Reggie Yinger
Clinical Notes: How Much Value is Lost to Injuries
Wednesday October 24th, 2012
How much value did Tulo lose to injury in 2012? (US Presswire)
There are many ways to value a player over the course of a season. The most commonly used statistic when determining a player's overall value is WAR (Wins Above Replacement).
While I'm all for the WAR statistic 99% of the time, after much research and speculation, I decided it wasn't the best to use for this scenario. The simple reason for this is because I'm only interested in a player's offensive value at the plate for position players, not his defensive value or replacement value (both factors in determining WAR).
For this exercise, I'll be using a statistic called wRC. wRC simply put is weighted runs created by a player based on the player's wOBA (Weighted On-Base Average). It's all about the player's value when he's batting. You can read more about wRC and wOBA by clicking this link.
To give a quick example, a player with 60 wRC would be listed as league average. For just 2012, think of players such as Kelly Johnson
and Gordon Beckham
as league average wRC, and players such as Andrew McCutchen
and Ryan Braun
as wRC "superstars".
Here are a few notes before we get started:
- I'll be using projected numbers for this. These projections were for players prior to the start of the 2012 season. I projected regular season statistics for wOBA and then determined the wRC on those projections.
- I am only doing this exercise for position players.
- I don't have projections for every player that hit the disabled list.
- Speaking of disabled list, the injury data only includes players placed on the disabled list. If a player was never placed on the disabled list, but out for an extended period of time, I won't have his injury information listed. Perhaps I'll have another article once I get the database updated with all injury information (day-to-day injuries).
- Thanks to Jeff Zimmerman for compiling the disabled list information.
- Number three comes into play for injuries after September 1. The rosters expand and some teams leave injured players on the roster.
- Finally, I did this as an experiment. I've had a few people eyeball the data on the Twitters, and had no complaints. It uses projected numbers, so please don't take this as the be-all and end all.
All DL Data
First off, I'll post all the disabled list information. This is broken out by team and then by pitchers and position players. You can use options from the drop down menu to select different options (League, Team, etc):
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- As pointed out during a previous article on lineups, the Texas Rangers took the mentality "if it aint broke, don't fix it". You can see this with just 75 days of hitters on the disabled lit.
- Rays manager Joe Maddon is still a genius. His team led all of the big leagues in days lost to the DL by hitters with 775. However, thanks to good pitching and a little luck, he was still able to post a .523 winning percentage.
- Although the Minnesota Twins had a total of 53 days on the disabled list for hitters in 2012, the "true" amount of days lost is greater. They simply left injured players on the roster - see Denard Span.
Projected Loss wRC From DL Days
The table below shows projected weighted runs created (wRC) for 25 players along with the wRC lost to the disabled list this season.
Google Visualization API Sample
Without getting too technical, I'll quickly explain how I arrived at the numbers. With these two factors, I was able to approximate how much time was lost to the disabled list.
Without getting too technical, I'll quickly explain how I arrived at the numbers. With these two factors, I was able to approximate how much time was lost to the disabled list.
- First, I took my projections prior to the 2012 season and calculated the wRC.
- Secondly, I reviewed the disabled list days to determine the actual number of games missed. Just because a player misses x number of days, he could actually be missing less game time than that (off days, etc).
Troy Tulowitzki sits atop the chart with a projected lost wRC of 72. He's obviously a valuable part of the Colorado Rockies, but it's worth noting that as a team in 2012, the Rockies had 780 wRC - good for fourth overall among major league teams. However, even if Tulo was healthy for an entire season, the Rockies pitching staff was so awful, it wouldn't have mattered.
The same could likely be said for Jacoby Ellsbury
and David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox. Both players alone combined for 91 lost wRC. However, even if they were healthy, the pitching staff and team in general, had their fair share of problems.
Ryan Howard and Chase Utley would have combined for 77 lost wRC. Considering both players missed a majority of the first half a season, it's easy to see why the team struggled offensively early on, but started to pick up steam during the second half of play.
I have more players for the list, but only included 25 significant players as a "BETA" test. If you want to see another player, just drop me a line.
by Anonymous on Friday October 26th @ 6:25AM
Do your results take into account the runs scored by replacement players? I\'m thinking that having Eric Chavez replacing ARod, for instance, wasn\'t as bad as it looks this year.
by Reggie Yinger on Friday October 26th @ 8:10AM
No - I thought about doing that, but I wasn't sure of who and when each player replaced who - but I had Eric Chavez at 28 projected wRC - he lost 5 to the DL - so ~ 23 wRC for him - so it may have balanced out the loss of A-Rod...but purely speculation.
Comments are closed.
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