We keep hearing how the Tigers will do better this year “if they stay healthy” but it’s pretty clear they have a good number of players who are significant injury risks. How big are these risks? Can we really project injuries for specific players? One man thinks he can.
Over the past few years, Sig Mejdal of Baseball Info Solutions has been assessing injury risk based on 35 years of injury data and the characteristics of players. These characteristics include age, body mass index, past injuries, defensive position, career games and high pitch outings. He projects each player as a low, mediocre or high risk for a significant injury. By significant injury, he means an injury which will keep a player out of action for 30 consecutive days. These projections have been published in the last two Bill James Baseball Handbooks. The chart below shows his projections for the Tigers in 2005 and 2006.
Table: Sig Mejdal’s Injury Projections
| Player | 2005 Projection | 2006 Projection |
| Ivan Rodriguez | High | High |
| Chris Shelton | NA | Medium |
| Dmitri Young | High | High |
| Carlos Pena | Low | Medium |
| Placido Polanco | High | Medium |
| Carlos Guillen | Medium | Medium |
| Brandon Inge | Medium | Medium |
| Omar Infante | Low | Medium |
| Craig Monroe | Medium | High |
| Curtis Grandersn | NA | Low |
| Magglio Ordonez | High | High |
| Nook | NA | Low |
| Jeremy Bonderman | NA | High |
| Mike Maroth | NA | Medium |
| Nate Robertson | NA | Medium |
| Kenny Rogers | NA | Medium |
I’ll be somewhat skeptical of the system until I see a detailed analysis of the results over several years. However, most of his projections for the Tigers seem reasonable. The only two which are surprising are Guillen and Monroe. To me, Guillen seems like a high injury risk while
I"m also not sure why Shelton and Pena would be considered medium risks. Shelton I guess a little bit by looking at BMI, but I don't understand Pena at all. He plays a position that isn't very taxing, he's in good shape, and he doesn't have much of an injury history.
ReplyDeleteWhat, you mean Dmitri Young is a high injury risk? I'm shocked... *SHOCKED*, I tell you!
ReplyDeleteBill, I was mostly looking at high versus medium in my critique. I do agree though that Pena seems more like a low risk than a medium risk.
ReplyDeleteJeff, it is quite shocking....Seriously though, I think the Pena/Young situation may solve itself in the form of an injury to Young.
Very interesting data. Thanks for providing it.
ReplyDeleteLove the Tiger Blog.