IL Tracker, August 7

6 rostered players on the IL, with measured timelines by injury type.

6 rostered players are on the injured list. This is not a return-date report, nothing on this site knows when anyone comes back, but it does pair how long each player has already been out against what that injury has actually cost the 277 players who have returned from one this season.

Out the longest

Days already missed, against the measured median for the same injury. The range in brackets is the middle half of those cases, for an elbow it spans three weeks to three months, which is why no single date belongs here.

What each injury has cost this season

Every returned case, by body part. Sample sizes are shown because they are the whole story: a median off nine cases is a hint, and one off forty-three is close to a planning number.

What this means

Soto is the hardest hold on this list and also the one I would not think twice about. Thirteen days gone against a measured median of 45 for a calf strain means he is barely a third of the way through the typical case, and there are 17 cases behind that number, enough that it is not one freak season doing the work. What makes it easy is the other column: a value of 262 is not something you replace off the wire. The mechanism here is simple and worth naming, because it cuts against the obvious move. Calf strains stretch out not from the injury itself but from the re-aggravation risk on the way back, which is why the median sits so far above the ten-day minimum. Hold him, eat the spot, and stop checking.

James Wood is the one a smart manager would fight me on. He is three days into an oblique strain whose median is 30 days across 34 cases, the largest sample in the group, and obliques are the injury type where the gap between "cleared to swing" and "swinging like himself" is widest. Twenty-seven days of dead roster spot in a redraft league is real money. But 368 is the highest value on this table by a wide margin, and the argument for dropping him is really an argument that your bench spot generates more than a fifth of a Wood over a month. It does not. The falsifier is straightforward: if he is taking live batting practice inside the next couple of weeks, the 30-day median is the ceiling rather than the floor for his case. If the news instead goes quiet, assume the full 30 and plan your outfield around it.

The genuinely interesting decisions are Buxton and Schmitt, because both are close enough to their medians that the hold-versus-drop math is actually live. Buxton has missed nine days of a median 18 for hip impingement, so he is at the halfway mark, but the sample is only 11 cases, the thinnest here. That number should move you less than the others. Schmitt is 10 days into a median 18 for a meniscus tear on 18 cases, meaning on the typical path he is roughly a week out. At a value of 158 with eligibility at five positions, that week is cheap. I would hold Schmitt and drop Buxton first if I needed the spot, not because 184 is worse than 158, but because a hip impingement that recurs has no clean end date and 11 cases cannot tell me otherwise.

Bellinger sits in the least interesting spot on the table and I will say so plainly. Twelve days into a median 26 for a hamstring strain, 33 cases, a value of 152. Nothing about that combination demands a decision. He is a hold in any league with a real IL slot and a drop only in shallow formats where 152 is replaceable, which in most leagues it roughly is.

Kurtz is the one place the data cannot help. A strained thumb with no sample means the median column is blank, not low, and the temptation is to read the blank as good news. Do not. Three days in with a value of 201, the case for holding rests entirely on his price, not on anything measured here. If you need the spot this week, he is the defensible cut, because you are cutting on genuine ignorance rather than against a number. If he returns inside two weeks and hits, you lost a top-200 bat to a guess. That is the cost, and it is the smallest one on this table.

How to read this

Days out is counted from the transaction that placed the player on the list. Current status comes from the live injury feed, which is authoritative for who is out but carries no dates at all, the two are joined per player.

The typical column is a median with its sample size and interquartile range, and it describes other players, not this one. It is context for how long an injury of that kind has been costing people, not a forecast for anybody.

Only players above roster-relevant value appear. An injury to someone nobody rosters is not a fantasy event, and listing every one would bury the handful that change a lineup.

All articles · Redraft rankings · Dynasty rankings