Spend an hour talking to a group of Astros Fans and you will hear how bad injuries have been to the Astros. The truth is EVERY MLB team has had significant injuries. So, what is the Truth about the impact of injuries on the Astros?
The Spotrac site has a page that tracks the roster impacts. One can get the data sorted on cumulative impact of a team's impact and how much teams have spent on injured players.
I have found a flaw in some of the data but let's assume it is close. Here is their data now.
You will notice that the Astros have had the second fewest injuries in the MLB.
Yes, Astros fans your team has only had 13 players on the IL this year. The average MLB team has had 22 players on the IL this year.
However, this doesn't tell the exact full story. Not all injuries are the same. Some injuries are much worse than others.
The Astros are 26th in DAYS LOST due to injuries. As often as this injury excuse is used, this data may recalibrate the TRUE injury impact. The data has a flaw in the McCormick data. The Astros SHOULD BE
Astros fans will reflexively claim their injuries have been to all of their best players and THIS is partially true. The Astros have lost Altuve, Alvarez, and Brantley. The Astros reportedly did little testing on Brantley before signing him, so I somewhat have a hard time counting his lost time. They should have not expected much and maybe they didn't.
The Spotrac people somewhat account for the impact of the quality of the injury impact by tracking the salary lost. This assumes that the best players are paid the most. Not always true.
Sorted by salary impact the Astros have lost the 8th most to IL time.
I am not sure THIS is the best way to so this analysis so what I did is a deep dive of the WAR impact to the Astros, Rangers, and Mariners.
I projected the WAR the players would have delivered if they had not gotten hurt. I provide the tables below and I will describe the process I used in the video I add to the post.
In summary the AL West teams have lost these WARs this season, and their biggest impact losses.
Rangers 12.1- DeGrom 5.9, Seager 1.8, Eovaldi 1.0
Astros 11.5- Altuve 3.2, McCullers 2.4, Brantley 1.7, Alvarez 1.7, Garcia 1.6
Mariners 7.2- Ray 2.4, Gonzalez 1.5
Doing this for all 30 teams would be too labor intensive.
If we synthesize all of this data, I reach the following conclusions.
Overall, the Astros have had LESS injuries than other teams and less lost days than other teams.
The Astros have had some big injuries with big impact but expecting Brantley to go injury free would have been foolish. One might say the same about LMJ.
The Astros have NOT been uniquely impacted or more impacted than other teams. Even in their division, the Rangers could claim their impact has been almost as bad or even worse than the Astros. If you claim the Astros are where they are because of injuries, you are ignoring that the OTHER MLB teams have had just as bad or worse injury impact than the Astros.
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Astros Injuries
Rangers Injuries
Mariners Injuries
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