The MLB injured list: Everybody’s doing it
By Bill Felber
Less than a third of the way through the 2021 MLB season, the injured list has become baseball’s A list.
As of May 28, more than 240 players were being carried on the injured list, and that’s just through two months worth of activity. Only one of the 30 big league teams – the Boston Red Sox – had fewer than four players sidelined by injuries. A full one-third of teams had double digit bodies on the injured list.
The Injured List is getting crowded around MLB
That parade was led by the New York Mets, who somehow managed to cling to a lead in the NL East despite 17 injured list players.
Two numbers drive home the depth of the problem injuries have become already in 2021. The raw number of injured list players is up about 25 percent from the same calendar date during the most recent complete season, 2019. And even more apoplectic to team owners, across the entire spectrum of MLB about one payroll dollar of every five is being paid to a player who was, as of May 28, on the injured list.
What’s going on? The answers are probably numerous. Most everybody who claimed to know something about baseball predicted that the 2021 season, following the Covid-shortened 2020 MLB season and the cancellation of all minor league activity, would be an injury-plagued one.
That’s almost certainly a factor.
But it’s almost certainly also not the only factor. That element doesn’t explain Marcell Ozuna’s dislocated fingers, Cody Bellinger’s leg fracture, Corey Seager’s broken hand, or Paul DeJong’s rib fracture.