2024 injury roll

Ozzie Albies, 10-day IL, fractured big toe (HBP)

Seiya Suzuki ☹️

Cubs Seiya Suzuki to 10 day IL with right oblique strain.

— Jesse Rogers (@JesseRogersESPN) April 15, 2024

First use I’ve seen of the 7-day concussion IL:

Tyler O’Neill has been diagnosed with a mild concussion, according to a source. The IL stint is retroactive to Tuesday. So he’ll be eligible to return next Tuesday when Boston is in Cleveland.

O’Neill was injured Monday when he and third baseman Rafael Devers collided in left field going after a 191-foot fly ball. O’Neill received eight stitches for a cut near his eyebrow. Their heads collided.

Cubs outfielder Cody Bellinger has a fractured rib and is going on the Injured List, manager Craig Counsell tells @670TheScore. Top prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong has been called up.

— Robert Murray (@ByRobertMurray) April 24, 2024

Cody :( Hope he doesn't suck for 2 years agai. As consequwnce

NEWS: Mike Trout needs surgery on his knee, sources tell me and @JeffPassan. The extent is not known, but a source said it is not expected to be season-ending.

Story shortly on ESPN.

— Alden González (@Alden_Gonzalez) April 30, 2024

I'm trying to think of the greatest player historically who had similar injury issues and I'm drawing a blank. When he hit 30, you'd often hear about all the time Molitor (obviously not Trout's level, but a HOF'er) had missed, and he indeed had:

Molitor struggled with injuries for much of his early career, being placed on the disabled list six times between 1980 and 1986. In 1984, Molitor struggled with elbow problems, played in only 13 games and ultimately underwent Tommy John surgery in an attempt to salvage his career. He played in 140 games in 1985, hitting .297 with 10 home runs and 48 RBIs. He followed that with a .281 average, 9 home runs and 55 RBI in 1986. That year he suffered a hamstring injury, returned for a few days, then reinjured it. He played in 105 games that season.

After he cleared 30, though, Molitor probed to be amazingly durable, going on to play another 1500 games.

Any one else comparable?

Posnanski's post today ("Mike Trout and What Might Have Been") partially answers this. He looks at first-ballot HOF'ers (position players) the past few decades and how many season they compiled of 140+ GP:

1980s
Brooks Robinson: 17
Carl Yastrzemski: 17
Henry Aaron: 16
Lou Brock: 13
Frank Robinson: 13
Al Kaline: 10
Johnny Bench: 9
Willie McCovey: 7
Willie Stargell: 6

1990s
Robin Yount: 14
Mike Schmidt: 13
Reggie Jackson: 12
Joe Morgan: 11
George Brett: 9
Rod Carew: 9

2000s
Eddie Murray: 16
Cal Ripken Jr.: 16
Dave Winfield: 16
Ozzie Smith: 13
Wade Boggs: 11
Rickey Henderson: 10
Paul Molitor: 10
Kirby Puckett: 9
Tony Gwynn: 7*

*Gwynn represents those players who were hurt by the strike—he didn’t get into 140 games in either 1994 or 1995, but, like others of his time (including, most prominently, Ripken), almost certainly would have otherwise.

2010s
Ken Griffey Jr.: 11
Frank Thomas: 11
Chipper Jones: 10
Jim Thome: 10
Iván Rodríguez: 5

2020s
Derek Jeter: 16
Adrián Beltré: 14
David Ortiz: 10
Joe Mauer: 5

Trout has five (and probably would have had a sixth in 2020, when he played 53/60 games). That puts him with two catchers and the two Willies--and the two Willies do seem comparable:

McCovey split time early in his career and was hampered by chronic hip and leg injuries for the last 10 years. Stargell dealt with injury after injury throughout his career and never played in more than 148 games in any season.

seems to me Trout's future might be as a DH, which isn't necessarily what he might like but it helped keep Molitor healthy and at an MVP level for another decade.

Reggie and Thome ended up there for three or four full seasons too--and Ortiz and Thomas right from the start, of course. It was always one of the counter-arguments to no-DH purists, the chance to keep great hitters in the game longer (or at all, even).

Trout comparable may be Don Mattingly (6× All-Star, AL MVP, 9× Gold Glove, 3× Silver Slugger, AL batting title) whose back injuries in the late 80s/early 90s sapped his power profile and he transformed into a contact hitter.

Mattingly was such a media and rookie-card sensation his first few years, that's a good comp.