How Would Other Teams Do in 2009 With The Mets Injuries?

by Bobby Baseball on Nov 5, 2009 4:30 PM EST

Hey everyone, I am new to SB Nation and Amazin Avenue. My name is Bobby and I would like to share this with you. I wrote this piece for my old blog back in August so the numbers might be a little outdated but they still speak very loudly. Here you are:

~~~

The Mets have had 17 different guys on the disabled list throughout the season, not mentioning several guys having multiple stints on that list. 17 out of a 25 man roster. That is 68 percent. Think about that.

Now I am going to give you another statistic. This year, the Mets have used 47 different players on the major league team. 17 injured players, 47 overall. That is 36 percent.

36 percent. 36 percent of all Mets this year have been injured.

That is more than a third. So next time you think that the Mets suck this year, and Mets fans just use injuries as an excuse, think about what your team could do with over a third of its roster missing. That is 8.25 players, but since you can't have a quarter of a player on the DL, lets just say he is Day to Day throughout the season and can not play more than 5 consecutive days.

So lets think about it.

If the Red Sox were missing Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, Jason Bay, Victor Martinez, Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Jonathan Papelbon, and Mike Lowell for the entire year, could they make the playoffs? Now obviously all of the Mets players are not all out for the whole year but we have had 17 different guys on the DL, so according to my math that is equivalent to have that 36 percent out the whole year, since after all, these Red Sox are only 8 guys. Now also say J.D. Drew can not play more than 4 or 5 games in a row since he is Day to Day. All season.

Now think about the Dodgers. Minus Manny Ramirez, James Loney, Matt Kemp, Russell Martin, Clayton Kershaw, Chad Billingsley, Jonathan Broxton, and Andre Ethier. For the whole year. And Orlando Hudson is day to day. Could this team make the playoffs?

Could the Yankees make the playoffs if they did not have CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett, Mark Teixiera, Jorge Posada, Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Mariano Rivera? And Nick Swisher is day to day?

Take the Giants. Now take away Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Brian Wilson, Pablo Sandoval, Bengie Molina, Freddy Sanchez, Randy Winn, Nate Schierholtz, and Randy Winn is day to day. Not a playoff team.

The Angels could not play in October if they did not have Chone Figgins, John Lackey, Brian Fuentes, Maicer Iztures, Mike Napoli, Vladmir Guererro, Kendry Morales, and Jaun Rivera all gone. And Bobby Abreu is day to day.

Picture the Phillies without Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Cliff Lee, Shane Victorino, J.A. Happ, Brad Lidge, Jayson Werth, and Pedro Feliz is day to day.

I think you get my point. There is not a single team in baseball who could endure what the Mets are going through. You have to give them credit for being able to still have a better record than 9 other teams up until this point. And remember them while you make your predictions for the 2010 season.

~~~

Well that is it. What do you guys think? Isn't this astonishing? I had to do a little bit of research to find those numbers but it was well worth it in my opinion, I would really love to watch the Phillies straggle 15 games out of first because they are missing all of their stars.

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Comments

It's certainly true

I’m pretty sure everyone agrees that the Mets were victims of terrible injuries, and had everyone been around they certainly would have been much more competitive. And had other teams suffered the same injuries, they would have probably been knocked out of the playoff hunt as well.

At the same time, a lot of the decisions that put the Mets in this situation can be questioned. No one put a gun to their heads to resign Oliver Perez this year; there were other 1B available other than the aging Delgado, and I believe it would have been crazy to expect anything like his 2008 again. There were plenty of guys available for the corner outfield (Abreu etc.) and we didn’t have to go the Sheffield-Church route. Similarly, you can’t act shocked that a guy like Putz got hurt, given his recent history.

You can definitely say hindsight is 20/20, but some of these moves lacked considerable foresight and that was the major problem. I wasn’t around this board last year, but I can imagine that people here were clamoring for a legit #2 starter instead of Perez, Tim Redding, Livan Hernandez, etc. I would assume a guy like K-Rod would have gotten hurt as well, but maybe he’s just waiting for next year.

good post though, no doubt about it any team would be hard pressed to be competitive with these kinds of injuries

by Rey-O on Nov 5, 2009 7:42 PM EST reply actions

The Mets were victims of terrible injury management.

Let’s get that straight.

I agree 10000% with the rest of your post.

by fxcarden on Nov 5, 2009 9:18 PM EST up reply actions

I still don't understand how an injury could be initially diagnosed as 'Day-to-Day', when it really required surgery and all that.

We were in L.A. when Reyes was first diagnosed by their doctors, right? Were they trying to sabotage us?

"Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!"

by Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan on Nov 6, 2009 5:22 PM EST up reply actions

What’s more shocking is how long it took him to finally get the surgery…I mean, up until the last week of the season they were still talking about letting him come back, it was ridiculous. I don’t know if they were joking themselves, or they were trying to prove reyes’ grit, or if the Mets have just become terrible liars.

by Rey-O on Nov 6, 2009 8:22 PM EST up reply actions

What happened was that the Mets doctors only do surgeries on Thursday, and they were all taken.

by fxcarden on Nov 6, 2009 8:55 PM EST up reply actions

ohh, see I didn't know about that thursday thing.

by Rey-O on Nov 6, 2009 10:46 PM EST up reply actions

The entire episode just makes you wonder. And, no one (that we know of) ever got into any hot water about anything...

"Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!"

by Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan on Nov 6, 2009 10:12 PM EST up reply actions

I get your point, but...

You’re not really adjusting the missing days to DL properly. Reyes and Delgado missed four months, Beltran missed ~two months, Wright 2 weeks, and Santana was shut down early. The days Alex Cora spent on the DL, for your comparison, would have to be applied to someone like Nick Green or Eric Bruntlett in your examples, since Cora’s a backup infielder. In the same way, losing Ollie and Putz probably didn’t end up hurting the team as much; not like the Yankees losing Rivera and Pettitte; imagine them losing Alfredo Aceves and Jonathan Albaladejo.

With a team built around a core of stars like the Mets, of course a series of injuries like this is too much to bear. Nobody’s arguing that point. But the problem is exacerbated when the Mets’ failure to build up sufficient depth leads to the 3-4-5 of Murph-Francoeur-Sullivan. That’s why guys like Adam Everett are prominent in a number of the offseason plans around here; because you shouldn’t need to plan for perfect 162-game seasons from everyone in order to make the playoffs when the Mets’ resources are at hand. You need some sort of contingency plan for the inevitable things that go wrong in the long baseball season.

by The nye mets are my favorite team on Nov 5, 2009 7:47 PM EST reply actions

Yeah you are probably right about the Cora/Bruntlett/Green thing

but as for when you mentioned that Delgado and Wright and Reyes did not miss the whole year, let me point this out.

Since the Mets had 36% of their players get hurt, that is one-third of the team. One-third of 25 men is 8 men. So instead of having 17 guys hurt for some of the year, you have 8 guys hurt for all of the year.

by Bobby Baseball on Nov 6, 2009 5:44 PM EST up reply actions

Just from the core

I calculate a projected 9.3 WAR lost.

Assuming 150 games played and 32 starts in healthy seasons. Actual WAR / Projected WAR / WAR lost:

Beltran 2.9 / 5.4 / 2.5
Reyes 0.7 / 2.9 / 2.2
Delgado 0.8 / 4.6 / 3.8
Santana 2.8 / 3.6 / 0.8

Obviously there are a lot of problems with these estimates. For one, the samples were too small to extrapolate into full healthy seasons but overall it’s a reasonable estimate.

Saying we lost about 10 wins is a good start.

by TheBigStapler on Nov 6, 2009 10:35 AM EST reply actions

That would have made us a .500 team.

by fxcarden on Nov 6, 2009 11:10 AM EST up reply actions

Santana only projects to 3.6 WAR?

This surprises me, seems low. Not saying you’re wrong or anything, don’t get me wrong…

by Jsz on Nov 6, 2009 4:52 PM EST via mobile up reply actions

Santana’s injury affected his command, which resulted in some ugly performances in June, July and August. His pre-season projection was a lot closer to 4.5-5 wins. Delgado got off to an excellent start, but he would’ve had to dwarf his 2008 numbers to post a 4.6 win season. 2.5 wins would’ve been a considerable projection for him. Reyes and Beltran are typically 5 win players

www.twitter.com/willDavidian

by All Shook Down on Nov 6, 2009 5:06 PM EST up reply actions

Yeah it was pretty lazy of me

not to use pre-season projections or career averages or something.

by TheBigStapler on Nov 6, 2009 5:45 PM EST up reply actions

Oh, you used data from this season and extrapolated it for 150 games

I expect better of the BigStapler, but I understand. I was wondering how Delgado had almost 5 WAR and Reyes less than 3.

by Jsz on Nov 8, 2009 12:22 PM EST up reply actions

What you're saying is true, but...

that wasn’t the only thing wrong with 2009. Church, Sheffield, Castillo, and Perez; I think there were alternatives to each of these guys that would have made the Mets better.
The Mets needs to get younger and smarter, and to begin that two more people whose names I won’t mention need to go.

by burtweidemeier on Nov 7, 2009 4:10 PM EST reply actions

Keith and Carlin, right?

Both annoy me.

"Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!"

by Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan on Nov 8, 2009 8:49 PM EST up reply actions

Carlin sucks.

How the hell could you dislike Keith Hernandez? You must be a boring person if that’s true, haha.

"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw

by squid92 on Nov 8, 2009 11:09 PM EST up reply actions

As it related to him being a broadcaster

all that coke must’ve addled his brain a bit. I don’t like his random tangents that make no sense (as opposed to the ones that do; those are fine) and go nowhere. His propensity to bring up his time with the Cardinals at every opportunity back in the early days of SNY were also annoying. That, he doesn’t do nearly as much as I remember him doing in ’05.

"Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!"

by Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan on Nov 8, 2009 11:19 PM EST up reply actions

I love Keith

he’s the best

"[The Giants] beat us down. We were beat by a grown-man team, a team we want to be like one day. They came in here and took it to us. Out-manned us, out-gunned us. ... It wasn't even close." - Raheem Morris, 9/27/09

by cjmulrain on Nov 8, 2009 11:56 PM EST up reply actions

seriously

the random tangents are what make SNY broadcasts, I dunno, interesting. Bad broadcasters (Chip Caray, Michael Kay, Joe Morgan, Tim McCarver) can’t afford to do that, or else they’d miss an opportunity to call someone gritty, talk about fisting, or sputter out altogether incorrect analysis.

"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw

by squid92 on Nov 9, 2009 12:09 AM EST up reply actions

As long as the tangents

I have no problem. A lot of them don’t, though.

Plus, I just don’t like the guy personally.

"Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!"

by Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan on Nov 9, 2009 1:11 AM EST up reply actions

He can do whatever he wants

He’s Keith Hernandez

"We must win and we must know how to win rather than win because we have statistical people."

by Evan_S on Nov 9, 2009 2:48 AM EST up reply actions

Id like to see you try filling that much air time with sensible dialogue while watching this team day after day

After watching this season its amazing any of us are still coherent at all.

by KeithsMoustache on Nov 9, 2009 10:47 AM EST up reply actions

No broadcaster makes me laugh as much as Keith

He’s spectacular.

"We must win and we must know how to win rather than win because we have statistical people."

by Evan_S on Nov 9, 2009 12:29 AM EST up reply actions

i love keith, but

brooklyn dodgers has a point. a lotta times keith is just spacing out, or starts some vague memory and it dies halfway out of his mouth, and thankfully gary is there to respectfully laugh, thus assuring the fans it was definitely going to be a “gem.” I wouldn’t replace him with anyone in the world, but he definitely sounds confused an awful lot. Is he coming back btw? I heard some nonsense that they might not renew his contract at the end of the season.

by Rey-O on Nov 9, 2009 8:51 AM EST reply actions