Are the Yankees Injury Issues Worse than Other Teams?

Late January Thoughts by Cary Greene

January 21, 2024

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Many here and elsewhere have frequently bashed Brian Cashman for his ongoing tendency, year in and year out, of constructing rosters that are far too injury prone. but have the Yankees cumulative injuries really been disproportionately high compared to the rest of the League? Even more concerning, if this narrative is true, is Cashman still up to his old tricks this offseason? Are Yankees fans in for another disappointing season during which injuries once again derail the pinstriped bus from journeying to championship land? I’ll attempt to frame all this in what follows next.

A Nine Year Look Back - An Exclusive for SSTN Readers After some research, using both Sportac and Baseball Prospectus (paywall), I came up with the below table from my private chart library to measure, once and for all, how the Yankees compare to the rest of the League in the all important category of Injuries. I’ve been tracking various types of data for a lot longer than 9-years, but the reason I selected this chart to share exclusively to our loyal SSTN reader base is because I was thinking I’d release a big 10-year lookback injury piece during the 2025 offseason - and I still plan to do that.

However, I see no harm in doing a 9-year lookback this offseason, as baseball’s free agent market has been very slow to date this particular offseason and there’s frankly not been too much to fixate on this winter.

My chart frames the cumulative Yankees injury totals each season versus the rest of the League, using the average number of players and days missed each season as our data points. In the center of the chart is the MLB average. The horizontal baseline data points illustrate the team with the fewest players injured each season and the team with whose injured players missed the fewest games and the horizontal ceiling data points represent the MLB teams with the most injured players and the most games missed in a given season.

What Jumped Out Most Was…

One of the first things that jumps out from the 9-year lookback is that there actually is a lot of merit to the notion that Cashman’s rosters have often been very injury prone - both in terms of the number of Yankees players who miss games due to injuries and also, from a day’s missed due to injuries vector. Let’s not forget, team owner Hal Steinbrenner must pay each injured player for every game they miss, plus the replacement players must also be paid.

Since the Yankees also tend to have a number of players with very large contracts, doing this is particularly painful for a team like the Yankees as it burns a ton of extra payroll dollars that could have been used far more constructively. In the last 9 years, the Yankees have paid $488 million to injured players and that’s a lot of coin to forfeit simply because the Yankees GM kept planning on players with significant injury track records.

In contrast, the average spend per MLB on injuries over the nine-year lookback added up was $216.5 million, which means the Yankees have spent $271.5 million more than the League average over the period. Clearly, it would benefit the Yankees tremendously if they could somehow curtail their injury issues.

The Season it all Came to a Head

After the 2019 season, the injury fallout reached critical mass and it finally forced the Yankees to try to address their catastrophic injury issues that had occured. 39 percent of the money the Yankees wasted by paying injured players in the past nine-seasons was spent in 2019 - a whopping $188.7 million.

In 2019, the Yankees had 18 position players go down and it cost them $172 million in injury pay, while only 12 pitchers were injured who collectively cost a mere $16.7 million. Positionally, the Yankees injuries caused a number of heads to roll as Cashman tried to revamp the way the Yankees were handling their players.

League Trends vs Yankees Trends

When I broke the data down further, I wanted to know what the League’s injury breakdowns were for pitchers vs position players. Not surprisingly, pitchers make up the lion’s share of all injuries and they miss the most days recovering as well. 58 percent of all injured players in the past nine seasons were pitchers, while only 42 percent of all injured players were position players. The Yankees trended a bit differently than the League however, as 52 percent of the Yankees injuries over the same period were injuries to pitchers, while 48 percent were to batters.

Two Conclusions

Two conclusions can be made from a 30,000 foot observation point regarding the past nine-seasons of injury data across the League. The first is that Cashman has done a better than average job of assembling durable pitching staffs, while the second is that he’s done poorly at building teams with durable position players.

Whether one wishes to blame this on the way the Yankees coach and handle their position players, or whether one wants to attribute the higher than League average number of injured position players on Cashman assembling too many injury prone position players is up for debate. I’ll refrain from giving my opinion on this here as we can debate the notion further in the comments section at the end of the article.

Last Season

Last season, 13 Yankees batters and 15 pitchers were injured, they lost a combined 2,154 days and the Yankees wasted $82.1 million paying the injured group - not to mention, the Yankees had to pay all the replacement players as well. When the season ended, one thing was plainly clear. Things haven’t improved much at all since 2019’s catastrophic, injury riddled season.

Last season, the Yankees ranked 28th out of 30 in MLB as they were once again one of the most injured teams in the League. Whatever the Yankees are doing, it needs to stop. The Yankees are hemorrhaging payroll, they have to find a way to solve the problems.

Over the Past Five Seasons

In two of the last five seasons, the Yankees have been atrociously bad at avoiding injuries. The nail in the coffin as I make this assessment is not only based on the Yankees averaging far more injured players than League average, but the Yankees injured players also seem to miss many more total days than League average.

Were there any bright spots for the Yankees over the nine-year lookback? During only the 2017 season and the pandemic shortened 2020 campaign the Yankees did manage to rank as below League average at avoiding injuries.

Framing the Cost of Last Season’s Injuries

Last season, as I mentioned, the Yankees spent $82.1 million on all the days that players on their roster missed. That’s more money than four MLB teams, the A’s, Orioles, Pirates and Rays, spent on their entire rosters and two of those teams made the playoffs – while the Yankees obviously didn’t.

Since 2019, the Yankees Problems have Festered

In 2022, the Yankees dished out $46.5 million in similar fashion – payroll dollars completely wasted while paying injured players who couldn’t even suit up for games. In 2021, the Yankees spent $51.7 million – again money that was wasted on injured players.

Getting Our Discussion Started Today

I’ll open with this: Many Yankees fans, including myself, who post here on SSTN in the comments section often point out the Cashman also perpetually blocks his prospects with stop gap players, ultimately failing to give prospects who may be ready some MLB exposure and often, Cashman tends to offload prospects to other teams as he reacts to fill openings caused by poor planning of course, players who are injured that he was counting on.

Insanity Defense

That Cashman has operated this long and in this fashion is rather frustrating to say the least. It’s like watching a dog run in circles while chasing it’s tail and so, at this juncture of today’s article, I state for the record - as Exhibit A - the a famous quote attributed to Albert Einstein,

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

I doubt Brian Cashman is insane, so I’m going to throw out the possibility of using an insanity plea to justify the job he’s been doing during the Yankees concerning and current championship drought, but make no mistake: Cashman is guilty of constructing rosters that repeatedly fail to win World Series titles and the main reason is that his teams are injured far

more than League Average. Since no one that I know has really dissected this topic, I thought our readers deserved my best attempt to frame our conversation below.

Sigmund Freud Nails It

Though I believe Sigmund Freud’s Repetition Compulsion might have been the basis for Einstein’s simplified definition of insanity, both thinkers were getting to the root of the same thing. According to Wikipedia, Freud’s Repetition Compulsion is the unconscious tendency of a person to repeat a traumatic event or its circumstances - a pattern is created whereby some people endlessly repeat patterns of behavior which were difficult or distressing in earlier life.

I’m sure it hasn’t been very fun for Brian Cashman to have to explain to the unforgiving New York media why his rosters aren’t delivering championships.

In any case, it seems that Cashman, who likely does suffer from Repetition Compulsion, has struggled to put together consistent plans centered around key players being healthy and with each passing year, he stands (or sometimes sits) behind a microphone while addressing the media, while he singles out key injuries as being the major reasons the roster he assembled failed to bring home a ticker tape parade in Manhattan.

What’s most concerning is that Cashman’s narrative isn’t changing. All it does is repeat itself.

The Usual Year Ending Excuses Shouldn’t be Tolerated

It’s taken Cashman far too long to address the simple concept of striving each season to make adding needed durability a component of his roster planning. Said as a Yankees fan, I can’t stand listening to Cashman cite injuries as the main reason his roster keeps failing to win a championship each season.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing to hear, “Well, the so and so’s beat us in the World Series because they simply out-hit or out pitched us? We were close, we’re going to make some tweaks,” for once? Instead, the roster Cashman compiled, that he alone is responsible for designing, fails because of insurmountable injuries.

Why Reducing Injuries is Important

While it’s impossible to assemble a roster of players who don’t even get injured, the fact of the matter is that each season, many more teams than the Yankees have far fewer injuries and this is very beneficial as it helps these ball clubs run lean from a payroll perspective. Teams that run lean can make the most out of the budget they do have, even if it's far smaller than that of the Yankees.

Another byproduct of the Yankees constant injury issues that each month, Cashman spends the bulk of his time scouring scrap heaps for potentially usable players. He has to, because he knows he’s going to need the depth a lot more than most teams do.

The list of monthly, mostly meaningless, Yankees transactions is staggering. This month alone, January of 2024, Cashman has signed an incredible 20 players to Minor League deals – all in the name of stashing depth. Whereas this month, he’s only signed three free agents, one notable one (Marcus Stroman) and two others (Cody Poteet and Luke Weaver.)

In seven of the past nine seasons, six of which culminated with disappointing Yankees failures, if Cashman had perhaps spent even half of his time planning what could have been characterized as more dependable rosters, the Yankees chances to win a championship might have increased.

Spending More Versus Avoiding Injuries

Many might falsely believe that spending more money would have impacted the Yankees most, but I contend that based on the spending levels of the past nine seasons, if more of an effort was made both to add players

with less injury risk and to also manage the players health properly, a greater impact than mere spending alone would have been made possible.

Think of all the free agents who were available over the past nine seasons, many of whom the Yankees fan base hoped that the Yankees might sign, and look at how many of them suffered prohibitive injuries. Names like Stephen Strasburg, who had opted out of the remaining four years and $100 million left on his contract following an excellent 2019 season in which he went 18-6 with a 3.32 ERA in 33 starts and 209 innings come to mind.

I remember listening to all the buzz on WFAN radio during the 2020 offseason, Yankees fans were fervently hoping that the Yankees would sign the then 31-year-old lights out righty phenom, who went 5-0 with a 1.98 ERA in six games (five starts) in the postseason that year. The memory of his epic World Series performance against the hated Astros was fresh in many callers minds. Many viewed him as the missing piece. He was the ace the Yankees needed, they thought. They talked often about how he had started and won both Games 2 and 6 of the World Series, the latter being an elimination game in hostile territory in Houston.

Strasbug has missed 572 games since the Nationals re-signed him and if it had been the Yankees instead who had rolled the dice on him, acquiring him would have only added to the Yankees woes. Fortunately, another top of the rotation was available during the 2019 offseason, by the name of Gerrit Cole and to Cashman’s credit, he chose wisely between the two. As I mentioned, I do give Cashman credit overall for putting together pitching staffs that avoid injuries at a slightly better than League average clip.

Using the Cole instead of Strasburg analogy, the importance of adding the right players cannot be understated as spending alone doesn’t guarantee championships.

Last season, the bulk of the Yankees injuries were of the shoulder, elbow and upper leg variety. In 2022, the bulk of the injuries were made up of shoulder, elbow and back injuries. These two themes tend to repeat themselves with the Yankees. Perhaps Cashman should zero in on this and try to move the needle? Actually, maybe he finally has done just that?

Has a Subtle Shift in Cashman’s Thinking Happened?

Finally though, regarding the roster additions that Cashman has made this offseason, he seems to have (praise the Lord) added a group of new players most of whom have very solid health histories. It’s high time that Cashman began heavily weighing the need to add only players with solid and recent injury avoidance track records.

Alex Verdugo, Juan Soto and Trent Grisham all seem like players that Yankees manager Aaron Boone can pretty much count on to be able pencil their names onto the lineup card for the bulk of the games the coming season will demand be done. I think there has been a subtle shift in Cashman’s thinking this offseason.

Unfortunately, with pitchers it's often not that easy to predict injuries, which is why I advocated that this offseason, the Yankees should be looking to reimagine their 2024 rotation. Last season, the Yankees spent $39.9 million on 15 injured pitchers who missed a combined 1,517 days. $29.9 million of those wasted dollars can be attached to five Yankees starters, who missed 674 days.

In this writer’s view, counting on the current crop of Yankees starters to deliver a championship, even with newly acquired Marcus Stroman factoring in, is a mistake that will ultimately lead to yet another failure to win a championship. Neither Carlos Rodon nor Nestor Cortes seem like good bets to make 20 to 25 starts or hit 150 innings pitched. Meanwhile, staff ace Gerrit Cole’s workload has been pretty immense since he was

signed. While the Yankees hope Cole can yet again hold up, the fact is that he’s put an awful lot of mileage on his arm since he was signed. It’s fair to say that there is still much uncertainty on the all important injury front attached to the rotation that Cashman is planning on rolling out. Will he and should he add another established starter?

While the Yankees haven’t exactly put a plan forward that gives the Yankees less likelihood of avoiding injuries in their rotation, at least positionally speaking, the Yankees do look to have assembled an outfield they can count on a lot more than the one they put forth last season. Giancarlo Stanton of course aside, this season's outfield has a very good chance of being significantly more healthy.

Moving Forward this Offseason

Where should the Yankees go from here in terms of adding players? Are we looking at mostly stashable depth pieces being added, or will there be some more free agent noise, considering that Marcus Stroman is the only notable free agent signing that Cashman has made this winter?

Lastly, should Cashman continue to add only players that have solid injury avoidance track records or, should he be willing to continue to roll the dice and hope for the best, while assembling lots of depth? I’ll wager most of you will agree on this with me - that Cashman should make adding players without histories of being frequently injured a high priority going forward.