	39.2%	87.6	31.7%
Jarred Cosart	173.6	95.0	50.9%	94.3	42.1%
Joe Thatcher	162.6	85.7	57.4%	85.7	45.0%
Brandon McCarthy	161.3	90.9	57.0%	89.3	49.7%
Mark Melancon	149.8	92.1	47.3%	92.3	37.9%
Chad Qualls	147.7	93.9	56.1%	94.1	44.5%
Yoervis Medina	144.2	94.2	42.3%	93.2	38.3%
Ryan Vogelsong	137.2	89.9	48.7%	87.9	46.0%
Lucas Luetge	136.4	90.5	42.9%	91.2	34.5%
Chad Gaudin	131.6	91.2	51.6%	89.3	48.1%
Chris Perez	123.2	92.5	56.3%	92.5	46.7%
Hisashi Iwakuma	120.9	88.5	51.5%	87.5	46.0%
Casey Janssen	120.4	89.6	50.4%	89.6	42.5%
Luke Gregerson	119.4	88.0	47.0%	88.3	39.4%
Wade Miley	114.3	91.0	48.0%	90.8	41.7%
Lucas Harrell	110.1	91.9	40.7%	91.5	37.3%
Alex Torres	109.1	91.3	47.4%	91.5	40.6%
Addison Reed	108.5	93.1	55.5%	92.0	50.0%
A.J. Griffin	106.6	88.8	51.5%	89.1	43.4%
Rick Porcello	106.2	91.3	48.2%	91.0	42.6%
Mike Dunn	105.5	94.4	54.7%	94.4	46.4%
Jason Vargas	105.1	87.8	47.7%	86.8	44.5%
Craig Breslow	102.6	89.6	45.1%	90.4	37.5%
Jeremy Bonderman	102.4	90.6	45.6%	91.3	38.0%

• First, the sample size here is really small. I used 100 pitches in August and before as the cut off.

• Jarred Cosart and his 1.59 ERA sticks out. Mike Podhorzer looked at his possible ERA regression earlier in the day.

His velocity is down a bit, but his Zone% is way down. With only 3 start before August, I wanted to look at his game Pitchf/x data. In his last start, he lost about 4 mph over the course of the game, while earlier in the season in was only 2 mph.

First Start of the Season

Last Start

Additionally, his release points went from a tight pattern in his first MLB start to a much wider pattern in his last start.

A few red flags exist and it would be nice to see this trend reversed.

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.