Choppers relief pitcher Mariano Rivera
Memorial Day is usually a good point in the season to take stock in how the baseball season is going and examine where it may be headed. As usual, there are hitters and pitchers who are vastly exceeding expectations, and have done so for long enough to make you think it may not be a fluke. Some of those players are helping to put their DTBL teams at or near the top of the standings. However, there seems to be a much bigger factor in determining a team’s success (or lack there of) this season: injuries.
Almost daily, there is another key player going down to an injury, whether it be a minor day-to-day issue, or one that has the player headed to season ending surgery. We’ve had torn ACLs, torn UCLs, sprained knees, torn hamstrings, broken hands, blurred vision, chronic illness, you name it. It started in spring training when two closers were lost for the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery (Naturals’ Joakim Soria, Jackalope Ryan Madson). Two DTBL first round draft picks are yet to play a game this season (Kings’ Michael Morse, Choppers’ Michael Pineda). It is never a good sign when two of the most mentioned names in baseball are Tommy John and Dr. James Andrews.
Even the previously indestructible players are falling victim to this plague. The surest thing in baseball, Choppers’ Mariano Rivera, tore his ACL while shagging fly balls. And just yesterday, the always reliable Roy Halladay (Jackalope) was lost for 6-8 weeks due to a lat strain. Halladay wasn’t the only ace to go down yesterday either. Jered Weaver (Moonshiners) was pulled from his start in the first inning with a back problem. Fellow Moonshiner starting pitcher Ted Lilly hit the DL as well, as did red hot Kings catcher Jonathan LuCroy who suffered the freakiest injury of the season, breaking his hand due to a falling suitcase in a hotel room.
In those last two paragraphs, I named nine different players, and that didn’t even begin to scratch the surface. Every DTBL team has been affected, some more than others. I probably need to take a closer look at each roster to see if this is still the case, but prior to this most recent string of injuries, there were three teams in particular who had been absolutely decimated: the Darkhorses, Choppers and Demigods. All three are around the double digit mark in total number of players who have spent time on the DL, including some very critical losses. I suspect the Moonshiners are moving close to this list as well after losing 40% of their rotation yesterday. The Darkhorses injury problems were so bad, for a while they were fielding a major league roster with at least three disabled players. The Choppers and Demigods minors are/were filled with virtually nothing but injured players.
The Mavericks have been in first place virtually the entire season. In large part, that is because they had been the healthiest team in the league. Until about a week ago, their only injured player was 12th round draft pick, and projected bench player, Lorenzo Cain. But now the Mavericks have joined the rest of the league after having lost Neftali Feliz and Austin Jackson. Still, they are in better shape than most. With the exception of two pre-season injuries (Madson and Ryan Howard), the Jackalope had been relatively healthy as well, which helped guide them past the Mavericks for a couple days last week. But now this Halladay injury could be a major problem for the defending champions.
On a positive note, these injuries have certainly restrained any one team from running out to a huge lead, keeping most of the league very much in the mix. Half of the league is within 10 points of first place and two others are within 20. So if any of these teams can get relatively healthy, there are plenty of points to be gained. But that “healthy” term seems inconceivable for some teams at this point.
It was suggested to me by one league member that we look into adding additional DL slot(s) to our rosters in the future. I am not necessarily opposed to this idea, but keep in mind that such a change would require a number of other adjustments as well, like the total number of players on the league roster and maybe a change to the free agent signing limit too. This is a conversation I’m willing to have though if the consensus is that change is needed. Obviously, no change will be made for this season though. In the mean time, hopefully some of this madness will come to an end and we’ll be able to determine a champion based on player performance rather than healthy body tallies.
Hopefully my next article will be about player(s) who are actually contributing to their DTBL squads!
No need to be coy — it was me who suggested a third DL slot. But my suggestion is not a straight-up DL spot (which it sounds like Kevin would prefer if we went in this direction). My idea of the third DL spot would only be reserved for teams that have players who have been placed on MLB’s actual 60-day DL or who have been officially ruled by the team to be out for a stretch that equals that or is greater — so for me, guys like Pineda and Rivera, or Werth who was just moved to the 60-day. Maybe this complicates the DTBL setup, but I think it’s starting to become necessary to boost the number in some way.
Charlie, I wasn’t necessarily trying to keep you anonymous. I just figured I’d keep it generic in this post and maybe we’d hash this out in a forum thread. I’m going to be on the road quite a bit over the next week, but I’ll try to get a conversation started late next week. Thanks for the input.
If the free agent system is changed to allow more pickups/room on the roster, perhaps we could institute some kind of rolling waiver system. It doesn’t make sense that just because a team is at the bottom of the standings it should get first crack at free agents EVERY week
While we’re on the topic of crushing injuries… Victor Martinez. Can we PLEASE move the keeper date back??? I don’t understand why our keepers are due in early December when free agents have yet to be signed and their eventual destinations/changing roles will have a big impact on our keeper decisions. The off-season V-Mart injury was more of a fluke thing and there will always be injuries in Spring Training but even pushing the deadline back a month or so will at least protect against some of them. Most keeper leagues do not announce keepers until early March. I realize Kevin needs time to get the draft list set up, but I don’t think early-to-mid February is an unreasonable request, especially since our draft seems to start later and later every year.
In response to Marc’s request, I do think the free agent claiming system is a bit unfair. I’ve stolen at least 2 guys from Marc already this year.