2012 Disabled List Summary
I have finally had enough time to muddle through the 2012 MLB transaction data and have compiled a complete disabled list (DL) data set for the year(second link). Let’s get right to the data.
Thoughts
– The Padres take the crown for most days lost with a total of 1883. The Padres lost almost 4 times as many days as the Mariners (452).
– Looking at just pitchers, the Yankees lost the most days with about 200 more than the Padres and Blue Jays. The Mariners and Rays were effectively tied at the bottom near 200 days.
– With batters, the Orioles and Padres lost the most days with the Red Sox 20 games behind.
– The most surprising fact I found in the data was the Twins only losing 53 days to their hitters. To put it into perspective, Morneau (93 days), Mauer (74 days), and Doumit (65 days) each spent more time on the DL in 2011 than all the Twins hitters did in 2012.
– More days were lost to the DL in 2012 (29,534), than in any previous season. The previous high was in 2007 with 400 less days lost. Here is a quick look at the trend over the last 10 years.
– Again, the White Sox are near the bottom of the list. To put it into perspective, here are the 3-year averages for days lost per team.
The lack of days lost by the White Sox, compared the rest of the league, is incredible. Over the last 3 years, the White Sox have averaged 400 days lost. The next closest time is the lovable Cubs at around 600. The Yankees, Nationals, and Red Sox have lost on average 3 times as many games per year over the same time frame.
The reason for the difference could be long time White Sox trainer, Herm “Teeth Crusher” Schneider. He has been the White Sox trainer for 34 years and has done an amazing job of keeping players on the field. There’s almost certainly some good luck in there as well, but kudos to Schneider on a pretty incredible run of health during his watch.
h/t to Chris Cwik for the Herm Schneider story.
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.
” Looking at just pitchers, the Yankees lost the most days with about 200 more than the Padres and Blue Jays. The Mariners and Rays were effectively tied at the bottom near 200 days.”
Is this pitchers in general or just starters? By my count, 302 of those games alone are accounted for just in Pineda and Rivera.
Hello,
I was trying to view the raw data and there is an error with the link (at least to my machine). Anyone else?
Thank you.
Sorry, small issues, use this for now: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApDc5PGsBzgVdEJkdjNpMTlHTXlDR2lsVF93bk9KZWc
Thank you, kind sir.
Would it be possible to weight days lost by projected WAR of the injured players?
I have thought about it, but there is way too many variable to account for to make the data useful.
Marcel projections could be used and if there is no Marcel projection, assume the player as replacement level.
The correlation is clear: baseball players are healthier when they ply their trade in Chicago… speculating as to the cause of this clear relationship is going to be fun…
It’s the magical healing properties of deep dish pizza and italian beef sandwiches.
I totally need to talk to my doctor about deep dish pizza…
Clearly, the answer is proximity to Goose Island and Three Floyds.
Don’t forget Two Brothers!
It is a testament to how spoiled I am as a White Sox fan that I was under the impression that they had injury problems this year and I was wondering, was ti an aberration? Was Schneider losing his touch? Did Guillen have something to do with it somehow? After all, Floyd, Danks, Crain, Konerko and others all had DL stints. I couldn’t recall a year that bad.
Turns out, it was a bad year by their standards. Just not by any other team’s.
Good thing Olivo’s indestructible.
From the media coverage over the last couple of years you would think the Red Sox would be double every other team. Turns out they aren’t even the most injured team in the AL East.
It strikes me that the teams that spend most time on the DL tend to be older teams, i.e., teams that with a bias toward acquiring talent through free agency (AKA big market teams). This appears to be especially true for pitchers. Is this real, or just faulty perception on my part? How well do team games lost correlate with team age?
I was thinking the same thing
I agree. I think there is an opportunity to take this data a step further and see how it correlates with age and team performance. I’m trying to eyeball it, but my eyes aren’t always correct.
There is, I looked at in more detail in last year’s article:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/2011-disable-list-spreadsheet-and-team-information/
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/10-year-disabled-list-trends/
interestingly, this seems to be the opposite with the padres… I think a lot of teams (padres included) are now seeing surgery as part of the young pitcher development process. Cashner, Stauffer, Luebke, Wieland, Moseley, Richard, and Volquez have all lost seasons to surgery before they turned 30. Surgery was also on the table for Bass and Kelly this year.
you mean, it seems that older pitchers are spending a ton of time on the DL? that’s just a shocking revelation
As a Mariners fan, my first reaction was, “Whoa, we won something!” Then I was let down realizing that we had our “starters” more than anybody else and still stunk. I hate reason.
Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.
I wish I could sort that data better. It would be nice to see a complete list, hope they didn’t miss anyone.
I also like the WAR idea, maybe even if it counted something like 2011 WAR lost to the DL in 2012 or something.
Thanks, this is very interesting!
It should be noted that many players who get injured in late August (or September) don’t get put on the DL, because their team elects to play a man short until rosters expand Sept. 1 (which makes the DL largely irrelevant for the rest of the year). For example, Pirates second baseman Neil Walker missed Aug. 27-Sept. 13 due to a lower back injury, but was not placed on the DL.
Days missed because of injuries, but not on DL are important, I agree.
See Neil Walker:
http://www.prosportstransactions.com/baseball/Search/SearchResults.php?Player=neil+walker&Team=&BeginDate=2012-03-25&EndDate=2012-12-28&submit=Search&InjuriesChkBx=yes
I am curious as to how much an organization’s luck regarding injury factors into the numbers, versus how much an organization’s strategy as to when to place someone on the DL factors into them? Is there even such a thing as the latter, or does Baseball have such strict rules governing how teams may use the DL that such strategy could not possibly play a role?
“The most surprising fact I found in the data was the Twins only losing 53 days to their hitters. To put it into perspective, Morneau (93 days), Mauer (74 days), and Doumit (65 days) each spent more time on the DL in 2011 than all the Twins hitters did in 2012.”
The Twins avoided placing players on the disabled list this year even tough they would have players go for 10+ days sitting on the bench unavailable due to injury. I can think of instances involving Span, Plouffe, and Morneau where the team kept the player active even though he couldn’t play. Some of these things may be captured in retroactive disabled list usage in your study, but some of them probably aren’t. Local writers dedicated vast quantities of ink, electronic and otherwise, to covering this subject.
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/08/30/denard-span-out-of-twins-lineup-for-13th-time-in-17-games/
It looks to me like Rays batters spent the most time on the DL. Is the graph correct there?
That’s a lot of good work but I think you skewed the numbers by including guys on the 40 man roster and not just players that were injured while on the 25 man roster. Take Alan Farina for example, He wasn’t even close to appearing on the 25 man roster for the Jays the last couple of years.
This graph is kind of useless because it makes a big difference WHO is on the DL. Is it a middle reliever, the #1 pitcher, or someone at the back of the rotation? Is it someone on the 25 man roster or 40? Is it a utility player, a backup outfielder, or the heart of the lineup?
Noticed that Joe Saunders on the DL is counting for the Orioles when he was not on that team at the time of the DL visit. There might be other errant data points as well.
I wonder how this looks in the 70’s (pre steroids) 90’s(during steroids) and now (post steroids) considering the healing power of the drug and the lower levels of testosterone the body produces after you have used it then go cold turkey