Mixing Fantasy & Reality: Hitter Shoulders & Injury Updates

• Strikeouts = Shoulder Injuries?

Lindsay Berra discussed the increased risk of a shoulder injury to Ohtani because he hits.

As a left-handed hitter, Ohtani’s pitching arm, his right, is his front shoulder when he is at the plate. In recent memory, we’ve seen several players battle injuries to their lead shoulder — Aaron Judge and Michael Brantley included.
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When a batter makes contact, the counterforce from hitting the ball activates the stabilizing muscles around the shoulder. If he misses, the lack of counterforce means that all the forces generated by the swing are absorbed by the shoulder. And as Ohtani adjusts to Major League pitching, it is likely he will swing and miss more than he did in Japan.
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“Imagine a left-hander swinging out of his shoes and missing,” says Eric Cressey of Cressey Performance in Hudson, Mass. “The right arm continues to come back, and when the arm goes into external rotation or horizontal abduction, the ball tends to fly forward in the socket, which can irritate the front of the shoulder and cause anterior shoulder instability.”

Ohtani will put slightly less stress on his front shoulder, because he has a two-handed finish — at least at the moment — but there will be stress on his pitching shoulder nonetheless.

First, go read the whole article or at least this section. I listed just some highlights but there are more details on hitter shoulder injuries in the full reading.

With the information, I conducted a small study to see if hitters who have shoulder injuries swing-and-miss more than the average hitter. Maybe strikeouts lead to DL stints. Here are the strikeout rates and swinging strike rates for hitters who went on the DL with shoulder injuries and those who didn’t. I used swinging strike rate because misses are supposedly worse than making contact.

When I first started collecting the stats, 2016 and 2017 seemed to confirm the assumption that swing-and-misses lead to injuries. The assumption died then over the next four seasons.

While not a perfect study, it doesn’t set off any red flags.

Also, I looked went the other way I looked at the chances a hitter went on the DL knowing his swingand-miss rate. Setting the cutoff at 10% SwStr%, the hitters (min 100 PA) who didn’t swing-and-miss went on the DL 2.8% of the time for shoulder injuries. It was 3.0% for the high swinging strike rate crowd. Additionally, I looked to see if it was predictive with the swinging strike rate in year one leads to an injury in year two. Again, not a major difference (3.3% to 3.1%).

Fantasy owners have no reason to worry about a possible 0.2% difference in DL rate for now. I find the information intriguing but without being predictive, it’s basically useless for now. I may re-investigate a future date the information and will keep it in mind when hitters have a shoulder injury but I’m done for now.

• I’m a little surprised by this news but Shoehei Ohtani has now moved into the 3rd round.

Shoehei Ohtani's ADP in @thenfbc was 77 before his signing with the Angels. In our last three drafts since then he has gone 50th, 45th and 40th. And he's Pitcher-only in the NFBC. Yikes.

— Greg Ambrosius (@GregAmbrosius) December 11, 2017

In a previous article, I found some comparable pitchers to his projections and none were this close.

• Josh Hader may be moved back-and-forth from the rotation to bullpen next season.

So, starter or relief? As a starter, if he can continue to improve the changeup — which would be required to navigate lineups likely to be stacked top-to-bottom with right-handed hitters — Hader would deliver more innings. As a reliever, Counsell could have more control over the matchups, and Hader could deliver high-leverage work in a higher percentage of the team’s games.

“Look, we have not added any pitchers to the mix as of yet,” Counsell said. “So I think part of that decision kind of is reflective on what we add and who we add. The other thing is that he had a lot of success in the role we used him in last year. Are there ways to expand on that? Can you use him at the start of the game in a role like that?

“So we’re considering everything right now with Josh. On Dec. 10, you feel like you’ve got some time still.”

More news has been trickling out from players who played through injuries.

• Dallas Keuchel pitched through a foot injury in the season’s second half.

Houston Astros left-hander Dallas Keuchel pitched with an undisclosed injury to his left foot during the second half of the season and throughout the team’s run to the World Series title in October, multiple sources told ESPN.com.

Keuchel was placed in a walking boot after the season to stabilize the foot. But the injury did not necessitate surgery, and he is currently working out in Houston and expects to be ready for the start of spring training, a source said.

Something was obviously wrong. The first half his K%-BB% was at 18% with a 1.67 ERA. In the second half is K%-BB% dropped to 9% with his ERA jumping to 4.24. l think the World Series run helped his perceived value as owners remain high on him (ADP = 71).

• Ian Kennedy sustained a hamstring injury which kept him from throwing his changeup.

“[The injury] was tough,” Kennedy said. “I felt like it took away my changeup, which I didn’t have until my last start of the year. Every time I threw the changeup after I came back from the disabled list, I could feel [the hamstring]. It was just on the changeup. It got worse and worse.”

The numbers back up Kennedy’s observation. Before the hamstring injury, opponents hit .100 off his changeup (2-for-20), slugged at .250 and had a whiff rate of 48.7 percent, per Statcast™. But after the injury, opponents slugged .429 off his changeup and his whiff rate dropped to 27.4 percent.

Kennedy isn’t useful in most leagues but in deeper ones where every warm body is owned, he may be worth considering over some “has beens.

• Mike Napoli dealt with a torn ligament for the 2017 season.

Free agent Mike Napoli had surgery on torn ligament in right hand. Played with it all year. Intriguing power hitting first base option.

— Rob Bradford (@bradfo) December 1, 2017

Depending on the team who signs him, he could be a huge draft day bargain if he returns to his 2016 level of production.