Injury Report - 2016

Welcome back to another year of the injury report!  I am going to experiment with a new format for this because I think I can pack more information into the article without as many boring (and repetitive) words.  let's see how it goes.

Reds Injuries

Jeff Zimmerman, whom I've referenced before, keeps a database of injuries throughout MLB from which I can find out what is the average number of days a player misses for a given injury type.  Actually I'm using the median and just calling it average, because most injuries have a very non-normal distribution, but moving on.  It goes back to 2010 and it is pretty awesome if you happen to be tasked with writing about injuries.  One thing to note: Zimmerman's days missed only includes days with team games scheduled, so the numbers will undershoot the actual number of calendar days missed.  On the other hand, I count all days during the regular season whether a game is scheduled or not.  Again, it will still undershoot because a lot of players will have some healing time which comes during the offseason and pull the average for a given injury down.  But it gives a solid baseline, since most injuries happen during the season, and most injuries don't last into the offseason.

On to our Redlegs.

The team is currently eyeing a return sometime in May for Homer Bailey.  If you count by the Gregorian calendar (as opposed to the MLB one), almost all pitchers return in the 12-15 month timeframe from Tommy John, putting Homer Bailey right on track to return at the front end of that frame.

Michael Lorenzen was recently transferred to the 60-day DL, perhaps portending that his generic "elbow soreness" is something more sinister.  The generic is bad enough, with the average pitcher missing nearly two months for that injury.  May 10 was obviously too optimistic for Anthony Desclafani's return.  Maybe by as much as three weeks or more.

Jon Moscot missed 16 days with a strained intercostal, where the average pitcher misses double that.  He was aided by the fact that the injury occurred during spring training and therefore didn't count against his days missed until the season started.  Even still, he recovered on the quicker side.  Cozart missed 3 days with his quad injury.  Brandon Phillips injured his finger when hit by a pitch from Noah Syndergaard last night.  He hasn't missed any games yet but I imagine he will miss at least a few.  It was a relief to learn that the finger was not broken as BP was clearly in a lot of pain.

Minor Leagues

Well, Chad Rogers missed a lot of time for a meniscus injury, apparently.  Although, not knowing what kind of meniscus injury he actually had, maybe it was not long, who knows.  He suffered the injury in May of last year (presumably not shark-related), and just returned to game action on April 19.  Luis Gonzalez's return looks speedy, but he injured himself at the end of last season and only returned two weeks into this one.  Also, the average SS only misses 40 days from a broken ankle?  That seems short to me, and Gonzalez's timetable the normal seeming one.  But there may have only been one or two SS broken ankles in the database, and maybe they had offseasons to recover as well.

There's a whole list of guys who injured themselves in the pre-season and have not been activated yet.  SS Calten Daal missed 17 days with a head injury.  SS Cory Thompson might be out for a while yet, based on the average length of absence for sprained wrists.

Housekeeping (2015 Injuries)

The following players were injured in 2015 and have not yet returned to game action.  Dan Langfield might be dead.

I am only guessing that Langfield's injury was pre-season 2015, because he didn't throw an inning that year, nor obviously this year.  It might have been earlier than that.  Nate Adcock could be looking at a July or August return, if he still has a roster spot (and with this year's bullpen he well may).  As for Joe Mantoni and Joel bender, at least they timed their injuries to miss as little time as possible.  The other piece of the Alfredo Simon trade, Jonathan Crawford remains decommissioned.

Check the state of injuries for yourself via the link.  Be forewarned, I don't update as regularly as I have in the past.  If you want breaking injury news, Google is a thing.  If you want a summation of the injuries in the entire Reds system, this is your thing.