A trio of notable players just hit the 15-day DL, so we’ll cover them all right here:
- The Indians announced that they have placed righty Danny Salazar on the 15-day DL while he rests his prized right elbow. Fortunately, an MRI seems only to have revealed inflammation, so the hope is that Salazar won’t miss an extended period of time. And Cleveland has plenty of rotation depth on hand, including Cody Anderson and Mike Clevinger, with the latter getting the nod for the time being. Still even a relatively brief absence will have an impact; Salazar has been nothing short of outstanding, and the AL Central-leading club holding a four-game cushion in the division race.
- After already recently placing infielder Jose Reyes on the shelf, the Mets have now done the same with shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera. He suffered a strained patellar tendon and is headed for an MRI. The team also added just-signed outfielder Justin Ruggiano to the 15-day ranks. Cabrera’s loss is notable for an organization that was already scrambling to fill in for missing infielders. Matt Reynolds will come up for the meantime to help fill the void, but it seems there’s some real concern that the injury could require a fairly lengthy absence.
- Astros reliever Luke Gregerson is headed to the 15-day with an oblique strain, the team announced. That not only will keep him out of action for a bit, but will clear the way for Ken Giles to take over as the team’s closer with Will Harris struggling of late. Gregerson has been rather excellent this year despite himself losing the 9th-inning job previously, with ERA estimators valuing him even more highly than his 3.09 ERA.
- The Braves have added righty Julio Teheran to the DL as well. He is dealing with a lat strain that isn’t believed to be serious. Atlanta will obviously want to exercise plenty of caution in handling the injury, even if it isn’t particularly worrisome, as Teheran is a key piece of the organization’s rebuilding plans and there’s no need to rush him back.
- Cardinals reliever Trevor Rosenthal has been given platelet-rich plasma injections in his bothersome righty shoulder, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch tweets. GM John Mozeliak says that it’s possible Rosenthal Of course, St. Louis will be looking for more than just physical improvement; it’ll also hope that he can fix his skyrocketing walk rate during a rehab stint.
- As expected, Royals righty Luke Hochevar underwent a procedure today to help deal with a diagnosis of thoracic outlet syndrome, as Rustin Dodd of the Kansas City Star tweets. He is expected to be out for six months, which would conceivably mean that he’ll be ready for a full spring camp if the rehab goes according to plan. It seems likely that the Royals will decline their end of a $7MM mutual option on the reliever, which would make him a free agent, though certainly it’s possible to imagine him staying with Kansas City on some kind of creative, two-year deal of the sort that the team has reached in recent years with several injured hurlers.
krillin
Get well soon boys!
metseventually 2
Hard to believe that the Dodgers have more injuries than the Mets. Syndergaard, Matz, Cespedes should all be on the DL with their injuries.
angelsinthetroutfield
Man, the Mets giving Dilson Herrera for Bruce couldn’t have come at a worse time. Wish they were interested in Yunel Escobar…
I’d have been happy to serve him up for Nimmo. Knowing that he was involved in the original Bruce trade (along with other pieces) makes me think that would have been plausible.
staypuft
Herrera is not an SS though. He’s pretty much 2B only, so he’s literally serve no purpose unless Walker were to get hurt too.
angelsinthetroutfield
Damn, thought he came up as a SS. My bad.
iamhector24
His bat ISNT ready but you gotta wonder if they aren’t thinking about Rosario playing short for 2 weeks while some of these DL stints turn around.
JDC
Nobody has had more injuries than the Kansas City Royals.
sorayablue
Dodgers just set a record for most injured players in a season.
davidcoonce74
Dodgers player days lost to DL in 2016: 1418
Oakland Player days lost: 1,126
Padres player days lost: 1,050
Reds player days lost: 986
Braves player days lost: 985
Those are the top five.
The next teams, in order, are the Angels, Cubs, Yankees, Rangers, Rockies, Mariners, RedSox, Cardinals.
Then come the Royals, at 14th, with 681 games missed.
The team with the fewest? Astros, with just 106.
thediesel4
Wow Astros are just under-performing this year or was last year more of a over-performance?
I knew the Braves had a lot of injuries this season but didn’t know it was top 5. Who have the Dodgers lost that has cost them so much this season?
Polymath
Nice post David. I am not surprised Dodgers top the list.
I am not quibbling with your list, but is there a “better” way to evaluate injury value lost? Losing Trout, Harper, Sale or Kershaw for one month is worse than losing a bench player for three months. Perhaps projected WAR lost would be better.
In addition, if you make the 25 man roster, get hurt in the first week, you might generate 160 player-days missed. Get hurt in Spring Training and miss the season, you generate none.
Also, you might have a weak starting pitcher that you are prepared to live with for one month because you have a hot shot youngster on the way (Urias, Giolito, Reyes, etc.) But if they get hurt in the minors, it affects the team greatly, but doesn’t create player-days lost.
Timing? Having six different position players out one month at a time would be better than losing all of them in August alone.
The negative impact injuries have on a team are complex, manifold, and difficult to comprehensively quantify.
I have to stop typing now, I just injured my finger.
davidcoonce74
I haven’t seen anything with projected WAR attached to the players, although the list I found has salary lost to the DL. (google mlb dl days 2016) I think Will Carroll used to do this kkind of thing on BP put he has moved on
And yeah, obviously a lot of days lost are TJ guys, who were on the 40-man roster at the beginning of the season. For example, I was surprised about the Padres missing so many days but they have Erlin on the DL all year, they have had Ross on the DL all season, Spangenberg has been out basically all year – that’s like 400 player games in total. So not a perfect way to look at this but at least decent in order to compare teams.
Larry David's Joe Pepitone Jersey
If Gavin Cecchini were on the 40 man, I would support calling him up. That being said, I think Matt Reynolds works as a stopgap until Reyes comes back.
Connorsoxfan
What’s up with the “Mozeliak says it’s possible”? It jumps to another sentence after that. I’m not complaining about it, I love this site. I just sometimes make a comment if it’s something that really doesn’t make sense. I’m not that guy who sends you an angry email whenever a comma is out of place. 🙂
guinnesspelican
What’s cool about that sentence is that it was maybe intended to be a fill in the blank on your own?……..
It’s possible Rosenthal will be demoted to triple A upon his return from his dl stint.
It’s possible that Rosenthal will have to board his twin puppies for a lengthy stretch because of his bothersome shoulder and his problem with lifting.
It’s possible Rosenthal will never be able to ride his unicycle again.
I’ll stop at 3 but I bet it’s one of those.