2011 DL Tracker and Adam Wainwright

In the last couple days several players – most notably Adam Wainwright, but also Vicente Padilla and Nick Punto – have come up lame. Naturally, the loss of each of these players will have different effects on their teams’ respective win totals, as the Cardinals loss of Punto isn’t nearly as dramatic a blow as the news about Wainwright today. This season, I plan on tracking all players headed to the disabled list during the season including information on the injury, the amount of WAR and salary that were lost, along with several other factors

First of all, here is the spreadsheet to be viewed or downloaded containing all the players on or heading to the Nick Johnson List for 2011. As of right now, no player is officially on the DL, but several players will definitely be placed on the DL by opening day. I hope to keep this sheet updated daily by adding players as their information becomes available.

Here is how Adam Wainwright’s injury can be viewed in the spreadsheet. Wainwright’s 2011 salary is $6.5 million according to Cot’s Contracts. All of it will be lost if he has to undergo Tommy John Surgery and is out of the entire season. While it’s a big blow to their chances of winning the NL Central, thankfully the Cardinals didn’t have a large portion of their budget tied up in Wainwright. The rest of the dates will be filled on the day he officially goes on the DL and the date he is expected to come off the DL. The transferred to 60-day DL and DL type (15 or 60 day) will also be filled in once the data is official.

The next set of data is the actual injury information. In the case of Wainwright, all that is known for certain right now is that he has a injured ligament in his right elbow. I will link the articles in the next couple of columns where I source the injury information from and will keep it updated as news comes out

The next several columns track how the player did before and after the injury in 2011. This information is collected to see if players benefit or not from the time off. Since the season has not started yet, none of this information is filled out, but I wanted to give you a preview of coming attractions.

Finally, the amount of WAR lost to the injury is revealed. This data is calculated from estimating the time lost and using a projected FIP value. In Wainwright’s case, I used 200 innings and an FIP of 3.20 as his 2011 projected stats. These values work out to almost 6 WAR lost by the Cardinals. If they can only find a replacement-level pitcher to take his place, their chances of winning the NL central have dropped considerably.

I will be tracking injuries again this season at FanGraphs and I hope the attached spreadsheet will help show how much a player on the DL affects his team, such as in Adam Wainwright’s case.