With the recent injury to Giancarlo Stanton I began to ask myself how I would value him in next year’s fantasy baseball draft? This lead to me thinking about how to value injured players in general when they are coming off of injuries.
Some of the players that come to mind are Clayton Kershaw, Michael Brantley and Matt Harvey. All of these players are coming off of injuries that have caused them to miss significant time in the 2016 season. So, when it comes down to draft day in 2017 where do we pick these players?
Every player is different. Obvious right? It is so true though when it comes to how you judge a player based on injuries. Kershaw for example has missed time because of his back over the past two seasons, but even with that there is no one who would not take him as the number one pitcher off the board and there is no way he should go past the second round.
Stanton and Harvey, however, are both very different. Both of them have a history of injuries and have missed significant time because of those injuries. To properly rate these players you have to take their history in to consideration and in the case of Stanton I would likely drop him from a first round pick to a third or fourth round pick because of his history.
Even though history is not a perfect forecaster of the future when I comes to predicting if a player is likely to miss playing time due to an injury the best resource we have is to look at their past history. Keep that in mind when you sit down and draft in 2017.