Prior to Monday night's Mets-Phillies game at Citizens Bank Park, I was conversing with Dan Graziano of the Newark Star-Ledger about some people's fascinations with the issue, "Which team has suffered more?"
We agreed that it was a silly subject, that good teams overcame multiple injuries with organizational depth and good, old-fashioned resilience. Nevertheless, given that we are part of a silly species, Dan and I wound up mentally tallying the Mets' injuries against the Phillies' injuries. We decided that the Phillies easily won the injury contest if you disregarded Pedro Martinez _ since the Mets planned for 2007 knowing that Pedro would miss the bulk of the season _ and, no shock, it was a lot closer if you decided that you coudln't simply ignore Pedro and his shoulder surgery, since that caused the Mets to spend more time and effort on their starting rotation both last winter and this current season.
I wanted to probe it further, however, so I went back to VORP, Baseball Prospectus' Value Over Replacement Player. This seemed apropos, since the injured players did have their roles filled by the aforementioned replacement players.
By combining the injured players' 2006 VORPs with the multiplication and division skills I perfected in Mrs. Flood's fourth-grade math class, I counted the number of games missed (so far) by each player, then calculated the percentage of their VORP on which a team missed out by having said player on the disabled list. Here's what I came up with - and please, I know this is imperfect. For instance, as you'll see Oliver Perez actually compiled a negative VORP last year, which means he was worse than a replacement player. But the same goes for the Phillies' young outfielder Michael Bourn, so hopefully, things balance out:
Mets
Moises Alou - 66 games missed - 27.9 VORP in '06 - lost out on 11.4 VORP
Carlos Beltran - 15 games missed - 68.5 VORP in '06 - lost out on 6.3 VORP
Ramon Castro - 13 games missed - 1.0 VORP in '06 - lost out on .08 VORP
Endy Chavez - 73 games missed - 15.3 VORP in '06 - lost out on 6.9 VORP
Damion Easley - 8 games missed - 2.4 VORP in '06 - lost out on .08 VORP
Carlos Gomez - 47 games missed - 6.8 projected VORP in '07* - lost out on 2.0 VORP
Shawn Green - 13 games missed - 9.0 VORP in '06 - lost out on .7 VORP
Orlando Hernandez - 25 games missed - 19.0 VORP in '06 - lost out on 2.9 VORP
Paul Lo Duca - 14 games missed - 27.2 VORP in '06 - lost out on 2.3 VORP
Pedro Martinez - 130 games missed - 15.4 VORP in '06 - lost out on 12.4 VORP
Oliver Perez - 14 games missed - -14.3 VORP - gained 1.2 VORP
Duaner Sanchez - 130 games missed - 17.7 VORP in '06 - lost out on 14.2 VORP
Jorge Sosa - 12 games missed - .2.7 VORP in '06 - lost out on .2 VORP
Jose Valentin - 68 games missed - 23.6 VORP in '06 - lost out on 9.9 VORP
Dave Williams - 86 games missed - -5.4 VORP in '06 - gained 2.9 VORP
Total: Lost out on 61.96 VORP
*Since Gomez didn't spend any time in the major leagues in 2006, I felt more comfortable using BP's projected '07 VORP for the Mets, rather than his '06 VORP (15.0) for Double-A Binghamton.
Phillies
Rod Barajas - missed 22 games - .6 VORP in '06 - lost out on .08 VORP
Michael Bourn - missed 25 games - -2.4 VORP in '06 - gained .4 VORP
Chris Coste - missed 5 games - 16.5 VORP in '06 - lost out on .5 VORP
Adam Eaton - missed 14 games - 6.4 VORP in '06 - lost out on .6 VORP
Freddy Garcia - missed 80 games - 32.3 VORP in '06 - lost out on 16.0 VORP
Tom Gordon - missed 65 games - 17.1 VORP in '06 - lost out on 6.9 VORP
Cole Hamels - missed 10 games - 23.1 VORP in '06 - lost out on 1.4 VORP
Ryan Howard - missed 13 games - 81.5 VORP in '06 - lost out on 6.5 VORP
Jon Lieber - missed 63 games - 13.6 VORP in '06 - lost out on 5.3 VORP
Ryan Madson - missed 26 games - -1.0 VORP in '06 - gained .2 VORP
Brett Myers - missed 54 games - 40.7 VORP in '06 - lost out on 13.6 VORP
Francisco Rosario - missed 63 games - -.1 VORP in '06 - gained .04 VORP
Chase Utley - missed 29 games - 65.2 VORP in '06 - lost out on 11.7 VORP
Shane Victorino - missed 19 games - 12.1 VORP in '06 - lost out on 1.4 VORP
Jayson Werth* - missed 27 games - 3.4 VORP in '05* - lost out on .6 VORP
Total: Lost out on 63.94 VORP
*Werth missed the entire 2006 season with a left wrist injury, so I used his '05 figure.
Pretty close, eh? But Pedro really does make the difference, mathematically. Without him in the equation, it's not close.
Comments (3)
Ken
Interesting. Nice read.
After watching this weeks Yanks series, I am almost certain that the Tiger third baseman, Inge, is the worst everyday player in baseball. Is there anyway to prove that?
Great stuff Ken.
A "mainstream" writer using VORP!!!
Now can you convince the editors of the stats page to get rid of the "Interleague W-L" split on Newsday's standings page and add Runs Scored and Runs Allowed.
There's plenty of room and would be much more useful than knowing interleague records.
Anrew, I'm having trouble getting current VORPs, probably because I'm too cheap to pay for Baseball Prospectus' restricted stuff.
JoeNunz, excellent suggestion. I'll raise it with my superiors.