Marty’s musings: Yankees hit by the injury-bug

Welcome to ‘Marty’s Musings’, my weekly column of numbers summarizing the happenings in the baseball world. I am your guide for taking an analytic look at the news and notes throughout the game, and highlighting this week’s key pitching matchups.

This week we look at some of the key injuries around the league as we head towards Opening Day, a media giant and streaming service play hardball on broadcasting MLB games, and the Diamondbacks unknowingly signed a player who is apparently a pretty good cattle roper.

News & Notes

2 - Yankees’ starters who will miss significant time, with Luis Severino out for the year due to a partial UCL team, and James Paxton on-the-shelf until May. The latest development of Severino needing Tommy John Surgery is discouraging news from a team that looked like they had a strong and deep rotation. Depth dries up quickly these days, but lucky for the Yankees, the Red Sox got worse this offseason, and the Jays probably need another year or two before they hit their stride.

18 - Total fWAR of Aaron Judge over the last three seasons, and it does not look like he’ll be ready for Opening Day. Judge is the lifeblood of the Yankees’ offense, and there is no timetable for his return from a shoulder injury that has so far prevented him from taking at bats from live pitching.

On top of the not-great news on Judge, Giancarlo Stanton has a grade-1 calf strain. The former NL MVP only played 18 games last season as he suffered setback after setback.

15 - Teams embroiled in a media dispute between Sinclair and YouTube. Sinclair owns Regional Sports Networks as part of their media conglomerate, and has to deal with the effects of cord-cutting and streaming. As usual, the losers here are the fans, who just want to consume games in the most convenient and cost-effective way possible.

0 - Teams that have made a compelling offer to Yasiel Puig. Matt Provenzano wrote an excellent piece about why Puig is stuck in no-man’s land three weeks before Opening Day. He remains unsigned and available for anyone who wants him, despite being a productive, though not star-level, player the last few seasons.

$26,560 - December competitive rodeo winnings for Mason Saunders, aka Madison Bumgarner. In one of the oddest stories of an off-season filled with oddities, The Athletic reported Bumgarner repeatedly competed in team rodeo competitions. The Giants singe-A team will celebrate the development with a Mason Saunders Night on June 5th.

24 - Days until Opening Day.