Snapshot of Money Lost by Royals Because of Time on DL

by Jeff Zimmerman on Feb 17, 2010 11:48 PM EST

Josh Hermsmeyer at RotoBlog.com just released a data set of all injuries from 2002 to 2009. I decided to go ahead and jump on the opportunity and look at the Royal teams and the top 30 players that cost the organization the most money for time on the DL.

Here is the list of which teams ranked from year to year:

Rank	Year	Salary Lost	Total Day on DL	Trips to DL	Total Payroll	% of Total Payroll
1	2007	$19,211,214	1644	19	$67,116,500	29%
2	2009	$15,103,488	888	13	$70,519,333	21%
3	2006	$11,833,014	953	14	$47,294,000	25%
4	2004	$10,682,789	1490	20	$47,609,000	22%
5	2003	$5,880,161	524	11	$40,518,000	15%
6	2008	$5,449,647	649	10	$58,245,500	9%
7	2002	$4,658,222	577	12	$47,257,000	10%
8	2005	$4,550,350	481	5	$36,881,000	12%

Players after the jump

Now time for the players, no real surprise at who is #1 (he came in 26th in all the league):

Rank	Last	First	Salary Lost	Days Lost
1	Sweeney	Mike	$17,694,444	298
2	Sanders	Reggie	$5,250,000	189
3	Guillen	Jose	$4,866,667	73
4	Crisp	Coco	$3,886,574	115
5	Elarton	Scott	$3,444,444	155
6	Sullivan	Scott	$3,153,333	226
7	Bale	John	$3,060,000	292
8	Gonzalez	Juan	$2,977,778	134
9	Dotel	Octavio	$2,666,667	96
10	Meche	Gil	$2,090,000	33
11	Grudzielanek	Mark	$2,033,333	84
12	Perez	Odalis	$1,894,444	44
13	Farnsworth	Kyle	$1,298,611	55
14	Santiago	Benito	$1,290,000	108
15	Marrero	Eli	$1,226,667	69
16	Hernandez	Roberto	$1,100,000	33
17	Hudson	Luke	$914,883	367
18	Randa	Joe	$862,500	42
19	Tucker	Michael	$779,167	51
20	Tomko	Brett	$716,667	43
21	Mientkiewicz	Doug	$709,167	69
22	Beltran	Carlos	$633,333	19
23	Cruz	Juan	$612,500	49
24	Buck	John	$596,111	37
25	Waechter	Doug	$579,556	163
26	Graffanino	Tony	$568,333	93
27	Affeldt	Jeremy	$555,600	194
28	Asencio	Miguel	$531,097	296
29	Nunez	Leo	$512,117	238
30	Knoblauch	Chuck	$500,000	45

Tweet Comment 29 comments | 1 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

jose guillen

where injuries are a good thing

by Freneau on Feb 17, 2010 11:56 PM EST reply actions

I think that can be said for about 2/3rds of that list.

- .-. ..- … – / – …. . / .—. .-. - .. . … …

by Jeff Zimmerman on Feb 17, 2010 11:59 PM EST up reply actions

Yep. The only good players I count

are Meche, Grudz, Randa, Beltrán, and Núñez.

I didn’t realize all those Elarton-Sullivan-Bale-Odalis incompetent starting pitchers made so much for doing so little, so badly.

Whatever you may think of Sweeney, his contract hung around the Royals’ neck like a dead weight, like Guillén’s. At least Sweeney was a nice guy on the surface who didn’t suck if he was healthy enough to play, which wasn’t often, while Guillén is an unmitigated asshole who is a zero-tool player and clubhouse trouble.

It's pronounced Poo-ZHOLS in Catalan.

by Juancho on Feb 18, 2010 7:34 AM EST reply actions

its a little bit decieving however

because sweeney was by far the longest tenured royal of the decade

we remember it now like he was ALWAYS injured, but in reality that wasn’t entirely the case

by Freneau on Feb 18, 2010 9:06 AM EST up reply actions

And he pretty much never got hurt

until (seemingly) the day after he signed the contract

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.

Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.

by Matt Klaassen on Feb 18, 2010 10:41 AM EST up reply actions

what made it worse was that it was a daily story

he seemingly never just was gone for three months: nope, he’d miss three weeks, then we’d have three weeks of rumors, then three weeks of off-and-on play, then repeat

Dutton probably wrote something like 200 Sweeney-injured-rehab-progress stories alone

by Freneau on Feb 18, 2010 11:38 AM EST up reply actions

He'd come out of a game with tightness in his back

and it would begin. Loved the constant “it’s nothing serious” coming from the articles. Eventually “nothing serious” came to equal “2-3 months on the DL”

Unless I'm wrong...
My Twitter feed

by Top Ramen on Feb 18, 2010 1:52 PM EST up reply actions

I don't totally understand the first table

is that just the royals?

by Freneau on Feb 18, 2010 9:04 AM EST reply actions

Did the Royals really spend 19 million on the DL in 2007? Yikes.

Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.

by Warden11 on Feb 18, 2010 9:35 AM EST up reply actions

It is just the Royals for that year.

I should put the entire team payroll also. Let see if I can make it a little better.

- .-. ..- … – / – …. . / .—. .-. - .. . … …

by Jeff Zimmerman on Feb 18, 2010 9:49 AM EST up reply actions

Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com

by RoyalsRetro on Feb 18, 2010 9:13 AM EST reply actions 3 recs

Unless those tables are adjusted

to a time-sensitive dollar value, they’re meaningless. $1M in 2002 != $1M in 2008.

This space for rent.

by jonfmorse on Feb 18, 2010 9:39 AM EST reply actions

Percent of Payroll

is useful though without the adjustment.

by Bornin85 on Feb 18, 2010 12:01 PM EST up reply actions

I would like to see

a graph of wins vs. either days spent on DL, DL trips, or $$ lost to injury. Just eyeballing it, it looks like a moderate correlation between these factors (duh), but just curious how important it is or isnt…

what might be more meaningful or interesting would be wins vs. WAR days lost to DL, or WAR/$ lost to DL.

"He once had an awkward moment, just to see how it felt...he lives vicariously...through himself- He is the most interesting man in the world"

by Home Run Tony Cogan on Feb 18, 2010 11:14 AM EST reply actions

Dayton doesn't need no stinking graph

It was the DL trips that derailed what surely was going to be an awesome 2009 season.

Mr Glass, this is a pro sports team, not a retail store - run it like one!

by loyal2sdad on Feb 18, 2010 5:22 PM EST up reply actions

Interesting snapshot

I’d be curious how we stack up versus the league.

Another interesting thing I’d like to see is how we look vs expected (i.e. regress the data: players before they got here, adjusted for age vs how they did once getting here vs once they left and we could close the book on Doctor Nick)

There’s always been the meme that since we have a lower payroll, we have to take more risks (i.e. sign a player who could break out vs one who already has) and that extends to injuries, too. I’d be curious if Dr. Nick was bad, given bad players so he couldn’t do anything anyways, or some combination of both. Or, maybe, stacked up against the league, neither. Maybe it’s just that baseball is a marathon every summer and everyone gets a substantial number of players hurt; we just happen notice the ones on our closest team most.

by sterlingice on Feb 18, 2010 12:47 PM EST via mobile reply actions

I have one for all teams ready to go at BeyondTheBoxscore - should run tomorrow

The Royals don’t look good.

- .-. ..- … – / – …. . / .—. .-. - .. . … …

by Jeff Zimmerman on Feb 18, 2010 12:56 PM EST up reply actions

BP does a good job of

analyzing player/team health. i believe we have been subpar in that aspect of the organization as well, so i don’t think it’s a coincidence that we have a lot of players on the dl.

i think this has to do with several factors: poor training staff, rushing players (especially pitchers) to the majors, and an unwillingness to monitor pitch counts more closely, in addition to random variance.

"He once had an awkward moment, just to see how it felt...he lives vicariously...through himself- He is the most interesting man in the world"

by Home Run Tony Cogan on Feb 18, 2010 1:01 PM EST up reply actions

it is the sole reason the team failed to thrive last year...

"Things could always be worse." - Buddy Bell

by buddyball on Feb 18, 2010 1:02 PM EST up reply actions

no, but

it doesn’t help. regardless, my point was that a lot of it is within their control. meche’s problems were almost certainly directly linked to his overuse, for example.

"He once had an awkward moment, just to see how it felt...he lives vicariously...through himself- He is the most interesting man in the world"

by Home Run Tony Cogan on Feb 18, 2010 1:04 PM EST up reply actions

my comment was related to what the official party line seems to be

we were a flawed team before the injuries happened. I really, really wish Aviles hadn’t gotten hurt, because it would have prevented trading for Yuni and we probably would have had better production at SS all season.

"Things could always be worse." - Buddy Bell

by buddyball on Feb 18, 2010 1:24 PM EST up reply actions

yeah, i was talking about that this morning

as an example of bad decisions compounding previous bad decisions. if we had had better depth in the minors in the first place, we wouldn’t have been caught with our pants down when aviles got hurt.

sure, last year’s team was flawed but last year was also a trainwreck for the most part. i don’t deny that even without injuries, we probably were no better than a 78-82 win club. i think DM recognizes that. whether he has the tools or ability to fix it, well unfortunately it’s not looking great (although i still hold out hope).

"He once had an awkward moment, just to see how it felt...he lives vicariously...through himself- He is the most interesting man in the world"

by Home Run Tony Cogan on Feb 18, 2010 1:59 PM EST up reply actions

supposedly the new medical staff is much more highly regarded

we’ll see

by Freneau on Feb 18, 2010 3:45 PM EST up reply actions

So was Dayton when we hired him.

by Bornin85 on Feb 18, 2010 5:05 PM EST up reply actions 3 recs

How is Juan Gonzalez only 134 games?

Is this exclusively his time with the Royals, or all of his play time from 2002-2009?

by Cairo on Feb 18, 2010 4:51 PM EST reply actions

i've always heard about teams insuring their players health

(though the figures on this are never released) so they could get reimbursed should someone spend a great deal of time on the DL.

that would mean David Glass continues to be smart with money.

by 9il on Feb 19, 2010 11:37 AM EST reply actions

smart is a relative term

making money on a baseball team is one definition. having GMDM spend your money for you is not.

Zapp Brannigan/Dayton Moore quote of the day: "...And like all my plans, it's so simple an idiot could have devised it!"

by SagehenMacGyver47 on Feb 19, 2010 12:29 PM EST up reply actions

Crazy like a fox

I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.

by philofthenorth on Feb 21, 2010 2:04 AM EST up reply actions

It’s not the injuries that are irritating, it’s that many of the players on that list weren’t that good to begin with. A healthy and productive Mike Sweeney was worth his salary (and the nice guy factor made it hard to hate him). That cannot be said for so many of the past and current Royals .
If the Royals aren’t going to get rid of players like Guillen, Cruz, Farnsworth, Betancourt, etc. Then the salary is something, we as fans, cannot get too upset about. The real issue is signing or trading for these types of players to begin with. Betancourt? Are you kidding me? Dayton, out of all the shortstops you might have selected, how did you decide to chose possibly the worst shortstop…if not worst player in baseball…AND HE IS OVERPAID!!!
I have a blog, with poll questions that I would love some feedback on…check it out if you like:
www.realdirtyblue.blogspot.com

by RealDirty on Feb 22, 2010 7:09 PM EST reply actions