Major-league players have combined for 448 disabled-list trips so far this season, good for an average of nearly 15 per team. While this figure falls in line with the past couple seasons, the number of injury stints has been on the rise for the past quarter century. From 1984-89, baseball teams averaged 9.3 DL stints a year. That number rose to 12.2 in the 1990s and has reached 14.8 since 2000….

While the primary theory for the injury spike is better testing and diagnostics, players might have been better off when the winter workout consisted of lifting six packs and hot dogs. New York Mets medical director Dr. David Altchek of the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan believes today’s player may be too committed to his craft. “The modern player, in trying to constantly improve, may not be getting the necessary rest and recovery time,” Dr. Altchek says. “This year, we decided that the Mets would reduce time spent in off-field workouts by two-thirds. The result thus far in 2010, knock on wood, is that DL days have been cut in half.”

– Michael Salfino, Wall Street Journal.

Interesting facts from Salfino on the increasing rate of DL stints over the past 25 years. I imagine at least some of it has to do with something not mentioned in the article — players make a lot more money these days, so teams are less willing to take risks with their investments.

And so I’d also be interested in seeing an exhaustive study that would be impossible to undertake — the relative length of careers now and then, plus how many fewer careers were shortened by permanent injury and stuff along those lines. In other words: Does more careful treatment of players benefit them in the long run? I would guess yes, but then I’m no doctor.