Injuries have been increasing for years. Up til the 90s it was almost unheard of for stars to be hurt enough to get on the DL. Schmidt, Rose, Aaron, Mays played 150+ every year.
Now look at players like Harper and Trout.. Harper has had seasons limited to 118, 100, and 111 games. Trout was limited to 134 and 111 games in 2 of his 8 full seasons. Stanton , Judge, Yelich, Bryant
Ive often wondered how much the increase in using the weight room over the last 30 years has caused an increase in injuries. I know that sounds weird.. but seriously.. baseball players used to be long and lean. They were strong from doing farm work in the winter or some weight room but didnt try to look like Canseco and McGwire. Now that all these muscles are constantly being worked it seems like they pop more. I never even heard of an oblique 20 years ago. And when a player popped a hamstring, it usually was fine after 15 days. The 60 day IL was rarely used. IL placements were actually limited. You could only put so many people on the 15 day. And then there was a 21 day for more serious injuries.. and a 30 day "emergency" list if a team ran out of spaces on the 15 and 21.
In an article about an increase in injuries a few years back, one theory was the ban of amphetamines from MLB. That players are more tired while playing and thus not at 100% ever with all the travel and such. Being tired leads to mechanics not being sound.
Kinda an aside, but one thing baseball could do to decrease a handful of injuries each year is change the first base bag. Make it lower, flatter.. something. Every year we see a few players blow a leg, knee, ankle or hip running through first base and hitting the base awkwardly. This actually caused one of Harper's injuries in one of the years I mentioned earlier. Luis Robert seems to be the latest injury
