Managing the disabled list isn’t often the difference between winning and losing a league, but if it’s done poorly, it can leave owners hurting for bench space and restrict the ability to grab sleepers or move out a slumping player. This time of year, if used well, the DL can be used almost as an extra draft slot. Grabbing an already injured player, then using that vacated spot to pull a top option off the wire gives owners a way to fill a weakness that emerged during the draft.

There is a huge caveat here: I don’t recommend this plan for those who only have one DL spot. At all. The unpredictability of injuries — I see you Miguel Cabrera — means that giving over the only injury refuge on the roster to someone like a Brett Anderson or Dallas Braden produces the wicked choice of dropping the newly injured player, dropping the long-term injury despite the sunk cost already incurred, or playing with a shortened bench. Survivable? Sure, but far less than ideal. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, I posted my 2012 starting pitcher DL projections. In the projections, I used games started, age, and injury history to predict the percentage chance a pitcher will end up on the DL. Today, I am going to give an initial stab at how throwing a large number of curveballs and sliders affects a pitcher’s DL chances.

I started by looking at the season after the season in which a pitcher threw over 120 innings. Normally, 39% of these pitchers will end up on the DL. The percentage increases even more if the pitcher threw a large number of sliders or curveballs.

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A pitcher’s fantasy value is more than ERA, WHIP or K/9. Even if they have great values in rate stats, they are useless if they aren’t pitching. Today I am going to give the chances for certain starting pitchers to end up on the disabled list in 2012.

Last year, I determined a formula to get the percentage chance a pitcher will end up on the DL. Historically, any starter that pitched 120 innings in the previous season has a 41% chance of ending up on the DL. So of a team’s 5 starters, 2 will spend time on the DL on average.

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The Milwaukee Brewers may have expected to go into the regular season without one of their key players. While the Brewers will have Ryan Braun for the entire season, Corey Hart might miss some time at the beginning of the year following arthroscopic surgery on his knee. Though the outfielder is expected to only miss three-to-four weeks — and might even be ready for Opening Day — there’s also a chance he’ll miss a few games to begin the season. While that doesn’t seem like much, it could have an impact on the transitioning Brewers.

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We — collectively — are going to steal Mike Podhorzer’s idea and make some crazy predictions for the coming season. Every year, something happens to surprise baseball viewership. Jose Bautista and Lance Berkman come to mind over the past few years.

So let’s try to open our minds and let crazy in for some fun. Then we’ll look back at the end of the season and see which RotoGraphs staff member can access the other side most effectively — then we’ll scoot down the bench a little away from him.

1) No player will hit 40 home runs this year. Obviously Mike Stanton and Jose Bautista loom large, but there were only three guys that managed the feat last year, and the point is that power is down. Handy graph time!

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Grady Sizemore

Grady is out until opening day with a strained lower back. Grady has played in only 104 games total over the last 2 seasons and is fairly familiar with the being on the DL. Currently, there is no firm time table for his return.

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Zach Britton (BAL – P) – In 2011, Britton started his first season in the majors on a tear. After his first 10 games, the ground ball pitcher had a 2.35 ERA and 5 Wins. The good start to the season was because of an extremely low BABIP (0.242). Over the next 10 games, he had an 8.00 ERA that was BABIP (0.410) driven. At this point in the season, he went on the DL for 17 days with should inflammation. After the short DL stint, he came back and pitched much better, with an 4.47 ERA and a 0.282 BABIP. During the whole time, he was able to maintain a relatively constant strikeout rate, walk rate and fastball speed.

This off season, he stated that his shoulder has still been in pain. He had an MRI on it that came back negative. With that news, he has begun long toss sessions to get ready for the season. The 23-year-old stated that he will just have to deal with the inflammation at various times over his career.

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Victor Martinez

Martinez torn his ACL on Tuesday and will likely be done for the season. The true nature of his injury, and therefore his return time, will not be known until he has surgery on his knee. He looks to be basically useless for the upcoming fantasy season. If a some owner has the option to drop him as a keeper, go ahead and let him go. There is no reason to keep a 34-year-old DH/C/1B for the entire season on the DL when some other player, that can contribute, could be kept. I could see him be drafted in all leagues and then stashed on the DL. With most fantasy teams, these DL spots will fill up with players that plan on returning rather quickly, so he may end up back on the waiver wire early in the season.

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Yesterday I covered the bottom half of the list here, numbers 10 through 6.  Some solid speculation on some people’s part in the comments section as to who made the top five, so without further ado…

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Injuries are just the worst.  While, in most leagues, you have the ability to add and drop players on a regular basis, nothing ruins a fantasy season more than when your team gets decimated by injuries.  You may possess the most in-depth knowledge of both baseball and statistics, but when the injury bug makes a run through your team, you can only do so much to keep pace.  In most cases, you simply cannot predict when it’s going to happen to your guys.  Fluke injuries happen all the time.  However, there are, obviously, numerous players out there that have a very visible track record and you need to decide come draft day (or even in a trade) if they are worth the risk.  So here’s a list of the top 10 most injury-plagued major leaguers with some thoughts as to whether you should take a chance or let them be your competition’s problem.  We’ll cover the first half today and then bring you home with the rest tomorrow.

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