Will Carroll wonders if the Blue have a good PPO

Last season, the Dodgers lost 951 player games and over $20 million in salary to injury, no shock for a team that seems to use half its operating budget on MRIs.  Will Carroll, the guru of sports injuries at Baseball Prospectus (among other places), has been issuing his Team Health Reports throughout the month, and has finally reached the Dodgers.  By Carroll's calculations, the Blue have the worst Three-Year health ranking in baseball, though things are moving in the right direction under Stan Conte: 

Stan Conte came in to improve the injury situation for the Dodgers. The idea may be that Stan's a miracle worker, having held together much of the Giants' successful years with little more than athletic tape and hard work, but rebuilding what was once a proud, cutting-edge system takes longer than a year. While the Dodgers are now in the middle of the pack, that's better than the three-year rank, so although they lost tons of valuable days to talent languishing on the DL, it wasn't as bad as it has been in the recent past.

Let's face it, no matter who the trainer and physicians are, they can't save guys like Darren Dreifort or Kevin Brown from the DL. The difference is that these days taking a calculated risk on someone like a Jason Schmidt or last year's experiment with Randy Wolf can be entirely valid moves. These can be the type of gambles that Conte could make pay off, and the cheap Wolf-style signings are easier to make pay off above a club's investment. The problem is that Schmidt is getting paid ace money while only offering a realistic hope that he comes back to league average.

The vast majority of the losses the Dodgers took last season came from those two pitchers, plus the season-long injury to Jason Repko. Taken in light of these, the turnaround that the Dodgers saw last season, taking them to mid-pack, was pretty special, but not enough to get away from the worst Three-Year Rank in the game. Conte's methods worked well in San Francisco, but it's interesting that the Dodgers had to bring in a Giant to do this. Like many things in the organization, the advantage they once had in this area was lost, but could be regained."

Carroll then breaks down the roster, looking position by position at the potential for injury.  I'm not going to paste the thing here- really, you should subscribe (these people gotta eat, you know)- but to summarize, here are some of the guys worth worrying about, in Carroll's estimation:  Russell Martin (rest issues), Raffy Furcal (lingering ankle/back issues?), Chad Billingsley (waistline issues), Anmar LaRochiaparra (really, does this require an explanation?), and Jason Schmidt (see previous).

BK