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October 8, 2008

Playoff Health Report

NLCS

by Will Carroll

As we prepare to get underway with what promises to be a closely-matched NL Championship Series, we have two teams that have struggled through their share of injuries to get where they are. Credit has to go to both medical staffs for managing to keep their teams functional, even though they may both end up ranking well down on the final lists for days or dollars lost. Consider that for the Dodgers, Andruw Jones and Jason Schmidt aren't here, while the Phillies are without Tom Gordon and Scott Mathieson. For some teams, losing this much value would have been crippling, but through a combination of resources and handling, both the Dodgers and Phillies come into the Series relatively healthy. For whichever team wins the pennant, there will be a staff in the training room that helped get them there, even if no one remembers to pour champagne on them.

Los Angeles Dodgers

Injuries and wins usually correlate. That's not the case for the Dodgers, who are near the bottom in days lost, dollars lost, and value lost. With 25 injuries, many of them to key players, the Dodgers were in the perfect position for a death spiral, where the workload on a medical staff spins out of control, causing more injuries due to a lack of time to do preventative work. Most of the loss was from those two star players already mentioned, and the rest was made up of older, injury-prone players like Nomar Garciaparra, Brad Penny, and Rafael Furcal.

It's the return of Furcal that's most notable and seems to have had the biggest effect on the team. The back injury that he suffered was the kind that can involve significant time for recovery; few return as quickly as Furcal did, so we have to give some credit here to the medical staff. Compare his recovery time to Mark Kotsay's, who had the same type of surgery. While Kotsay returned in a similar amount of time last year, he didn't stay healthy long, and he continues to have issues with his back. That might be a good piece of information to consider for whoever signs Furcal next season, but for now, he seems completely healthy.

The same can't be said for Takashi Saito. The Dodgers' titular closer doesn't have his best stuff back and is sharing the role with Jonathon Broxton. His lack of availability and Joe Torre's trust issues keep him out of tight situations; sources tell me that he's essentially the last man out of their pen right now. His arm troubles come after years of heavy use in Japan, and he's likely to hang it up after this season.