Hopefully the Mets dodged a bullet by not having Sunday’s injury to Carlos Beltran being more serious and requiring a DL stint. With the club already having Ike Davis, Johan Santana and David Wright on the DL, the last thing it needed was another high-priced player to be sidelined for two-plus weeks.
After the disastrous 2009 injury-plagued season and one that was nearly as bad in 2010, Mets fans were thinking that they were owed some good luck on the injury front in 2011. But so far that has not been the case. According to the ESPN team transactions page, the Mets have used the DL 10 times this season. Partly due to the big names on the list, that seems like a big number. But how does that compare to other teams?
I used the same ESPN transaction pages to track how other teams in the National League East have fared with injuries in 2011 to see how the Mets rate. It’s important to note that this ESPN feature is not perfect. They did not list Jason Heyward, Logan Morrison or Brian Schneider as being disabled. It’s likely they missed others as well that I did not catch.
But with the information that was available (plus my catches) here is how the NL East breaks down (p.i.). Extended stays are players who were disabled for more than 21 days. This is to date, as obviously some who are disabled now will be out longer than three weeks.
Atlanta Braves
Total DL moves – 6
Stars – Jurrjens, Heyward
Starters – Medlen, Beachy, McLouth
Extended Stays – Medlen, Moylan, Beachy
Florida Marlins
Total DL moves – 5
Stars – Johnson
Starters – Morrison
Extended Stays – Baker, Morrison
New York Mets
Total DL moves – 10
Stars – Bay, Santana, Davis, Wright
Starters – Young, Pagan
Extended Stays – Santana, Young, Parnell, Pagan, Davis
Philadelphia Phillies
Total DL moves – 12
Stars – Utley, Lidge, Oswalt, Victorino
Starters – Brown, Blanton, Contreras, Ruiz
Extended Stays – Utley, Bocock, Brown, Schlitter, Lidge, Contreras, Blanton, Schneider
Washington Nationals
Total DL moves – 11
Stars – Strasburg, Zimmermann
Starters – Ankiel, LaRoche, Gorzelanny
Extended Stays – Strasburg, Zimmerman, Ankiel, Gaudin
NL East averages
Total DL moves – 8.8
Stars – 2.6
Starters – 2.6
Extended Stays – 4.4
The Mets may not have the worst DL situation in the NL East this season (the Phillies certainly have a claim) but they have had worse luck than average in three of the four categories, having fewer injured “Starters” by a count of 2.6 to 2.
Plus, Wright soon will join Santana, Young, Davis et al. on the “Extended Stays” portion, too.
Injuries are part of the game and it feels whiny to complain about the Mets having bad luck in this department. But three years in a row seems a bit much to be one of the “unlucky” teams. It’s like the Mets failure to deliver with the bases loaded. This should be a random event but it keeps happening year after year.
It would be fun to only use the disabled list five times through June 5th and to have an OPS of 1.121 with the bases loaded like the Marlins have this season. I guess I’ll have to content myself with the Mets finishing behind them in these “luck” categories but ahead of them in the standings at the end of the year.