This year's edition of The Bill James Handbook, which was released on November 1, features a new section on Injury Information. Beginning with the 2015 season, Baseball Info Solutions has been collecting detailed injury data with the goal of creating a comprehensive database that would catalog all events that could potentially have an effect on the physical health of a player. This means not only are players’ trips to the disabled list recorded, but also events that occur in which the player shows no visible pain (e.g. fouling a ball off of his foot). Thus, even though a player may remain in the game, we can now track how his injury has potentially impacted on field performance.
In order to be truly comprehensive BIS keeps track of both on-field and off-field injuries (which means all venison-related injuries are tracked appropriately if and when they occur). Information like injury type, injury severity, and body part(s) affected are included in the database, among other things. Additionally, any updates or setbacks a player has during the rehabilitation process have been accounted for.
The table below shows all of the injuries from 2015-2017 broken down by Injury Type.
| Injury Events by Type, 2015-2017 |
| Injury Type |
Total |
| Struck by Batted Ball/Bat |
4479 |
| Hit By Pitch |
4027 |
| Foul off Body |
3741 |
| Fielding a Batted/Thrown Ball |
469 |
| Running the Bases |
391 |
| Collision with Player |
308 |
| On a Swing |
294 |
| Other |
275 |
| Collision with Wall |
270 |
| Throwing a Pitch |
262 |
| Sliding into a Base |
256 |
| Throwing (non-pitch) |
36 |
| |
The results show that an overwhelming majority of potential injury events happen around home plate as a result of the pitch. Either the batter fouls the ball off of himself, he fouls it off the catcher, or the batter is simply hit by the pitch.
However, just because a player is hit by a ball doesn’t mean he automatically comes out of the game. The table below lists the events most likely to cause a player to be removed from the game.
| Percent of Injury Events Where the Player Left the Game, 2015-2017 |
| Injury Type |
Total |
| Throwing a Pitch |
51.1% |
| Throwing (non-Pitch) |
36.1% |
| Running the Bases |
32.2% |
| On a Swing |
19.4% |
| Other |
15.6% |
| Fielding a Batted/Thrown Ball |
15.6% |
| Sliding into a Base |
13.3% |
| Collision with a Player |
12.0% |
| Collision with a Wall |
9.3% |
| Hit by Pitch |
2.2% |
| Struck by Batted Ball/Bat |
2.1% |
| Foul Off Body |
0.4% |
| |
Injuries to pitchers (particularly starting pitchers) have undoubtedly changed the course of many a team's season over the years, and the data confirms that teams are less likely to keep a pitcher in the game if any discomfort is felt.
For more detailed Injury Information tidbits, as well as additional fun and interesting baseball data, The Bill James Handbook is now available for sale.