MLB Injured List Rules: 10-Day, 15-Day and 60-Day IL
MLB injured list rules in one place: the 10-day list for hitters, 15 days for pitchers, the 60-day list and 40-man roster, concussions, pay and rehab stints.
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished MLB Season & Roster Rules21 min read
- Position players' minimum
- 10 days
- Pitchers' minimum
- 15 days
- Long-term list
- 60 days
- Concussion list
- 7 days
Shohei Ohtani had elbow surgery in September 2023, and the Dodgers signed him that December knowing he would not pitch in 2024. He did not go on the injured list at all that season. As a designated hitter he could play while his elbow healed, and he hit 54 home runs. Most players have no such option, and for them the only question when they get hurt is which list they go on.
Major League Baseball has four injured lists. Position players go on the 10-day list, pitchers and two-way players on the 15-day list, players with long-term injuries on the 60-day list, and players with concussions on the 7-day list. Every number is a minimum stay rather than a prediction: a player on the 10-day list can be out for six weeks. The short lists free a place on the 26-man active roster, and only the 60-day list also frees a place on the 40-man roster. A player on any of them is paid in full and accrues service time. The rules sit in the Major League Rules and the Basic Agreement between MLB and the MLBPA, and they apply to the regular season. The postseason works differently.
The four MLB injured lists and their minimum stays
Each list is defined by the minimum time a player must spend on it, measured in days from his placement. He cannot be activated before that time is up, however quickly he recovers. Nothing stops him staying longer.
| List | Who it covers | Minimum stay | Frees 26-man spot | Frees 40-man spot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10-day | Position players | 10 days | Yes | No |
| 15-day | Pitchers and two-way players | 15 days | Yes | No |
| 60-day | Any player with a long-term injury | 60 days | Yes | Yes |
| 7-day | Players with concussions | 7 days | Yes | No |
The distinction between position players and pitchers is about the player's designation, not the injury. A pitcher with a sprained ankle goes on the 15-day list; an outfielder with a strained elbow goes on the 10-day list. Two-way players, the small group who meet the agreement's thresholds for innings pitched and games as a hitter, are treated as pitchers.
What "minimum" means in practice
The minimum is not an estimate of the injury. Clubs routinely place a player on the 10-day list when they expect him to be out for a month or more, because the shorter list gives them flexibility: they can activate him the moment he is healthy instead of waiting out a longer clock. A move to the 60-day list is only made when the club is sure the player will be out for a long time, or when it needs the 40-man spot.
Reporters read placements accordingly. "Placed on the 10-day injured list with a hamstring strain" says something about the hamstring. It says almost nothing about the date he will return.
What a placement frees: the 26-man active roster and the 40-man
Two rosters matter here, and the injured lists treat them differently.
The active roster is the 26 players who can play in a game on a given day from Opening Day through August 31, rising to 28 on September 1. The 40-man roster is the wider list of every player in the organization under a major-league contract, including players in the minors on optional assignment. A player must be on the 40-man before he can be added to the active roster. Our explainer on the 26-man and 40-man rosters covers the distinction in depth.
Any placement on an injured list removes the player from the 26-man active roster. That opens a spot the club fills immediately, usually by recalling a player from the minors who is already on the 40-man.
Only the 60-day list removes him from the 40-man roster as well. A player on the 10-day, 15-day or 7-day list still counts against the 40-man, which limits what the club can do with the open active spot. If it wants to promote a prospect who is not on the 40-man, it needs a 40-man place to put him in, and a short-list placement does not provide one.
The roster move that follows
Every placement has to be paired with an addition, because the active roster cannot fall below the minimum. The most common pairing is a recall: a player on the 40-man in Triple-A is brought up. When the club wants someone not on the 40-man, it either transfers a different, already-injured player from the 10-day or 15-day list to the 60-day list to clear a place, or it designates somebody for assignment. The waiver mechanics of that second route are in our page on designation for assignment and options.
A typical transaction line reads like this: "Placed right-hander X on the 15-day injured list with right shoulder inflammation. Recalled right-hander Y from Triple-A. Transferred left-hander Z from the 15-day to the 60-day injured list. Selected the contract of infielder W." Four moves, one open locker.
The 60-day list in detail
The 60-day list has a condition attached that the short lists do not. A club may place a player on it only when its 40-man roster is full, because the purpose of the list is to open a 40-man place. A club with room on its 40-man cannot use it to store a player.
Placement can be direct or by transfer. A player can be placed straight on the 60-day list if the injury plainly warrants it: a torn elbow ligament diagnosed in May, a major knee injury. More often, a player begins on the 10-day or 15-day list and is transferred to the 60-day when it becomes clear he will be out for months or when the club needs the place.
How the days are counted
Days already served count. A pitcher placed on the 15-day list on May 1 and transferred to the 60-day list on May 20 is eligible to return 60 days from May 1, not from May 20. The transfer does not restart the clock. That rule makes the 60-day transfer close to free for a player who is going to miss a long stretch anyway: the club gets a 40-man place, and the player's eligible return date barely moves.
It also explains a calculation front offices make every summer. Once a player has been out for six or seven weeks with an injury that will clearly run past 60 days, transferring him costs nothing in flexibility. A player with a few weeks left on a ten-week recovery is a harder call, because moving him to the 60-day list could push his eligible return date past the point when he would have been ready.
When the list is open
The 60-day list exists for the season and for spring training. In the offseason it closes. Clubs can use it as soon as camps open in February, and a pitcher recovering from elbow surgery is often placed on it in the first days of camp so the club can add someone. Our guide to MLB spring training and non-roster invitees describes how that opens places for the March roster battle.
Backdating: the three-day limit on retroactive placements
A placement does not have to start on the day the club announces it. Under the Major League Rules, a placement can be made retroactive, but only by up to three days, and never to a date before the player's last appearance in a game.
The effect is to shorten the time a player actually spends sidelined for the minimum. A hitter who strained a hamstring on Sunday and was held out Monday and Tuesday, then placed on the 10-day list on Wednesday, can have the placement backdated to Monday, the day after his last game. He becomes eligible to return on the tenth day counted from Monday rather than from Wednesday.
Why the last game matters
The limit exists to stop clubs from using a player's time on the bench as free injured-list days. Without a cap, a club could hold a hurt player on the active roster for a week, hoping he recovers, and then backdate a placement to cover the whole week if he did not. The three-day limit forces a decision. A club that waits longer than three days before making a placement simply loses those days.
The date of a player's last game sets the earliest possible start. A player who pinch-ran on Monday cannot be backdated to Sunday, however sore he was.
A worked example with dates
Take a starting pitcher who leaves a Thursday start in the fourth inning with forearm tightness. The club holds him out Friday while he is examined and announces a placement on Saturday. The earliest date the placement can carry is Friday, the day after his last appearance, and Friday is within three days of Saturday, so the club backdates to Friday. His 15 days run from Friday. If the examination had taken until the following Tuesday, the club could backdate only to Saturday, and the day lost between Friday and Saturday is simply gone.
For a starter on a five-day rotation, the minimum lines up neatly with skipped turns. A 15-day stay backdated to the day after a start costs him two or three turns, depending on how off days fall.
So a player who appeared even briefly the day before his placement gets no backdating at all: that appearance sets the earliest date the clock can start.
The 7-day concussion list
The 7-day injured list was created in 2011, when MLB and the Players Association adopted a concussion protocol. It applies only to concussions, and its shorter minimum is a deliberate trade: in return for a quicker possible return, the player must clear a medical process the other lists do not require.
Every player takes a baseline neurocognitive test in spring training. After a suspected concussion, he is tested again and compared with that baseline. A player on the 7-day list cannot be activated until he is symptom-free, his test results are back to baseline, and his club's medical staff has submitted a return-to-play report to MLB's medical director, who must sign off. The club cannot clear him on its own.
- Suspected concussionA player is removed and evaluated; a diagnosed concussion leads to placement on the 7-day list.
- Baseline comparisonHe is retested against the neurocognitive baseline he took in spring training.
- Symptom-free and exertion testsHe must have no symptoms at rest and none after physical exertion.
- Return-to-play reportThe club's medical staff documents the evaluation and submits it to the league.
- League sign-offMLB's medical director reviews the report and approves the activation.
- Activation or longer stayIf he is not cleared, he stays on the injured list beyond seven days until he is.
The steps in the MLB concussion protocol for a return to play. The league's medical director signs off; the club's doctors alone cannot clear a player.
Why a separate list at all
Before 2011, a concussed player went on the 15-day list like any other injured player, which created a bad incentive in both directions. A club that expected a quick recovery would keep the player active and hope, rather than lose him for two weeks; a player who felt better in four days would push to be cleared. The shorter list removed the first incentive by making a placement cheap, and the independent sign-off removed the second by taking the final decision away from the clubhouse. A club now has little reason to leave a concussed player on the active roster, because placing him costs only seven days.
Catchers and the reason the list exists
Catchers are especially exposed. Foul tips off the mask and collisions at the plate were among the concerns behind the list's creation, and the home-plate collision rule introduced in 2014 was part of the same response. A catcher takes many foul tips over a season; the mask absorbs most of them, but not all.
A player whose symptoms persist past seven days stays on the injured list. Several have missed months. The seven is a minimum, like the others, and a concussion that lingers can end a season.
Pay and service time on the major-league injured list
A player on the major-league injured list is paid his full major-league salary, every day, as if he were on the active roster. He also keeps accruing major-league service time, the clock that leads to arbitration and free agency. Our explainer on what counts toward MLB service time covers that clock.
This is one of the strongest protections in the sport. A pitcher who tears an elbow ligament in April of a six-year contract and misses 14 months collects every dollar and every day of service, and in baseball's fully guaranteed contract system there is no mechanism by which a club can cut his pay for being hurt.
Where the protection stops
The protection applies to the major-league injured list. A player on the 40-man roster who is injured while on optional assignment in the minors goes on the minor-league injured list instead and is paid his minor-league salary. That distinction is why a club cannot option an injured player to the minors: the rules require that a hurt player be placed on the injured list rather than sent down, so that the club cannot move the cost of an injury onto the player.
Two-way players and designated hitters
Ohtani's 2024 season shows the edge of the rules. The 15-day list applies to two-way players, but a two-way player who can still hit does not have to go on it at all; the club can simply stop using him on the mound. A pitcher who cannot pitch is placed on the list. A hitter who cannot pitch keeps playing. The rules follow the roster designation, and a player who meets the two-way thresholds keeps that designation into the following season even while he is not pitching.
Some contracts carry specific exclusions, such as a clause written into a deal with a pitcher who has a known shoulder issue that limits the club's obligation if that injury recurs. Those are negotiated individually and are uncommon. And money owed to an injured player counts against the competitive balance tax in full, since the tax charges every contract on the 40-man.
Rehab assignments: 20 days for position players, 30 for pitchers
Before he comes back, an injured player usually plays a few games in the minors. That is a rehabilitation assignment. He remains on the major-league injured list, keeps his major-league salary and service time, and plays for one of his club's minor-league affiliates to regain timing and test the injury.
The assignment has a time limit: 20 days for a position player and 30 for a pitcher. The longer limit for pitchers reflects how long it takes to build a starter's pitch count back up, from two innings to five or six, with four days between outings. At the end of the period the club must activate the player or end the assignment. The Basic Agreement and the Major League Rules set the terms on which a player can be sent on one.
What happens after a setback
A setback ends the assignment. If the player is hurt again, the club returns him to the injured list and stops the clock; a fresh assignment later is allowed but cannot be used simply to extend the time the player spends in the minors. The aim of the rule is to keep the assignment about recovery rather than about giving a club a few extra weeks of evaluation while the player sits off the active roster.
How a starter uses the 30 days
The pitcher limit is generous for a reliever and tight for a starter returning from a long layoff. A starter coming back from elbow surgery typically throws two innings in his first outing, three in his second, and builds by an inning or so each time, with four or five days between starts. Six outings at that pace take close to the full 30 days, and a single rainout or a skipped start for soreness can push the plan past the limit. Clubs plan the assignment backward from the date they want the pitcher in the major-league rotation, and much of the work of building arm strength is done before the assignment begins, in simulated games at the club's complex, where no clock is running.
Assignments are not required. A reliever back from a minor strain might be activated without one. A position player with a minor injury often rejoins after a short stay with no minor-league games at all. The assignment is for players who need to rebuild timing or stamina, and for those the limits matter.
The club often chooses the affiliate based on where the pitcher's next start would fall, which is why a big-league starter can turn up for two innings in a Class A park on a Tuesday night.
Coming off the injured list, and the November squeeze
Activation is the mirror of placement. A player coming off a short list needs a place on the 26-man active roster, so the club makes a corresponding move: optioning a player with options remaining back to the minors, designating someone for assignment, or placing another player on the injured list. Coming off the 60-day list is harder, because the player needs a 40-man place as well, and that place usually has to be created by removing someone.
- Injury and diagnosisThe club places the player on the 10-day or 15-day list, backdated up to three days.
- ReplacementA player on the 40-man roster is recalled from the minors to fill the active spot.
- RecoveryThe player rehabilitates with the club's medical staff; the minimum stay runs.
- Rehab assignmentIf needed, he plays in the minors for up to 20 days, or 30 for a pitcher.
- ActivationHe returns to the active roster once the minimum has passed and he is cleared.
- Corresponding moveThe club options, designates or places another player to keep the active roster at its limit.
The usual sequence for a short-list placement during the regular season. Any step can be skipped where the injury does not need it.
The November squeeze
The 60-day list closes after the World Series. Every player on it has to be reinstated to the 40-man roster in the days after the season ends, and the reinstatements arrive at the worst possible moment: the same weeks in which clubs must add minor-leaguers to the 40-man to protect them from the December Rule 5 draft and decide whether to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players.
A club that had six players on the 60-day list in September can find its 40-man roster suddenly over the limit. The result is a burst of releases, outright assignments and non-tenders. Players recovering from elbow surgery who will miss much of the next season can be particularly exposed. A club weighing a 40-man place for a pitcher who will not throw a competitive pitch until the following August against a 22-year-old it would lose in the Rule 5 draft often chooses the 22-year-old, and the injured pitcher is outrighted, released or non-tendered and re-signed to a minor-league deal if both sides want to continue. The arithmetic is cold, and it is the reason players with long injuries sometimes change organizations without ever being traded. The roster protection decisions are covered in our guide to the Rule 5 draft and which players clubs must protect, and the free-agent side of the same weeks in our guide to how players reach MLB free agency.
Paternity, bereavement and the restricted list: the lists that are not about injury
Several other lists remove a player from the active roster temporarily without any injury.
The paternity list allows a player to leave the club for the birth of a child, for one to three days. The bereavement or family medical emergency list covers a serious illness or death in the immediate family, for three to seven days. The paternity list was added in 2011, and both lists allow the club to call up a replacement for the absence. A player on either keeps his pay and his 40-man place.
| List | Purpose | Length | Paid | Counts on 40-man |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paternity | Birth of a child | 1 to 3 days | Yes | Yes |
| Bereavement or family medical emergency | Death or serious illness in the family | 3 to 7 days | Yes | Yes |
| Restricted | Player away from the club for non-injury reasons | Open-ended | No | Depends on the reason |
| Minor-league injured list | Optioned players hurt in the minors | Set by minor-league rules | Minor-league salary | Yes, if on the 40-man |
The restricted list is different in kind. A player is placed on it when he is unavailable for reasons other than injury: a personal leave, a legal matter, a refusal to report, or, during the pandemic seasons, an inability to travel to Toronto without vaccination. He is not paid while on the restricted list and does not accrue service time.
The minor-league injured list exists for the minor leagues themselves, and for 40-man players optioned there. Its rules are set separately, and a player on it does not accrue major-league service.
Gaming the list: tired pitchers, the 15-day minimum and medical paperwork
The 10-day list for every player was introduced in 2017. Within a season or two, a few front offices had found a use for it that was not entirely about injury. A starting pitcher with a minor complaint could be put on the 10-day list, skip a turn or two, and come back fresher, while a reliever from Triple-A filled his place. The 10-day minimum was short enough that a club could rotate pitchers in and out of the active roster through the list.
The practice had an old name, the "phantom DL," and it predated 2017. What changed was the frequency. A shorter minimum made it cheaper, and the number of placements rose.
The fix
MLB and the Players Association agreed in 2019 to raise the minimum for pitchers to 15 days and to impose a matching 15-day minimum on optional assignments for pitchers, so that a pitcher sent down could not return within ten days either. The change was part of the same rules package as the 26-man roster and the three-batter minimum for relievers. Its arrival was delayed by the pandemic: the 2020 season ran on special rules with a 10-day list for everyone, and the 15-day pitcher list was in force from 2022.
The league also tightened documentation. A placement must be supported by a medical report from the club's doctors describing the injury, and the league's medical office can review placements. That has not ended the practice entirely. A 15-day stint for "shoulder fatigue" still shows up in the transactions every summer, and only the club's doctors know how fatigued the shoulder was.
Why fatigue is hard to police
The difficulty is that fatigue is a real condition. Pitchers do develop shoulder and elbow soreness that is not a structural injury but that would become one if they kept throwing, and a club that rests such a pitcher for two weeks is doing what its medical staff should do. No imaging test separates "tired arm that needs rest" from "tired arm that the club would like to swap for a fresh reliever." The league can require a diagnosis; it cannot easily prove that the diagnosis was chosen for convenience.
The fix made the trick more expensive rather than impossible, and that is probably as far as a rule could go without forcing league doctors to second-guess every clubhouse diagnosis.
From disabled list to injured list: the 2019 renaming and the lists before it
For most of the sport's history it was the disabled list. In February 2019 MLB and the Players Association replaced the term with "injured list," and DL became IL. The league said the old name implied that injured players were disabled, and disability-rights groups had raised the point. The rules did not change at the moment of the renaming.
The structure had changed two years earlier. Before 2017 the short list was the 15-day disabled list, for pitchers and position players alike. The 2017 change to a 10-day list was part of the 2016 Basic Agreement and was meant to stop clubs from playing short-handed for days while waiting to see whether a player's injury was serious enough to justify a full 15-day absence. The 60-day list had existed alongside the 15-day list for decades.
- 15-day and 60-day listsFor decades before 2017, every player's short list was 15 days and the long list 60.
- 2011 concussion listA 7-day list for concussions is created alongside a league-wide concussion protocol.
- 2017 ten-day listThe 2016 agreement cuts the short list to 10 days for every player.
- 2019 renamingThe disabled list becomes the injured list and DL becomes IL.
- 2020 pandemic seasonA 10-day list for all players and a 45-day long list replace the usual pair for one season.
- 2022 pitcher minimumThe 15-day minimum for pitchers and two-way players takes effect.
Changes to the lists in the modern era. Older versions of the rules included other list lengths that are not shown here.
The 2020 exception
The 2020 season was the strangest year in the lists' history. With a 60-game schedule, a 60-day list made little sense, so a 45-day list replaced it for that season. A separate COVID-19 related injured list had no minimum stay at all, and players went on and off it as their test results changed. Those rules expired with the season. A 60-game year is described in our page on how many games are in an MLB season.
No injured list in October
The postseason has no injured list. Clubs submit a postseason roster for each round, and a player who is hurt mid-series can be replaced only with the commissioner's approval. A player removed that way is ineligible for the rest of that series and the next round. For the rules that apply across the full season, start from our United States hub.