Even Jose Bautista's 54 home run season took a back seat to a couple perfect games (Roy Halladay and Dallas Braden), a should-have-been-but-wasn't perfect game (Armando Galarraga), and four other no-hitters (Ubaldo Jimenez, Edwin Jackson, Matt Garza and again Roy Halladay).  

If 2010 was known as the year of the pitcher, then 2011 has to be known as the "Year of the Injury" (at least to fantasy players), because it seems every day another player is going on the disabled list, or missing time for an injury.

On the latest Baseball Press Podcast, we discussed how the injuries were effecting real baseball and fantasy baseball alike.  According to Mock Draft Central's 2011 average draft position (ADP) report, eight of the top-25 overall picks are currently on, or had been placed on, the the 15-day disabled list this season.  If you were lucky enough to dodge the bullet of losing one, two, or perhaps even three of your early round picks you are  A) lucky and B) probably winning your league.  Those of us that were not as lucky are scrambling to find replacements, and at some positions the pickings are slim.

Using the default Yahoo! lineup (C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, 3 OF, UTIL, 2 SP, 2 RP, 3 P) as a template for a standard 12-team mixed league, I wanted to identify what positions have been hurt the most by injuries.  Utilizing a Rotisserie style scoring for the top-12 picks at each position (one per team), with the first pick at each position receiving 12 points, pick two with 11 points, etc, each position will be given a score, with highest point total possible being 78.  If a player has been placed on the DL at any time this season his points are eliminated, and of course the position with the highest score wins, or in this case has the least DL trips. The utility position and three generic pitching positions will not be used to simplify the process.
  
Scoring for the outfield and pitching positions will be done slightly different, being broken down into 12 tiers.  Each outfield tier will have three players and each pitching tier will have two.  These tiers will then be scored as one player, with partial points being given for a DL trip.

Position	Points out of 78	Injured (average draft position)
Catcher	40	Joe Mauer (1), Victor Martinez (3), Buster Posey (4), Geovany Soto (6)
First Base	77	Kendrys Morales (12)
Second Base	66	Chase Utley (2), Brian Roberts (12)
Third Base	48	Evan Longoria (1), David Wright (2), Ryan Zimmerman (4), Pedro Alvarez (7), Pablo Sandoval (10)
Shortstop	64	Hanley Ramirez (1), Rafael Furcal (11)
Outfield	61	Josh Hamilton (3), Matt Holliday (6), Nelson Cruz (8), Jason Heyward (15), Corey Hart (25), Vernon Wells (30), Alfonso Soriano (31), Grady Sizemore (32), Shane Victorino (33), Delmon Young (34)
Starting Pitcher	67.5	Zack Greinke (10), Josh Johnson (15), Francisco Liriano (17), Mat Latos (20), Roy Oswalt (23)
Relief Pitcher	57.5	Brian Wilson (3), Neftali Feliz (5), Jonathan Broxton (8), Andrew Bailey (15), Joe Nathan (18), Brad Lidge (20)

What I found interesting is that starting pitching, usually labeled the biggest health risk on draft day, is the second healthiest position overall behind first basemen.  And if it wasn't for people like me that drafted the already injured Kendry Morales first base would have had a perfect score of 78, with number 13 pick Billy Butler having stayed healthy so far this season.

This process doesn't necessarily identify the exact impact of each players absence because we are looking at DL trips in general, not the length of time spent on the DL, but it does show where holes have needed to be plugged using waiver wire pickups to fill out rosters.