...spent on players on the disabled list over the last eight seasons.
Jeff Zimmerman of Beyond the Box Score used the wonderful injury database from Josh Hermsmeyer of Rotoblog.com do look at salaries lost due to time on the disabled list. Earlier in the week, Zimmerman looked at individual players with the most salary paid for DL time from 2002 to 2009, and not surprisingly found Jason Schmidt near the top. His $47 million lost over the past eight seasons is second only to Mike Hampton. Other Dodgers to make the unfortunate top (or bottom) 100 list include Eric Gagne (19th), Rafael Furcal (46th).
Today, Zimmerman took his research a few steps further, and found the salaries paid to disabled players for all 30 major league teams over the last eight seasons. The Dodgers "led" in both total salary paid to players on the DL (about $214 million) and percentage of total payroll lost to DL time (27%).
I decided to take a look back at 2009 myself just to see how the Dodgers fared specifically. I used the transaction dates from the Dodgers media guide, because while the MLB.com online transaction history is cool it isn't always updated to include the official dates (maybe off by a day or two here and there). The season runs 183 days long, which last season began on Sunday, April 5 and ended on October 4. Player salaries are pro-rated by the day, as you may have noticed if you've glanced at our payroll worksheet.
In 2009, the Dodgers had 14 players make 18 different trips to the disabled list, missing a total of 1,105 days. Here's a breakdown of last season's Dodger hurt locker:
| Player | 2009 Salary | DL Date | Days on DL | Salary Lost |
| Delwyn Young | $406,000 | March 27* | 9 | $20,077 |
| Claudio Vargas | $400,000 | March 27* | 89 | $195,604 |
| Jason Schmidt | $16,000,000 | March 30* | 106 | $9,318,681 |
| Hiroki Kuroda | $10,000,000 | April 7 | 55 | $3,021,978 |
| Cory Wade | $402,500 | April 12 | 18 | $39,808 |
| Doug Mientkiewicz | $550,000 | April 17 | 138 | $417,033 |
| Hong-Chih Kuo | $437,000 | April 30 | 88 | $211,297 |
| Xavier Paul | $400,000 | May 21 | 137 | $301,099 |
| Will Ohman | $1,350,000 | May 28 | 129 | $956,868 |
| Eric Stults | $402,000 | May 31 | 31 | $68,473 |
| Eric Milton | $650,000 | June 6 | 21 | $75,000 |
| Eric Milton | $650,000 | June 28 | 99 | $353,571 |
| Ronald Belisario | $400,000 | July 6 | 33 | $72,527 |
| Cory Wade | $402,500 | July 12 | 21 | $46,442 |
| Jason Schmidt | $16,000,000 | August 6 | 60 | $5,274,725 |
| Hiroki Kuroda | $10,000,000 | August 16 | 21 | $1,153,846 |
| Guillermo Mota | $2,350,000 | August 30 | 15 | $193,681 |
| Travis Schlichting | $400,000 | August 31 | 35 | $76,923 |
| Totals 14 players, 18 DL trips |
1,105 | $21,797,635 | ||
| Percent of Total Payroll | 19.8% | |||
| *DL days started on April 5 | ||||
That's a ton of salary paid to disabled players, but two-thirds of it was paid to Schmidt, who was active for only 17 of the 183 days. Knock on wood, but now that the payroll is no longer about Schmidt, I expect an decrease in salaries paid to disabled Dodgers in 2010.