Fooch's note: People will disagree on the conclusions, but props to NinerFanInMaine for the work he put into this discussion.

The strategy of drafting injured players makes sense and it’s worked out fine so far for the Niners. Not great, but fine -- 91% of the players have recovered pretty much as expected. Success for these draftees or lack thereof mostly has had to do with factors other than their pre-draft injuries. As a result, complaints about "drafting another injured player" are way overblown.

Let's first take a look a why a team might want to draft an injured player. Could it be a smart play sometimes? Next, I have the detail on all the draftees, injuries, and where they are now. Then, a brief look at some similarities to drafting troubled players. Lastly, a poll on this year's injured draftee, Will Redmond, when will he be ready to play?

Risk and Reward

The idea behind drafting injured players is to spend less draft capital for more talented players. A player's draft position does drop when they are injured. There are two primary reasons for this: 1) recovery risk and 2) the time factor.

The recovery risk is fairly self evident: can the player recover enough to play and can they play like they did before the injury? The time factor is a bit more complex: it includes the lost value of the player’s contribution to the team while injured, and also includes the lost value of any improvement from not playing or practicing.

Injured players drafted still carry the same inherent player selection risk that the player would have had pre-injury. Its important to remember this because most draft picks do not succeed. Chances of success go down the later the draft pick. Total risk for an injured player is the inherent pre-injury player success risk plus the recovery risk and the timing risk.

I have no idea exactly how much injuries effect draft position, but I'm confident they do. I also have no idea if overall injured players have out performed healthy players for draft value. I'm betting the 49ers interns and/or others in the building have run this analysis, more likely several of them. The goal would be to identify a subset of injured players that consistently outperform healthy draft picks. I think the worst case is that it's something close to a totally efficient market and the expected outcomes are the essentially the same whether a team drafts injured or healthy players. If this is so, the approach to drafting injured players for a team comes down to what type of risk it makes sense for the team to bear.

Situational Impact

Injured player timing risk does not have the same impact on all teams. The cost of this risk depends a lot on the status of a team's roster.

The Niners first went this route in 2012, then did it in a big way in 2013. At the time the team's roster was deep nearly everywhere. Roster spots were at a premium. Also not surprisingly, it was hard for rookies to crack the roster especially for lower round picks, due to the depth in front of them.

Certainly in 2013, the cost to the 49ers of drafting and carrying an injured player was not as great as for teams that needed draft picks to contribute right away. The 49ers could effectively expand their roster by stashing potentially talented players on NFI and other lists that did not effect the roster count without a big impact on overall current team performance due to the depth of the roster.

The ability to bear injured player recovery and timing risk is also greater when a team has a higher than average number of picks (which the Niners did). More picks, like a deep roster, puts roster space at a premium. Since injured draft picks do not impact the 53 man roster, there can be additional value in such picks. Players on NFI and other lists have value; they are options for the future. Players cut from the roster to get to 53, have no value (unless a player makes it to the P squad and P squad value is highly constrained).

Higher Risk/Reward Picks

Aside from the roster number effects noted above, injured players are higher risk/reward draft selections. Higher risk/reward picks make some sense if the roster is deep.

When a team's roster space is at a premium from depth, a team should prefer at least some draftees that are boom/bust type players (either great or washout), compared to a player with the same overall expected value, but with less chance of washing out or being great. The reason is that if the team is deep, adding average players may make little overall impact. Such players may add little to no marginal value over a washout. Also, such a team needs excellent players to make a difference in current performance. If an approach of drafting injured players increases the chances to get an excellent player, it is worth it; even if it raises the risk of a washout because the marginal cost of a washout is small to such a team. Remember the goal is to maximize team performance not total draft value. Usually those two goals coincide, but not always.

Drafting some injured players or other high risk/reward type players is a very sensible approach, if a team's roster is deep or its roster space is otherwise constrained like when a team has many draft picks.

Managing Risk and Potential Extra Value

Most of the pre-draft profiles of these injured players had a clear mention that the player would be expected to go higher if they weren't injured. This essentially validates the assessment of these players pre-injury were more talented or had a higher chance of NFL success than players they ended up being selected near. So if a team is able to manage recovery and timing risk well, injured players may offer some additional value in the long run.

Baalke and others in the organization may believe that injury risk (both recovery and timing risk) can be managed more effectively than inherent player success risk. This is a guess, but I think it may very well be true, given the wide variation draft results. I'd bet somewhere in the 49ers HQ this data has been assembled. Perhaps drafting injured players can give a team a modest long run advantage if they are making better medical assessments than other teams. I don't know. Results to date seem mixed, but I can see the rationale.

However, this better value through managed risk hypothesis need not even be true for the drafting injured players strategy to make sense. As I noted, situational roster effects alone may still indicate it is a worthwhile approach.

Fine Tuning The Strategy and Picking Your Spots

It's also worth noting that this strategy can be adjusted and refined based circumstance. After 2013 the team appeared to back off using this approach as agressively, selecting players with lower round picks and with more certain recoveries; compared to Lattimore and Carradine. This make sense to me in light of: a) how the roster was developing in 2014 and probably b) firsthand learning from the recovery results in 2012 and 2013.

Looking at this year's draft, as much as some fans wanted Miles Jack, that didn't make sense for the team. The 49er's lack of depth and the seriousness of the injury and resulting less certain recovery, combined with the high draft capital needed, made this pick a big reach for the 2016 Niners and an easy decision. Jack may turn out to be an awesome player; that's not the point. The point is he was a very high risk/reward draft pick. The Niners were not in a good position in 2016 to make a such a big boom/bust bet. They wisely did not and went with two blue chip prospects early in the draft.

The Players and the Results:

The Injured Draftees

Here are the 12 injured 49er draftees (2012-2016):

2012 4th round, Joe Loony G (Lisfranc fracture) sat out year one and recovered, played in 19 games for the 49ers over the next two years starting 4, signed by the Titans in 2015 started 6 games, in 2016 signed with the Cowboys

2013 2nd round, Tank Carradine DE/OLB (ACL) on the 49ers, spent year one on IR, recovered and played as a rotational DE then switched to OLB late in the year, in the mix this year as a rotational OLB this year

2013 4th round, Marcus Lattimore RB (Knee) did not recover, out of football.

2013 5th round, Quinton Dial DT (turf toe) on the 49ers, recovered and joined the team mid season year one, progressively got more playing time, potential starter this year.

2014 1st round, Jimmy Ward (foot) on the 49ers, recovered and started right away, reinjured mid season, starter in 2015, expected to play even more this year

2014 3rd round, Brandon Thomas G (ACL) on the 49ers, spent year one on IR and recovered, then injured ankle, was on the 53 all of last year, often inactive, healthy this year getting reps with the ones and twos.

2014 5th round, Keith Reaser CB (ACL) on the 49ers, recovered after a year on IR and was on the 49ers 53 last year, played sparingly, getting reps with the twos mostly this year

2014 7th round, Kaleb Ramsey DT (calf) on the 49ers, recovered, injured again started season on PUP, recovered, on the practice squad most of last year,

2014 7th round, Trey Millard FB (ACL) on NFI and IR year one, recovered, released in 2015, now with the Chiefs

2015 4th round, DeAndre Smelter WR (ACL) on the 49ers, on NFI and IR year one, recovered from ACL, in camp, and in the mix to start but hindered by a hamstring lately

2015 7th round, Busta Anderson TE (tricep) on the 49ers, on NFI and IR year one, recovered and in camp with the 49ers competing for TE spot

2016 3rd round, Will Redmond CB (ACL) currently rehabbing, Baalke says he will be ready by training camp; we shall see.

Recovery

All the injured players drafted by the 49ers fully recovered from their pre draft injuries pretty much just as expected, except one.

That's 10 out of 11 (I didn't count 2016 draftee Will Redmond either way yet). Marcus Lattimore is the one who didn't recover. He is also the only one of the injured draftees that is out of the NFL today. Eight are still with the Niners, two are on other teams. While everyone recovered as expected, some did have new injuries that kept them out longer (Brandon Thomas, ankle; Kaleb Ramsey, unspecified plus other issues). But this happens to all players, for example Kenneth Acker was drafted healthy and spent the year on IR with a toe injury.

The important takeaway is that none of the pre-draft injuries impaired that player's chances to make the roster after recovery (except Lattimore).

That's 91% success so far, and the 2016 injured pick Redmond TBD.

Draft Impact

While the injuries didn't have a big impact, the overall results are mixed. Seems to me the middling results are primarily due to the inherent player selection risk that is always present, not pre-draft injuries. There have been few really good players to date that have arrived via this route. Quinton Dial is probably the best so far. Though it's a bit early to assess last year's IR players like Smelter and Anderson, but both are now recovered from their pre-draft injuries and healthy enough to be on the field practicing right on schedule. On the other hand, it's fairly impressive that all these injured draftees over the last 5 years other than Lattimore, are still in the NFL. Not bad from an assortment of mostly lower round picks.

In summary the results: not great, not bad.

Funny thing is for a strategy that seems designed to produce boom or bust results, this approach actually ended up with a lot of middling results, at least so far. If people want to complain about these picks, that's fine, just don't base it on their pre-draft injury status. That appears to be largely irrelevant.

Troubled Players Similar

Troubled players are similarly high risk/reward type of draft picks without timing risk but recidivism risk instead. Similar High risk/reward strategies apply in electing to make these selections as outlined above for injured players.

The Niners drafted two such player during this period: OLB Aaron Lynch in the 5th round of 2014, and CB Rashard Robinson in the 4th round in 2016. The Niners seem to have managed this character risk pretty well to date. Lynch has turned out great, Robinson looks good so far, but it's early.

On to the poll, in Will Redmond's 90-in-90 there are characteristic complaints and doubts about drafting another injured player and speculation sat to when he may be able to play. So without further ado: