Starting Pitcher DL Projections: On Sabbatical

by
January 10, 2018

Well, I used to be able to create starting pitcher disabled list (DL) projections with the average chance hovering around 40%. Until this past season when DL estimate was off by 18%.

Starting Pitcher Predicted vs. Actual DL Chances
Season Predicted Actual Difference
2012 43% 45% 2%
2013 40% 41% 1%
2014 43% 43% 1%
2015 42% 44% 3%
2016 42% 47% 6%
2017 41% 60% 18%

Even though the rates have climbed the past couple of seasons, it was nothing like the jump this past season and I 100% blame the 10-day DL. All my work to this point is moot.

And I really can’t go and create any kind of projections with just one season worth of 10-day data. Any accurate pitcher DL projections are dead at this point. It’s probably dead for a couple more seasons. Next season I can compare one season of 10-day DL to another season which used the 10-day DL. Nothing more. I’m not sure how useful the information will be.

Until I can create some decent values, I will just move onto a DL risk factor with the previous formula. I am guessing the DL factors (age, health, strength) will likely remain important but the weights will change. I will just use the old weights knowing that the values don’t actually relate to any real-world value. It’s just a factor which may be helpful when comparing similar pitchers.

Some using the values I calculated in this article, here are the 2018 starting pitcher DL risk factor with a 100 value being league average. A value over 100 means more than league average DL chance and under 100 means less than league average.

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2018 SP DL Factors
Name Age 2017 GS 2016 GS 2015 GS 2017 DL 2016 DL 2015 DL DL Factor
Zach Davies 24 33 28 6 No No No 69
Trevor Bauer 26 31 28 30 No No No 70
Chris Archer 28 34 33 34 No No No 72
Jose Quintana 28 32 32 32 No No No 73
Matt Boyd 26 25 18 12 No No No 76
Carlos Martinez 25 32 31 29 No No Yes 77
Jacob deGrom 29 31 24 30 No No No 78
Nick Martinez 26 18 5 21 No No No 79
Dan Straily 28 33 31 3 No No No 79
Robbie Ray 25 28 32 23 Yes No No 79
Julio Teheran 26 32 30 33 No Yes No 79
Eddie Butler 26 11 9 16 No No No 80
Luis Severino 23 31 11 11 No Yes No 80
Erasmo Ramirez 27 19 1 27 No No No 81
Gio Gonzalez 31 32 32 31 No No No 81
Noah Syndergaard 24 7 30 24 Yes No No 81
Gerrit Cole 26 33 21 32 No Yes No 81
Jake Arrieta 31 30 31 33 No No No 81
A.J. Cole 25 8 8 1 No No No 82
Michael Wacha 26 30 24 30 No Yes No 82
Zack Godley 27 25 9 6 No No No 82
Tanner Roark 30 30 33 12 No No No 83
Jhoulys Chacin 29 32 22 4 No No No 84
Jeff Samardzija 32 32 32 32 No No No 84
Kyle Hendricks 27 24 30 32 Yes No No 84
Buck Farmer 26 11 1 5 No No No 84
Madison Bumgarner 27 17 34 32 Yes No No 85
Chris Sale 28 32 32 31 No No Yes 85
Marcus Stroman 26 33 32 4 No No Yes 85
Rick Porcello 28 33 33 28 No No Yes 85
Mike Fiers 32 28 30 30 No No No 85
Jerad Eickhoff 26 24 33 8 Yes No No 86
Jose Urena 25 28 12 9 No No Yes 86
Patrick Corbin 27 32 24 16 No No Yes 87
Taijuan Walker 24 28 25 29 Yes Yes No 88
Matt Moore 28 31 33 12 No No Yes 89
Ubaldo Jimenez 33 25 25 32 No No No 89
Kyle Gibson 29 29 25 32 No Yes No 89
Jason Hammel 34 32 30 31 No No No 90
Dallas Keuchel 29 23 26 33 Yes No No 90
Adam Conley 27 20 25 11 No Yes No 90
Lance McCullers 23 22 14 22 Yes Yes No 91
Hector Santiago 29 14 33 32 Yes No No 91
Jeremy Hellickson 30 30 32 27 No No Yes 92
Eduardo Rodriguez 24 24 20 21 Yes Yes No 92
Carlos Rodon 24 12 28 23 Yes Yes No 93
Matt Andriese 27 17 19 8 Yes No No 93
Aaron Nola 24 27 20 13 Yes Yes No 93
Corey Kluber 31 29 32 32 Yes No No 93
Collin McHugh 30 12 33 32 Yes No No 94
Jaime Garcia 30 27 30 20 No No Yes 94
Kevin Gausman 26 34 30 17 No Yes Yes 94
Johnny Cueto 31 25 32 32 Yes No No 94
Martin Perez 26 32 33 14 Yes No Yes 95
Ivan Nova 30 31 26 17 No No Yes 95
Mike Foltynewicz 25 28 22 15 No Yes Yes 95
Rafael Montero 26 18 3 1 No No Yes 95
Max Scherzer 32 31 34 33 Yes No No 95
Jake Odorizzi 27 28 33 28 Yes No Yes 95
Aaron Sanchez 24 8 30 11 Yes No Yes 96
Jeff Locke 29 7 19 30 Yes No No 96
Jordan Zimmermann 31 29 18 33 No Yes No 96
Kendall Graveman 26 19 31 21 Yes No Yes 96
Jon Gray 25 20 29 9 Yes Yes No 96
Joe Ross 24 13 19 13 Yes Yes No 97
Yovani Gallardo 31 22 23 33 No Yes No 97
David Price 31 11 35 32 Yes No No 97
Sonny Gray 27 27 22 31 Yes Yes No 97
Alex Wood 26 25 10 32 Yes Yes No 97
Jimmy Nelson 28 29 32 30 Yes No Yes 98
Jon Lester 33 32 32 32 Yes No No 98
Alex Meyer 27 13 6 0 Yes No No 98
Danny Salazar 27 19 25 30 Yes Yes No 99
Masahiro Tanaka 28 30 31 24 Yes No Yes 99
Vince Velasquez 25 15 24 7 Yes Yes No 99
Shelby Miller 26 4 20 33 Yes Yes No 99
Marco Estrada 33 33 29 28 No Yes No 100
Zack Greinke 33 32 26 32 No Yes No 100
Andrew Albers 31 6 2 0 No No No 100
Cole Hamels 33 24 32 32 Yes No No 100
JC Ramirez 28 24 0 0 Yes No No 100
Mike Leake 29 31 30 30 No Yes Yes 100
Michael Pineda 28 17 32 27 Yes No Yes 101
Edinson Volquez 33 17 34 33 Yes No No 101
Danny Duffy 28 24 26 24 Yes No Yes 101
Drew Pomeranz 28 32 30 9 Yes No Yes 102
Brad Peacock 29 21 5 1 No No Yes 102
Chase Anderson 29 25 30 27 Yes No Yes 102
Wade Miley 30 32 30 32 Yes Yes No 103
Clayton Kershaw 29 27 21 33 Yes Yes No 103
Chris Tillman 29 19 30 31 Yes Yes No 103
J.A. Happ 34 25 32 31 Yes No No 103
Vance Worley 29 12 4 8 No Yes No 103
Justin Verlander 34 33 34 20 No No Yes 103
Mike Pelfrey 33 21 22 30 No Yes No 103
Matt Harvey 28 18 17 29 Yes Yes No 104
Carlos Carrasco 30 32 25 30 No Yes Yes 104
Chad Bettis 28 9 32 20 Yes No Yes 104
Andrew Cashner 30 28 27 31 Yes Yes No 104
Ervin Santana 34 33 30 17 No Yes No 105
Doug Fister 33 15 32 15 No No Yes 106
James Shields 35 21 33 33 Yes No No 106
Ricky Nolasco 34 33 32 8 No No Yes 106
Andrew Heaney 26 5 1 18 Yes Yes No 107
Jarred Cosart 27 6 13 13 Yes No Yes 108
Ian Kennedy 32 30 33 30 Yes No Yes 109
Daniel Norris 24 18 13 13 Yes Yes Yes 109
Matt Shoemaker 30 14 27 24 Yes Yes No 109
Jesse Chavez 33 21 0 26 No No Yes 109
Nathan Karns 29 8 15 26 Yes Yes No 110
Clayton Richard 33 32 9 3 No Yes No 110
Brett Anderson 29 13 3 31 Yes Yes No 110
Felix Hernandez 31 16 25 31 Yes Yes No 110
Derek Holland 30 26 20 10 No Yes Yes 111
R.A. Dickey 42 31 29 33 No No No 112
Wei-Yin Chen 31 5 22 31 Yes Yes No 114
Stephen Strasburg 28 28 24 23 Yes Yes Yes 114
Tyson Ross 30 10 1 33 Yes Yes No 114
Edwin Jackson 33 13 13 0 No Yes No 114
Josh Tomlin 32 26 29 10 Yes No Yes 115
Steven Matz 26 13 22 6 Yes Yes Yes 115
Trevor Cahill 29 14 1 3 Yes Yes No 117
Anibal Sanchez 33 17 26 25 Yes No Yes 117
James Paxton 28 24 20 13 Yes Yes Yes 118
Christian Bergman 29 8 1 4 No Yes Yes 118
Matt Cain 32 23 17 11 No Yes Yes 118
Jesse Hahn 27 13 9 16 Yes Yes Yes 119
Jered Weaver 34 9 31 26 Yes No Yes 120
Junior Guerra 32 14 20 0 Yes Yes No 122
Garrett Richards 29 6 6 32 Yes Yes Yes 123
Adam Wainwright 35 23 33 4 Yes No Yes 124
Scott Feldman 34 21 5 18 Yes No Yes 125
Jason Vargas 34 32 3 9 No Yes Yes 125
John Lackey 38 30 29 33 Yes Yes No 126
Hisashi Iwakuma 36 6 33 20 Yes No Yes 128
Miguel Gonzalez 33 27 23 26 Yes Yes Yes 128
Phil Hughes 31 9 11 25 Yes Yes Yes 129
Matt Garza 33 22 19 25 Yes Yes Yes 130
Bartolo Colon 44 28 33 31 Yes No No 130
Rich Hill 37 25 20 4 Yes Yes No 132
Charlie Morton 33 25 4 23 Yes Yes Yes 133
Homer Bailey 31 18 6 2 Yes Yes Yes 133
Steven Wright 32 5 24 9 Yes Yes Yes 133
CC Sabathia 36 27 30 29 Yes Yes Yes 134
Brandon McCarthy 33 16 9 4 Yes Yes Yes 138





 

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.

16 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
balancedman178
8 years ago

Sorry, there must be an error, Rich Hill doesn’t have the highest score. Please recalculate!

6
FedericoMember since 2017
8 years ago
Reply to  balancedman178

Well, McCarthy is a Platinum member of the DL-club, too, so this is not too surprising.

Also, I just Ctrl+F’ed for Garrett Richards and I was surprised to see he made 32 starts as recently as 2015; it seems like he’s always been injured, since his freakish accident a while ago.

2
ralph
8 years ago

Matt Garza concurs with your analysis.

1
d_iMember since 2016
8 years ago

I know it’s got to be the best data you get, but if they don’t go on the DL, it doesn’t count as an injury huh. Was specifically wondering why DeGrom was so “safe” even though he got hurt….he didn’t go on the DL when he got hurt in Sept 2016. Any way you might be able to control for that Sept DL/roster expansion issue?

1
Travis LMember since 2016
8 years ago
Reply to  d_i

Aside – why don’t teams put guys on the DL during big roster season?

I heard a rumor that salaries for a player on the DL are paid some by disability claims, i.e. good old fashioned worker’s comp and unemployment insurance. I assumed a huge chunk was taken out of paychecks to cover this. Can anyone confirm/reject?

1
Groundout
8 years ago
Reply to  Travis L

Because 10-day DL players still count towards the 40-man roster, there’s no benefit to adding them to that list. They have to be moved to the 60-day disabled list to free up a roster spot in the “big roster” season.

2
NL Rules
8 years ago

I like the Alex Wood optimistic score! Of course skipping some starts is to be expected via 10 day DL

0
CarMars FavoriteMember since 2018
8 years ago

Why no Lance Lynn, Alex Cobb, Michael Fulmer, Yu Darvish, Dylan Bundy etc?

2
Jeff ZimmermanFanGraphs Staff
8 years ago
Reply to  CarMars Favorite

It was a coding error for pitchers who missed a full season in past three. Working on a solution.

3
gja6722
8 years ago

Zach Davies has a nice chance of missing the DL this year.

0
Paul22
8 years ago

Well, i would try and figure out how many of those DL stints were under 15 days and exclude them from projections as many are likely phantom DL’s designed to give rest or straighten out mechanics

0
Jeff ZimmermanFanGraphs Staff
8 years ago
Reply to  Paul22

I was just thinking of dealing with this but it’s a feature moving forward

0
Fromage
8 years ago
Reply to  Jeff Zimmerman

Tough nut to crack? I would not exclude the 10-day DL phenomenon; I think we haven’t seen the full extent of its exploitation yet. Possibly one and definitely two of these paid vacations will force re-alignment of fantasy expectations, not just for players who get the time off, but for those who are more likely to get a traditional workload. This could be a hell of a data cleansing problem surrounded by a need to somehow quantify what now appears to be only subjectively measurable front-office policy. Perhaps a start would be differentiating risk levels accounting for varying levels of both actual injury risk and risk created by different expectations for DL manipulation. On one end of the spectrum, please meet Rich Hill. On the other, any quality starter without prior injury being managed by Dusty Baker. Those are easy, but it’s identifying and characterizing distinctions among all of the players in-between that could make a tangible difference in fantasy projection.

1
RonnieDobbs
8 years ago

Thor has below average risk. That is great news for baseball fans!

1
exxroxMember since 2026
8 years ago

I’m thinking Jered Weaver won’t ever hit the DL this season.

0
doanco01Member since 2024
8 years ago

Along the lines of this article, I found Jeff’s 2017 DL info article (https://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/2017-disabled-list-information/) which was very interesting.

I was hoping to dive into some prior DL data as well and found Jeff’s older versions of the articles (https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/2016-disabled-list-information-and-the-future-of-injury-analysis/) (https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/2014-disabled-list-information-and-so-much-more/) but the data links won’t load. Does anyone know where I can find Jeff’s older DL data?

0