Help Needed: Hitters Playing Through Injuries

(10/9: Thanks to everyone for the additions.)

One player class I target for potential bargains are hitters who played through injuries. These injuries drag down a player’s production as they and their team struggle with the tradeoff of a regular player at 80% or a replacement at 100%. With the season just ending and drafts months away, I want to create a draft season reference list while people still remember parts of the 2017 season.

A few years back, I examined the negative effects of playing through injuries, mainly power. In the following season, those effects are gone for hitters.

Projection systems don’t know about this error and use the suppressed available stats. It’s time to gain a small advantage over the projections by collecting data on players it under projects.

I went out to the Twitter-verse and asked for names.

Which batters played through injuries in of going on the DL? Moustakas. Miggy, Pujols, Pedroia

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) September 15, 2017

Here are the players who readers have listed with any available article links. I’m adding any name for now but I would only trust the names with linked articles.

Verified Playing Through An Injury

Name: Injury (article link)

• Adrian Beltre: Hamstring (link)
• Mookie Betts: Thump (link)
• Gregory Bird: Ankle (link)
• Xander Bogaerts: Wrist (link)
• Ryan Braun: Wrist (link)
• Miguel Cabrera: Back (link)
• Matt Carpenter: Shoulder (link)
• Josh Donaldson: Calf (link)
• Dexter Fowler: Heel (link)
• Freddie Freeman: Finger and ribs (link)
• Paul Goldschmidt: Elbow (link)
• Adrian Gonzalez: Back and elbow (link)
• Yasmani Grandal: Wrist (link)
• Guillermo Heredia: Shoulder (link)
• Ender Inciarte: Thumb (link, goto 9/29/17)
• Adam Jones: Hip and ankle (weak link)
• Aaron Judge: Shoulder (link)
• Ian Kinsler: Hamstring (link)
• Andrew McCutchen: Thumb (link)
• Mitch Moreland: Toe (link)
• Mike Moustakas: Knee (link)
• Daniel Murphy: Hip (link)
• Dustin Pedroia: Knee (link)
• Corey Seager: Shoulder (link)
• Scott Schebler: Shoulder (link)
• Ben Zobrist: Wrist (link)

Rumored injuries

Name: Information

• Michael Brantley: Ankle
• Lorenzo Cain: Possible 2016 wrist injury
• Yoenis Cespedes: On the DL twice, not sure played through injury.
• Ian Desmond: Calf
• Alcides Escobar: Wrist HBP but no other injury notes.
• Pedro Florimon: Ankle injury ended season
• Matt Holliday: Quad
• Matt Kemp: Hamstring but went on the DL for it
• Jason Kipnis: Shoulder
• Manny Machado: Wrist
• Stephen Piscotty: Hamstring
• Gregory Polanco: Shoulder and Hamstring
• Buster Posey: Possible toe injury

Again, let me know of anyone else to get a complete reference list for 2018 drafts. Thanks, Jeff.