2011 Disabled List Spreadsheet and Team Information
I have gone through all of the 2011 MLB transactions and compiled the disabled list (DL) data for the 2011 season. I have put all the information in a Google Doc for people to use
Here is an explanation of the columns
Last – Last name
First – First name
Transaction Date – Date transaction was reported to MLB
Official On DL Date – Official date the player went on DL.
On DL – In Season – Players can be placed on DL before the season starts. This date is the first day the player was on the DL during the season.
Official Off DL Date – Players can be kept on DL after the season ends. This date is the last day the player was on the DL during the season.
Official Off DL Date – Official date the player was taken off the DL
Days – Total days on the DL. In Season On and Off DL dates were used to determine this value
Des – Description of the transaction
Team – Player’s team
Position – Player’s position
DL – Type of DL: 7, 15 or 60 day DL
Location – Location on body
Type – Type of injury
Side – Side of the body that the injury occurred
Body type – What on body was injured
Extent – Extent of injury
Surgery – Did the player have surgery
Surgery date – When did the surgery happen
On 60 DL – When the player get transferred from the 15 day DL to the 60 day DL
I am making the data free to the public, so anyone can use it in any way they see fit. Also, if anyone find any errors let me know and I will correct the data.
Team Data
Here is a quick look at the team data for 2011. First, here is the number of days and trips to the DL:
The one interesting fact, besides the White Sox having almost the least amount of DL again, that sticks out to me is that younger teams, like the Rays and Royals, have fewer trips and days lost. I went ahead and plotted the average age of the team (data taken from baseball-reference.com) vs. the total number of days lost to see if there was any data behind the hunch.
A small trend does exist between the average age and days lost, but there is a bunch of other factors at work as well.
I will look some more into the data (ex. salary lost, DL projections) once some people have looked over the complete list of transactions to make sure it is as error free as possible.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
It’s not as important as actually winning games, but the White Sox always do well keeping their players healthy. Last year they had Jake Peavy on the team and still are at the good end of the list.
Herm Schneider and his crew deserve a lot of credit.
super message , comme d habitude .
bravo.
Jeff, would be interesting to see how the Blue Jays do without Dustin McGowan data in there.
I’m a bit shocked at the Red’s middle-of-the-pack performance, especially in terms of pitchers days on the DL. They have been so routinely the worst in baseball for decades — was 2011 a fluke or have they slowed down their rate of destroying arms? Oh, wait, Arroyo should’ve spent the entire year on the DL, and the Reds had so many injuries early in the season they were having to make roster moves daily. It was not a good year.
There’s a few errors on players who went on the DL twice in the season. Rajai Davis is counted for 45 days (8/14 to 9/28) and 170 days (4/11 to 9/28) instead of 45 and 18 (4/11 to 4/29). Homer Bailey’s got the same problem. Perhaps more.
Thanks, I will correct them soon.
can you add a WAR component in an effort to distinguish teams which lost games from impact players vs role players?
I asked that last year, maybe it’s coming later. Of course, which WAR to use, the previous years, a 3 yr avg, or same year, pro-rated (for injuries after May for eg).
I will have to see it I will look at them with WAR. The amount of time to collect the data would be immense.
I wonder how that scatterplot would look if we distinguished between pitchers and position players. No specific reasoning, just curious.
Any way to find out how many of these DL days were, for the most part, irrelevant? For example, Around 530 of those games for Texas came from Brandon Webb, Omar Beltre, and Mason Tobin
Organizational philosophy may play a role. Yankees have depth and can afford to DL anyone with the sniffles, they don’t mind having immobile statues in the field (fewer injuries?), and love the elderly. Angels, Rays, Tigers contended and may’ve had guys (voluntarily “for the team” or otherwise) play through injuries. Royals have a “tough-guy” manager. Plus, of course, luck.
Who really knows the many things that go into that chart, but trainer competence is probably less than most think.
maybe you already knew this, but baseball prospectus provides injury information on their player pages, this might be a helpful resource for you if you’re compiling this in future years.
Thank you for all your hard work. Much appreciated.