Hitters Who Played Through a 2023 Injury

With the season over, it’s to find out how hitters performed who didn’t let an injury heal and played through the pain. Whether these hitters cause permanent damage to their bodies or pick up bad habits, they continue to underperform their projections. Besides collecting the names myself, I’ve asked for some help (article and Twitter) for this past season’s list.

I first determined the decline in an article covering 2017 to 2019 and have continued collecting names and results (2020, 2021, and 2022).

Before getting to this season’s results, I needed to go back and clean up the previous results. The previous expected drop was a combination of missed projections and a comparison to the previous season. I took all the players and compared their actual OPS to their Steamer projected OPS and here are the results.

The effect was more than previously stated. A 30 to 40-point drop in OPS is rather significant. Normally, a 20 points of OPS is equivalent to 5% points of wRC+, these hitters are expected to underperform their overall projections but 7.5% to 10%. It doesn’t mean the player is unrosterable. Instead, on average, a manager should expect most of them to struggle. And some will outperform, but it’s tough to know who.

Getting back to this season, here is how the hitters who played through a 2022 injury performed compared to their 2023 projection.

This season’s results are a bit higher than the historic values once the overall league context is taken into account. Nothing is surprising knowing the historical numbers.

With the historic values out of the way, here are the guys who played through an injury this season along with a link to where it was mentioned.

Additionally, here are the players who were pointed as playing through an injury but I couldn’t find any information on them. While I suspect some did (e.g. Alonso) or it was a flashback to 2022 (e.g. Ward and Naylor), I only add players where there is an actual quote about this season.

New additions

• • Tommy Pham (toe)
  • Alex Kirilloff (shoulder)
  • Jose Abreu (spine)
  • Francisco Lindor (elbow)
  • Rowdy Tellez (arm)
  • Willson Conteras (wrists)
  • Yoan Moncada (back)
  • Yandy Diaz (groin)
  • Kyle Schwarber (knee)
  • Giancarlo Stanton (Achilles)

Thanks for all the help everyone provided and please let me know if I missed anyone. I’m guessing news from about 10 guys will trickle in during the offseason.