{"id":253906,"date":"2025-10-27T04:24:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T04:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/253906\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T04:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T04:24:07","slug":"umich-study-finds-contract-status-influences-mlb-injury-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/253906\/","title":{"rendered":"UMich study finds contract status influences MLB injury management"},"content":{"rendered":"

A study<\/a> published in Economic Inquiry<\/a> Sept. 2 by Richard Paulsen, assistant professor of sport management, analyzed Major League Baseball<\/a> injury and playing-time data to examine how employment status affects the way teams manage player injuries. The research found that players with shorter or temporary contracts missed significantly fewer games following injuries compared to athletes with longer contracts.<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Paulsen said he first became curious about injury management when following the 2022 Most Valuable Player race<\/a> in the American League<\/a> between <\/a>Aaron Judge, New York Yankees<\/a> outfielder, and Shohei Ohtani, then-Los Angeles Angels<\/a> designated hitter and pitcher, whose contract ended<\/a> after the 2023 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was following the 2023 season pretty closely, that came after the 2022 MVP race between those two players,\u201d Paulsen said. \u201cI\u2019m a Yankees fan, I like Aaron Judge, and I was surprised that he was spending so much time sidelined with a toe injury, while at the same time following what\u2019s happening with Shohei Ohtani and \u2026 all the injuries he was suffering, and he was not missing so much time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an email to The Daily, Rackham student Georgy Shukaylo, whose studies focus on sport management, explained how roster rules, contract types and injury history affect players\u2019 risk for injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the MLB, you are allowed to expand the roster size for the major league as the season progresses (say, before September 1st),\u201d Shukaylo wrote. \u201cSome teams leverage that to have more players available later on. Also, contract structure is a vital point here: on short-term and non-guaranteed deals, players own the risk. An injury or what is even worse \u2014 a reinjury \u2014 might make a player absent for some time. And, at a risk of getting injured again, faster returns are initiated by players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paulsen said the findings of his study reflect that athletes with temporary contracts have similar experiences to temporary employees in other industries in terms of how much their employers value their wellbeing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could envision that the employer doesn\u2019t have a super strong incentive to invest in the health of interns, because the intern\u2019s only with the employer for the summer,\u201d Paulsen said. \u201cThey just want to have the intern do the work they need done, and they\u2019re not the ones that are going to suffer in the long term if the intern productivity declines because they\u2019re not investing in that health.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rackham student Tyler Fioritto told The Daily fatigue and overuse<\/a> can affect players even when they aren\u2019t officially injured, citing a recent example with Detroit Tigers<\/a> starting pitcher Jack Flaherty.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see a guy like Jack Flaherty, where he wasn\u2019t officially injured, but he basically played a whole postseason run last year after being an all star,\u201d Fioritto said. \u201cI would say he was used so excessively that even though he wasn\u2019t technically injured, there had to be some level of fatigue there. He basically played two years straight of baseball without a break.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Daily, Kinesiology senior Cal Forde said players often face pressure to not report their injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard from friends of mine that are playing at the collegiate level and professional level right now that there\u2019s a big stigma around being open and honest about how your body feels,\u201d Forde said. \u201cSo there are times where definitely \u2026 you might not feel your best, but you kind of play through it, because you want to get playing time \u2014 you want to be able to produce.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forde emphasized the ethical considerations of balancing player health with business priorities in sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cA big thing that we talk about in my classes is that at the end of the day, sports \u2014 whether we like it or not \u2014 they\u2019re a business, so most of the time, owners and player personnel are going to do what\u2019s best for the business,\u201d Forde said.\u00a0 \u201cOftentimes, that can lead to what might sometimes seem like unethical decisions. I think there\u2019s a fine balance between making decisions that reflect the human but also running the business and being competitive on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daily Staff Reporter Kayla Lugo can be reached at klugo@umich.edu.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated articles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A study published in Economic Inquiry Sept. 2 by Richard Paulsen, assistant professor of sport management, analyzed Major…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-253906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}