Stephen Strasburg

The place for news, information and discussion about anything related to pro sports.

Moderators: rtb, kmax, SonomaCat

Post Reply
John K
Golden Bobcat
Posts: 8620
Joined: Mon Jun 11, 2007 11:04 am
Location: Great Falls MT

Stephen Strasburg

Post by John K » Thu Aug 16, 2012 10:43 pm

I'd be curious to know people's opinions about the Nationals plan to shut down Strasburg once he reaches his innings limit? I personally think it't ridiculous, although as a Braves fan, I'm all for it. I'm not at all convinced that limiting his innings will reduce the risk of re-injuring his arm. And who knows if/when they'll ever have another legitimate shot at the World Series, as they do this year. This franchise has sort of been snake bitten. The old Expos made it to the playoffs once in their history in 1981, with a roster full of young and talented players. At the time, everyone thought they'd be in the playoffs regularly in future years, but it didn't work out that way. Then they had the best record in baseball in 1994 at the time the balance of the season was cancelled, again with a bunch of talented, young players. But that group never repeated their success of 1994 in future years either. I'd be pretty pissed off if I was a Nationals fan.

I heard Scott Boras talking about how Steve Avery was the only one of the great homegrown Braves pitchers that had arm problems, and he implied that was due to the fact that Avery had thrown substantially more innings in the majors before he turned 23, than did Glavine or Smoltz. When I first heard that, I was pretty impressed with his research, and was almost ready to change my thinking on this issue. But then it occurred to me that the only reason Avery had thrown more pitches in the bigs is because he reached the majors at an earlier age than the other two. Glavine and Smoltz's total innings pitched at that age were probably fairly comparable to Avery's , but more of their innings were pitched in the minors. What's the difference though, between innings pitched in the majors or the minors. It's not going to be any more stressful on a pitcher's arm, just because he's throwing to major league hitters rather than minor league hitters. So that totally blew a huge hole in Boras' argument. And actually Smoltz did have arm problems later in his career, but of course Boras failed to mention that since it didn't fit in with his theory. I truly believe that some guys are destined to have arm problems, and others aren't, and the number of innings pitched has little or nothing to do with it. "Back in the day" pitchers routinely threw 300 plus innings in a season, and I don't believe that overall there were any more arm injuries back then than there are now. In fact, if anything, I'd bet there were fewer injuries back then.



geogfather
BobcatNation Letterman
Posts: 181
Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2004 9:16 pm

Re: Stephen Strasburg

Post by geogfather » Fri Aug 17, 2012 1:29 pm

John K wrote:I'd be curious to know people's opinions about the Nationals plan to shut down Strasburg once he reaches his innings limit? I personally think it't ridiculous, although as a Braves fan, I'm all for it. I'm not at all convinced that limiting his innings will reduce the risk of re-injuring his arm. And who knows if/when they'll ever have another legitimate shot at the World Series, as they do this year. This franchise has sort of been snake bitten. The old Expos made it to the playoffs once in their history in 1981, with a roster full of young and talented players. At the time, everyone thought they'd be in the playoffs regularly in future years, but it didn't work out that way. Then they had the best record in baseball in 1994 at the time the balance of the season was cancelled, again with a bunch of talented, young players. But that group never repeated their success of 1994 in future years either. I'd be pretty pissed off if I was a Nationals fan.

I heard Scott Boras talking about how Steve Avery was the only one of the great homegrown Braves pitchers that had arm problems, and he implied that was due to the fact that Avery had thrown substantially more innings in the majors before he turned 23, than did Glavine or Smoltz. When I first heard that, I was pretty impressed with his research, and was almost ready to change my thinking on this issue. But then it occurred to me that the only reason Avery had thrown more pitches in the bigs is because he reached the majors at an earlier age than the other two. Glavine and Smoltz's total innings pitched at that age were probably fairly comparable to Avery's , but more of their innings were pitched in the minors. What's the difference though, between innings pitched in the majors or the minors. It's not going to be any more stressful on a pitcher's arm, just because he's throwing to major league hitters rather than minor league hitters. So that totally blew a huge hole in Boras' argument. And actually Smoltz did have arm problems later in his career, but of course Boras failed to mention that since it didn't fit in with his theory. I truly believe that some guys are destined to have arm problems, and others aren't, and the number of innings pitched has little or nothing to do with it. "Back in the day" pitchers routinely threw 300 plus innings in a season, and I don't believe that overall there were any more arm injuries back then than there are now. In fact, if anything, I'd bet there were fewer injuries back then.
I'm not sure if this is the case here, but many minor league programs have 6 man rotations as opposed to the 5 man rotations you see in the Majors. So in that way, it is less stressful to a pitcher's arm in that he has at least one extra night off and a stronger more refreshed arm when time comes for them to take the hill again.

I think its always a little unfair to talk about pitchers back in the day always throwing 300 innings when comparing them to today's game. Its a different game. Here is an interesting article that goes into it a bit

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/artic ... cleid=2627" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I personally would shut him down at 180. The kid is a 24 year old Ace on a team loaded with young talent. That being said, they need him to be competitive, but he does them no good in the future if he goes down again. He has already had games this season where he was pulled for tightness in his arm and more recently in his back. His body simply isn't ready for 300 innings yet. By shutting him down, you ensure that he will be at full strength and that the Tommy John surgery will have had its proper effect. If you don't shut him down and he gets hurt again, then its game over for him as a pro and by proxy, puts the Nats back another 10 years.

My thought is that if you replace him in the rotation with a .500 pitcher that means you will probably end up with 3 or so more losses than you would have had with him. I'm not sold that 3 or 4 games is a good enough reason to risk his career, even if we are getting closer to October. Sure they MIGHT win the WS with him this year, but they also MIGHT win the WS multiple in the next ten years if he is healthy. Without him in the post season, I don't think they do.

For the record, I am a lifelong Orioles fan so him pitching doesn't really impact my team one way or the other unless they both make it to the WS. I like watching the kid pitch and for selfish reasons I will be pissed if he ends up hurt again due to overworking him.



alton11
New Recruit
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Oct 10, 2012 11:55 pm

Re: Stephen Strasburg

Post by alton11 » Thu Oct 11, 2012 12:10 am

The old Expos made it to the playoffs once in their history in 1981, with a roster full of young and talented players. At the time, everyone thought they'd be in the playoffs regularly in future years, but it didn't work out that way. Then they had the best record in baseball in 1994 at the time the balance of the season was cancelled, again with a bunch of talented, young players. But that group never repeated their success of 1994 in future years either. I'd be pretty pissed off if I was a Nationals fan.


America

User avatar
CatBlitz
Golden Bobcat
Posts: 7584
Joined: Sat Jan 29, 2011 11:27 pm
Location: B Town

Re: Stephen Strasburg

Post by CatBlitz » Thu Oct 11, 2012 9:35 am

It's stupid.


Don't let this distract you from the fact that the griz blew a 22-0 lead.

MSU01
Golden Bobcat
Posts: 7567
Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2004 5:21 pm

Re: Stephen Strasburg

Post by MSU01 » Sat Oct 13, 2012 8:17 am

Oops! At least the discussion on ESPN about whether Strasburg would have killed the zombie Cardinals will take away from some of the 6 hrs of daily Tebow talk.



User avatar
Air Force Cat
BobcatNation Team Captain
Posts: 549
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2007 7:43 am
Location: Bozeman

Re: Stephen Strasburg

Post by Air Force Cat » Sat Oct 13, 2012 8:38 am

I don't care how much young talent a team has or how many "experts" predict that they will make the playoffs for years to come, when the chance comes to win a championship you do whatever in you can to make it happen. What do you think Strasburg would rather have, a 20+ year career playing on .500 teams as a great pitcher, or a 10 year career as a good pitcher with a World Series to his name? Pretty sure he would take the latter every time


Image
Image

Post Reply