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Team Injury Projections

The Team Injury Projections are here, driven by our brand new injury forecasting system, the Comprehensive Health Index [of] Pitchers [and] Players [with] Evaluative Results—or, more succinctly, CHIPPER. Thanks to work by Colin Wyers and Dan Turkenkopf and a database loaded with injuries dating back to the 2002 season—that's nearly 4,600 players and well over 400,000 days lost to injury—we now have a system that produces injury-risk assessments to three different degrees. CHIPPER projects ratings for players based on their injury history–these ratings measure the probability of a player missing one or more games, 15 or more games, or 30 or more games. CHIPPER will have additional features added to it throughout the spring and early season that will enhance the accuracy of our injury coverage.

These ratings are also available in the Player Forecast Manager (pfm.baseballprospectus.com), where they'll be sortable by league or position—you won’t have to wait for us to finish writing this series in order to see the health ratings for all of the players.

FLO
Team Audit | Depth Chart
 

Dashboard


2010 Recap
 

2010
 

2009
 

2008
 

2007
3rd in NL East
44 entries
14 DL trips
               

806
TDL

18
DMPI
 

806
TDL
11th
 

18
DMPI
10th
 

945
TDL
14th
 

19
DMPI
11th
 

1626
TDL
26th
 

49
DMPI
30th
 

1399
TDL
28th
 

32
DMPI
26th

Hitters in approximate Depth Charts order at time of publication

 

Days Lost to Injury

2011 Injury Risk

Player

Age

2008

2009

2010

1-day

15-days

30-days
Chris Coghlan

26

0

1

73

Red

Red

Yellow
Omar Infante

29

68

82

7

Red

Red

Yellow
Hanley Ramirez

27

7

11

21

Red

Yellow

Yellow
Michael Stanton

21

0

0

0

Yellow

Green

Green
Gaby Sanchez

27

0

0

0

Yellow

Green

Green
Logan Morrison

23

0

0

0

Yellow

Green

Green
John Buck

30

1

35

16

Red

Red

Yellow
Wes Helms

35

0

1

0

Yellow

Green

Green
Scott Cousins

26

0

0

0

Yellow

Green

Green
Emilio Bonifacio

26

0

0

4

Yellow

Green

Green
John Baker

30

2

4

144

Red

Red

Red
Donnie Murphy

28

33

0

40

Red

Red

Red

Pitchers in approximate Depth Charts order at time of publication

 

Days Lost to Injury

2011 Injury Risk

Player

Age

2008

2009

2010

1-day

15-days

30-days
Josh Johnson

27

108

6

29

Yellow

Green

Green
Ricky Nolasco

28

0

0

46

Yellow

Green

Green
Anibal Sanchez

27

128

102

0

Yellow

Yellow

Green
Javier Vazquez

34

0

11

6

Yellow

Yellow

Green
Chris Volstad

24

0

0

0

Green

Green

Green
Alejandro Sanabia

22

0

0

7

Green

Green

Green
Leo Nunez

27

54

6

0

Green

Green

Green
Clay Hensley

31

77

0

20

Yellow

Yellow

Green
Ryan Webb

25

0

0

0

Green

Green

Green
Randy Choate

35

112

0

0

Red

Yellow

Yellow
Brian Sanches

32

0

0

23

Yellow

Green

Green
Edward Mujica

27

0

0

0

Green

Green

Green
Michael Dunn

26

0

0

0

Green

Green

Green
Burke Badenhop

28

106

36

5

Yellow

Yellow

Green
Sean West

25

0

0

50

Yellow

Yellow

Green

Summary: Ponce de León was right: the Fountain of Youth is in Florida. Unfortunately for him, he never thought to look inside Sun Life Stadium. The Marlins had (and still have) one of the youngest rosters in the majors, a side effect of their cost-cutting mentality. Generally younger players are “healthier” on average but when they do get injured it tends to be more severe. In other words, they don’t get the aches and pains, the stiffness and soreness—they blow out their knees or elbows. The Marlins didn't have a ton of injuries in 2010, but they did suffer a few significant ones that cost them 30-plus games—that combination put them in the middle of the road for days lost and number of injuries, a position they can expect to occupy again in 2011.

The Marlins are continuing their recent tradition of roster turnover, sticking with younger players once again. One major change in health risk comes in center, where Cameron Maybin was dealt and replaced by Chris Coghlan. Coghlan is recovering from left knee surgery on his meniscus in August, following a celebration for a walk-off win. Logan Morrison and Mike Stanton will flank Coghlan in left and right, respectively—all of them are in the dangerous injury zone given that they are all under 25 (and in Morrison and Stanton's cases, well under 25). Stanton has already missed time this spring with a quadriceps strain, and Coghlan, as we stated, is fresh off of surgery on his legs and now slated to play the most demanding of the outfield positions on a full-time basis.

Hanley Ramirez is the jewel of the infield (more on him later), and he is surrounded by Omar Infante, Wes Helms, and Gaby Sanchez, with John Buck and Baker behind the plate. Infante underwent emergency gall bladder and umbilical hernia surgery in December and may not be ready for the start of the season, while Baker is returning from Tommy John surgery.

The rotation is anchored by Josh Johnson, and he is supported by Ricky Nolasco, newcomer Javier Vazquez, Anibal Sanchez, and Chris Volstad. These five look to carry average risk for 2011, as almost every player projected to stick in the rotation has an injury history. Johnson had TJ surgery in 2007 and was shut down at the end of last year. Nolasco had medial meniscus surgery just last season Sanchez had labrum surgery back in 2007 and just got back on track in 2010. CHIPPER doesn’t believe there are any high risks in this rotation, but don’t take that to mean that there aren't any. The bullpen is similarly rated and actually a bit above-average.

The Big Risk: Here's the thing with positional scarcity: it's great when you have someone like Hanley Ramirez at a position where no one else has a productive player, but if he is hurt for a considerable amount of time, the odds are high that the only thing his replacement will be good at is tanking your season. While the Marlins would be lucky enough to be able to slide Infante over to short were Ramirez to go down, that shift would open up a vacancy at second base, creating an Emilio Bonifacio-sized hole in the lineup and compromising the team's infield depth.

Ramirez's injury history is likely to scare people away—according to CHIPPER, it should. He underwent surgery on his left, non-throwing shoulder in 2007, and while he rebounded nicely in 2008, his home run totals have decreased in each of the last few seasons. Since the beginning of 2009, he hasn't gone onto the disabled list but has make it into our database with day-to-day ailments 14 times in the regular season alone. At what point will one of these day-to-day injuries turn into something more serious, costing Ramirez even more time? CHIPPER thinks it could happen as soon as 2011.

Comeback: Coghlan's 2010 ended with an August knee surgery, and the Marlins are now moving him into center field. The combination of age, a position switch, and the previous surgery puts him at a higher risk according to CHIPPER, though he appears to be rebounding well right now.

Best Health: Chris Volstad has about the least amount of risk possible. Hopefully we didn’t just jinx him.

Worst Health: Baker and Infante split the honor, as their recent injury histories are not looked upon kindly by CHIPPER.

Thank you for reading

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batts40
3/10
Josh Johnson didn't lose any days to injury last year?
amolmodi
3/10
Johnson missed almost all of September due to back issues. These numbers are wrong.
yankeehater32
3/10
Johnson's numbers are off, yes. We're fixing it, and will update the page soon.
batts40
3/11
Good deal, I thought my brain was broken for a bit.
wilykat
3/10
Where's Gaby Sanchez on the chart?
SFiercex4
3/10
Corey and Marc,

Good stuff as always. I was completely unaware of the time Infante missed due to injury; I had always presumed his lack of PT in 2008 and 2009 was mostly due to him being a utility infielder, but it seems he was also on the DL for quite a while.

Also, I'm quite surprised to see Johnson green-lighted so easily; I guessed that he and Nolasco would miss a few starts this season, but most "fantasy experts" have red-flagged him for injury risk after his shoulder and hip problems late last season. What is CHIPPER seeing that is showing JJ as low-risk despite the recent injury woes?
markpadden
3/10
I find it odd that every pitcher is green for odds of missing 30+ days, whereas less than half of the hitters are. This doesn't jibe well with subjective experience, which is that pitchers have more major injuries than hitters. Is there something unusual about this team, or are pitcher injuries less common that people typically think?
biglou115
3/10
Had to call it CHIPPER? How hard did ya'll work to force that?
yankeehater32
3/10
It took a lot of backronym testing to make that fit.
buddha
3/10
Marlins fan here -- yes we exist, even in Illinois.

Nice to see the pitchers with happy, happy colors in their chart. Since I can't imagine Helms actually being the starter, how does Dominguez look through the CHIPPER eyes?
VDracul
3/11
Love the name CHIPPER and the skull and crossbones. Cute but effective.