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.
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.
Scott Schebler seemed to be injured for over a month before finally hitting the DL.
Freddie Freeman stated he was still ailing after coming back from the DL, wrist injury, with about a month left he said it felt like swinging a wet newspaper
I’m particularly suspicious of wrist injuries for hitters:
Ian Desmond’s wrist injury may be responsible for the worst ISO of his career.
Ben Zobrist had a nearly season-long wrist injury that affected his performance against left-handed pitchers.
Stephen Piscotty went on the DL early in the season for a hamstring strain, but also missed time without going on the DL for forearm strain and his knee throughout the season.
Jason Kipnis never seemed truly healthy this year, and he went on the DL at least three times. Played terribly until September. Nagging shoulder problems and I believe a leg injury?
Didn’t Gregory Polanco try to play through several injuries (shoulder/hamstring) only to continually return to the DL several times?
Yup, started the year with shoulder (http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/19032417/gregory-polanco-skip-canada-trip-shoulder-issue) and played poorly before hamstring (http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/pirates/2017/08/26/Gregory-Polanco-tests-his-injured-hamstring-but-there-is-no-timetable-for-return/stories/201708260113) took him down
Shoulder injury sapped his power, hamstring woes killed his speed: http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/pirates/2017/08/12/pirates-blue-jays-outfielder-gregory-polanco-injured-andrew-mccutchen-left-leg-disabled-list/stories/201708120096
Not 2017, but Harper last year (rumored) and Trout the year before (worst month ever after being injured) are obvious candidates. Worth mentioning, because both bounced back.
Trout this year might even be a candidate, though small sample size precludes concluding a definite effect. After a 200+ wRC+ in the first two months of the season, preceding his injury, his first 2+ weeks after he returned to the lineup his wRC+ faded to 149. Still very good, obviously, but not only significantly lower than earlier, but in the following month, his wRC+ was back up to 197, though it did decline again in Sept.
Shannon Drayer reported that Guillermo Heredia basically played the entire year with a dislocated shoulder.
https://twitter.com/shannondrayer/status/915268511311659009
Seager’s elbow since late August.
Beltre.
Ian Kinsler had recurring hamstring issues in April and May I believe. Hit the DL but tried to play through it quite a bit too. http://m.mlb.com/news/article/232748790/tigers-place-ian-kinsler-on-disabled-list/
Ender Inciarte had a lingering thumb injury throughout September: http://www.rotoworld.com/player/mlb/7346/ender-inciarte
The risk from this theory is being able to separate the players who will bounce back from those whose injuries will linger or are a sign of general decline. It seems that injuries to older players and injuries to wrists and feet are suggestive of a lower chance of bouncing back, but I have no stats or analysis to backup this supposition. Is there any?
Also, this article reminds me of the “good old days,” when completing rehab was a positive indication of having a bounce back season.
I plan on diving into the injuries later and the long-term impacts. I’m more interested in getting the list for now.
Josh Donaldson (http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/went-wrong-blue-jays-frustrating-2017-season/)
Michael Brantley – take your pick of injuries– maybe it’s just how he’s gonna be going forward
Don’t have any specific articles, but injuries must have played a role in down year for Machado
Every damn catcher could probably go on the list, but Yadi and Russell Martin come to mind as having been very been dinged up a large portion of year
Injuries aren’t only reasons– a couple guys went through significant emotional stuff– Piscotty (Mom diagnosed w/ ALS), B Crawford (sister in law died suddenly)
Ryan Braun was playing through a wrist injury for the last 1½ month or so.
http://m.mlb.com/news/article/257039266/brewers-ryan-braun-looks-back-on-2017-season/
Mookie Betts playing through a wrist injury that seemed to sap his power if not his incredible defensive ability
Daniel Murphy sat out several games in the 2nd half and seemed to have a variety of maladies:https://www.federalbaseball.com/2017/8/9/16117296/washington-nationals-injury-updates-howie-kendrick-daniel-murphy-dusty-baker
“http://www.pitcherlist.com/pitcher-interviews-1-on-1-with-jacob-faria/”
“IP: Finally, let’s just brief over the injury (abdominal strain). You were throwing earlier today so that’s good news. Nothing too serious, hopefully?
JF: No, I don’t think it’s anything too serious. It’s just something that’s kind of been aching a little bit for about a month. At first, I could get it to go away, you know. I was doing some self-treatment. But then over the last few starts it went from an ache to an actual pain. Then in the last start I made, it went from a pain to, you know, “I just hurt and I can’t throw the baseball.” But it felt good today. I don’t think it’s too serious. As long as we monitor it and we keep doing the treatment and program that we’re doing, then we’re all good.”
For what it’s worth, he gave up 8 runs in 11 innings prior to his DL stint.
Grandal told Sawchick back in August that he’d been playing with a hand injury. Could explain the drop in iso
Logan Forsythe maybe – He went from patient at the plate (40% career swing rate) to extremely passive (30%).
there were various reports that hanley’s shoulders were bothering him all season after some sort of weightlifting incident in the offseason, which might have exacerbated the old 2015 crashing-into-the-wall shoulder injury. which i thought he’d recovered from after his monster ending to 2016, but apparently not
exactly how well he’ll bounce back is unclear given his age and the fact that this has been an issue on and off for several years now. but hanley looked pretty good today, and is always full of surprises
Matt Holliday was never the same after he went on the DL midyear
Greg Bird played through his ankle injury to open the season
First, thanks everyone for the names, I was able to add several to the verified list. The rest I added to the rumored column. These players had injuries which required DL time but no one is on the record about them playing through the injury.
Evan Longoria played through a foot injury in the first half of the season (http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/news/rays-3b-evan-longoria-could-be-dealing-with-foot-injury/1xd4pehilpa4x1bq9tdx22px5w).
Also, Freddie Freeman came back quickly from his broken wrist and continued to play through the end of the season despite weakness in the wrist (http://www.ajc.com/sports/baseball/freeman-wrist-only-percent-has-sapped-his-power/nNtEoN3ypBnVEU6YzlWxiO/). This was in addition to the other nagging injuries you had listed above.