Here is a look at the past week comings and goings of players on the DL

Coming back from the DL
Scott Kazmir – 4 IP, 8 hits, 3 BB, 2K, 6 runs vs Yankees
Jeff Suppan – 5 IP, 6 hits, 1 BB, 4K, 4 runs vs Cubs
Reggie Willits – 4 PA, 2BB
Brett Carroll – 9 PA, 3 hits, 1 2B, 1 3B

Going to the DL
Jo-Jo Reyes – Hyper-extended Right Knee – Talking Chop looks to see if the reason behind the move is because of injury or other motives.
Garrett Mock – Neck Nerve Injury – He was optioned to minors and then told the team about the injury.
Jason LaRue – Strained Right Hamstring – Injury caused when running the bases.
Jimmy Rollins – Strained Right Calf – Injury caused warming up before game
Mike Gonzalez – Strain Right Shoulder – Pain happened while warming in the bullpen during a game.
Brian Fuentes – Strained Muscle in Mid Back – Hurt his back pitching on 4/6
Esmailin Caridad – Strain Right Calf – Person to replace him as main Cubs setup man has not yet determined.
Kelly Shoppach – Sprained Right Knee – Injury probably caused by collision at home plate with Curtis Granderson

So far this season 100 players have made the trip to the DL with only 7 coming off so far.

Here are a few players that have some nagging injuries that could be heading to the DL

Ross Ohlendorf – Back Spasms – He had a start skipped on Monday and will not pitch this Saturday. There is a good chance he will go on the DL

Felix Pie – Strained Right Rotor Cuff – Injury occurred back on 4/6. He could be heading to the DL anytime.

Mark Ellis – Strained Hamstring – He has not played since 4/11.

Jacoby Ellsbury – Bruised Left Ribs – Team looking of not putting him on DL, depends on Mike Cameron’s status

Mike Cameron – Passed a kidney stone Friday and looks to be back in a few days

Sprain vs. Strain

Baseball players are always going down with a sprain or a strain. The difference between the two is pointed out by Dr.  Benjamin C. Wedro:

“A sprain is an injury to ligaments, while a strain is an injury to muscle or tendon tissue. “

I don’t have an easy way to easily remember which is which, so a little brute memorization is needed.

Minor League Injury Report

Baseball America looks at the injury status of several minor leaguers. The most notable update is the one that shows Desmond Jennings returning to the Rays AAA team sometime in May. When I did an average of 13 different prospect rankings a while back, Jennings came in 9th overall.

Discussion of the A’s and the DL

Athletics Nation looks into why the team is investing in often injured players. Are these injured players a market ineffiency Billy Beane has discovered or just a chance he has to take being a small market team? Looking at some of my past work at Beyond the Boxscore, Oakland actually stands up pretty well to the rest of the league being in the top 10 in least trips and days on the DL from 2002 to 2009.

Jose Guillen and Blood Clots

Jose Guillen spent 20 days in a hospital over the winter getting blood clots removed from legs. This hospitalization happened during the same time Dayton Moore went out and signed Brian Anderson, Scott Podsednik and Rick Ankiel to major league deals. It seemed like the Royals weren’t planning on having him back for the season, but they are happy he has returned. Tomorrow, Jose is going for a tie of the Royals record of home runs hit in consectcutive games with five.

MLB Teams Drafting Injured Players

In his blog, Andy Seiler, looks at how teams, like the Yankees, are begining to take more chances on injured players in the draft. The amount of data available is minimal right now to see if this strategy works, but as more become available the exact risk/reward will be more known.

Labrum Surgeries

If any pitcher is recommended labrum surgery, I can see why they put it off until they are sure it is the only option. It is pretty close to a career ending injury.

The are several projection systems available to determine if AL and NL teams played each other who would win by looking at each player’s projections stats. I am going to keep it a little simpler than that here. USA Today has the team payrolls for the 2010 now available. Here is the average payroll for all the American and National League teams:

American League: $95.8 million
National League: $86.0 million

About $10 million extra dollars on the free agent market will get an AL team on average +2.5 WAR to be spread to its players.

Now what happens to the averages when the Yankees and their $206 million payroll are removed from the equation.

American League: $87.3 million
National League: $86.0 million

If the Yankees were to be removed from baseball completely, the two leagues would be more evenly matched up, at least with the amount of dollars spent on players in the major leagues.

There may be other reasons for some of the disparity – better General Managers and young talent in the AL – but again when the discussion gets around to winning in baseball, the Yankees are right in the middle of it.

Comings and Goings

Three of the 83 players that started the season on the disabled list have returned to playing in the majors:

Gil Meche – He was roughed up in his start on Sunday. 3.1 innings 7 runs on 8 hits and 3 walks. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was rushed coming back and will see more DL this season.

Jose Reyes – Just 2 for 8 with one extra base hit and a walk since he has returned. At least one of the Met’s walking wounded has come back.

Joel Hanrahan – Kinda a meh outing: 1.0 IP, 2 BB, 2 SO. I like him as a super dark horse to take over the Pirates closer role.

A few players joined the official ranks of the DL recently:

Brian Roberts – Strained abdominal muscle – The strain has been bothering him for a couple of days. Initial reports sound like it will take longer than the minimum 15 days to recover

Chris Young – Strained right shoulder – This is the same shoulder that he had surgery on this off season. The team currently plans on having him back after the required 15 days are up.

Aaron Hill – Tender right hamstring – Aaron hasn’t played since April 8th and isn’t 100%. He thinks he could play through the pain if needed, but there is no reason to jeopardize the rest of the season.

Miguel Montero – Sprained right knee – The true extent of injury is unknown and Chris Snyder will take over the full time catching duties.

Sean Green – Right intercostal muscle strain – Minor injury for the last man chosen for the Met’s Opening Day pen.

Brad Ausmus – Pinch nerve in lower back – Full extent of injury unknown.

Extending the Roster with the DL

Two players, Fred Lewis and Josh Fields, look like they are being kept on the DL because they are out of options. The Giants and the Royals would have to expose them to the waiver wire in order for them to be sent to the minors.

Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News reports that Lewis is healthy, but being held at his rehab assignment as the team looks to move him. San Francisco has 6 outfielders currently on the roster so there is no need for him there. He has 20 days to rehab with a team, so he could be rehabbing for a couple more weeks as the team tries to move him.

Josh Fields of the Royals came away with a mystery injury at the end of Spring Training that no knew about until it was posted. After talking to several people close to the team, no one knows what is going on with Fields. As someone noted, he seems to have a case of “Notverygoodandoutofoptions-iatis”

Just a little manipulation by teams to extend the rosters.

Grading Calf Sprains

Jimmy Rollins went down with a Grade 2 calf sprain on Monday while warming up. I had to look up the extents myself, so I figured I would pass on this information from Dr. Nathan Wei. I looked at several websites and they all generally agree on extent and time frame.

Grade 1
• Stretching with some micro-tearing of muscle fibers.
• Recovery can be complete in about 2-3 weeks.

Grade 2
• Partial tearing of muscle fibers.
• Recovery can take up to 1-2 months.

Grade 3
• Complete tearing (rupture) of muscle fibers.
• Complete recovery can take more than 3 months.

If the initial reports are true, it looks like Rollins is out four to eight weeks. He under went an MRI on Tuesday to find out the exact damage. Some unsubstantiated reports say he is only going to be out 2 weeks, nothing official yet. I will post more data as it become officially available.

Rehabs Taking Longer

Ian Kinsler and Ted Lilly were to be coming off the DL soon, but both are not making much progress. Ian is finally able to take some fielding practice, while Ted was scratched from a rehab start on 4/11.

Todd Zolecki looks at the Phillies pitchers (Romero, Lidge and Blanton) on the disabled list. Each pitcher looks to be returning no sooner than the first of May. The Phillies are looking to add some help from the waiver wire.

Looks like Brian Sanches of the Marlins should be ready to go off the DL on April 10th as he has a mild hamstring strain. He will be a welcome addition when he returns.

Fire Jim Bowden points out that the Nationals start the season with half of the team out of position due to players on the DL.

The Brew Town Beat looks at the ten greatest injuries in all sports. Only two baseball players made it, Robin Ventura at #7 and Jason Kendall at #2.

Met fans didn’t forget about last year and greeted the teams training staff on opening day.

Two of the newest players with injury news are Sammy Gervacio of the Astros (link) and Felix Pie of the Orioles (link). After a big push over the weekend to get everyone on the DL, the rate has slowed down. On average it is two people going on the DL each day. Here is a list of the average number of trips to the DL from 2002 to 2008:

March 46
April 104
May 78
June 70
July 59
August 67
September 11

Two of the Tiger’s top pitching prospects, Casey Crosby and Cody Satterwhite, are hurting with Satterwhite possibly being done for his career. TINSTAAPP

Programming note: I am looking to doing a series on different injury types and treatments. Let me know if there are any topics you would like to see covered.

Monday night, Oakland’s Ben Sheets made his first regular season start in over a year. His results were decent. He went 5 innings and gave up 3 runs (2 earned). He was a little lucky in that he allowed 4 walks and had only 3 strikeouts. This start was one I have been waiting for to see how surgery on his pitching elbow affected his fastball speed.

Ben was one of the best pitchers in the league from 2003 to 2005 when he was averaging 5.3 WAR a year. His dominant pitch during that time was his fastball with a average run value -1 more than his curve ball (a larger negative number is better).

Then in 2006 he had problems with his left shoulder and missed over half the season. Coming back in 2007, he threw his fastball the same amount of time, but the results were not the same. His curve ball became his dominate pitch with a average 100 pitch run value of 1 greater than his curve ball.

Ben missed all of the 2009 season as a free agent with a torn tendon in is right elbow. He signed with the A’s this off season for 8 million dollars and a chance to prove that he is back.

Ben pitched his first game with Pitch F/X cameras on Monday. The initial results don’t look that good. First, his average velocity was down 1.5 MPH from his previous averages. Also, his 2010 peak speed is near his 2007 and 2008 average speeds:

Mike Fast at the Hardball Times recently wrote that for every 1 MPH decrease, the pitchers run value with go up 0.28 runs. The run value on Ben’s fastball would increase to approximately the 1.4 run level level. The loss of velocity on his fastball could be costing Ben around one third a run per game depending on how much he throws it.

Ben Sheets first start shows that his fastball is not up to speed and will probably cost him some runs over the season. For the A’s, he was a risky investment, but one they probably needed to take in the competitive AL West.

Way Not to Use Your Head

Has anyone told the players that Spring Training doesn’t count. It doesn’t matter, especially if you are a regular. Why take a chance to miss part of the season? Well Alex Gordon and Coco Crisp will be missing a month of time each this season because they broke a finger each sliding in head first. How many of the 81 players that are on the DL are because of sliding in feet first, none. Maybe Alex and Coco didn’t see it as a problem, but now they and other players should.

Beginning the Season on the DL

The last few days, teams have been busy adding players to the disabled list. A decent percentage of the total number of DL trips happen at the beginning of season on average. Mainly this happens because of players recovering from off-season surgeries.

Over the past 8 years, there have been an average of 439 trips to the DL over an entire season. To start off this season, 81 players are on the DL or about 18% of an average season’s total. Twenty-eight of those trips are now for players still recovering from surgeries.

Not so Greatest Shape of Their Lives

At the beginning of Spring Training, Dave Cameron looked for players that said they were in the greatest shape of their lives. Of this group of 28 players, only one is currently on the DL, Daisuke Matsuzaka. I figured there was going to be more. Quite a few more games are left to play, so the list may change quite a bit. I plan on coming back to this list at least every month to see how these workout studs hold up over the season.

Unique Injury

Each team reports to MLB the nature of each player’s injury for reporting. Lance Berkman was said to have a “cranky” knee. Maybe the knee sees the team the Astros put together and becoming more disruptive with its complaints.

Today the Houston Astros officially put Lance Berkman on the disabled list to start the season with left knee problems. The issues began on March 1st when he felt discomfort and swelling in his knee. The club had an MRI done on the knee and the results came back with a left knee contusion, basically a bruise. During the second week of March, he had fluid drained twice from the knee which kept him from playing. Then he had arthroscopic surgery on March 13 to remove loose particles from his knee which found no other damage in his knee. Yesterday the knee began to swell again after practicing and the team placed him in the DL today. The move was retroactive to March 26 with him available at the earliest on April 10th

So what does this mean?

For Lance, it looks like he may have to take easy, which may be tough for him. He has only missed 51 total days to the DL over the past 5 years. He expects to be on the field, but he will need to make sure he is fine before playing again.

It is hard to try to find the true extent of the injury. He had pain and swelling that surgery didn’t seem to correct. My guess is that he came back too fast from surgery hoping to make the opening day roster (maybe he bought 20 tickets already for friends and family) or the real cause of the injury has not yet been resolved.

I would be impressed if he makes back by April 10th and we could see the extent of this injury be even worse.

For the Astros, this injury was one of the last things they wanted to see happen to their roster this year. Chone projects Lance with a 0.381 wOBA this season while his replacement, Geoff Blum looks to hit a 0.294 wOBA (a level below replacement level for 1B). Berkman by far the best hitter in the Astros lineup and he will definitely be missed.

The Astros aren’t expect to do decent this season (73-89 projected by CHONE) and losing Berkman for any amount of time will just hurt an already disadvantaged team.