Author Topic: Stephen Strasburg Has Been Shut Down  (Read 9606 times)

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Offline NatsDad14

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Re: Stephen Strasburg Has Been Shut Down
« Reply #125: September 12, 2012, 06:29:41 PM »
Please summarize the core point, looks interesting, but that thing is way too long with way to many tangents for me.
Major League Baseball before the turn of the century was like a highway with a speed limit of 80 mph. Baseball today has a speed limit of 55 mph, seat belts are mandated, and air bags are standard. What the Nationals are doing is lowering the speed limit to 40 mph and arguing that it will reduce car accidents further.

They might be right, but given that the injury risk has already been reduced so significantly, it's likely that any further benefit to shutting down Strasburg will be minuscule. Meanwhile, the risk that shutting him down costs the Nationals the NL pennant or a world championship is a lot more than minuscule. The point of having a pitcher like Stephen Strasburg is to help you win a championship. Preventing Strasburg from helping you win a title this year — so that he might be more likely to help you win a title in the future — is causing certain harm to your team in the present for a theoretical benefit in the future. That is, in a word, dumb.


There are so many reasons why shutting down Strasburg is a mistake. Having made the decision to limit his innings before the season, the Nationals' refusal to skip the occasional start early in the year so that Strasburg would be fresh for October is mind-boggling. (The only explanation is that they didn't think they'd actually be in contention this year. In which case, may we suggest they read Grantland more often?)

Or maybe they actually allowed themselves to be influenced by Scott Boras, Strasburg's agent, who has openly supported the decision to shut down his client. Boras's position is that a risk of injury to his client, no matter how small, reduces his future earning potential, while the benefit of allowing Strasburg to pitch — a possible world championship — doesn't increase Strasburg's income by more than the amount of his playoff share. That's a legitimate position for an agent. But for the Nationals? Why should they care what payday awaits Strasburg in free agency?

That Boras's opinion is taken seriously on this subject is mystifying. I'd love to see Mike Rizzo tell Boras: "Since you want us to put Strasburg's future ahead of our franchise's chances to win in the present, I'm sure you want us to have an investment in Strasburg's future as well. How about a long-term contract?" I suspect it would be a short conversation.

But the main reason the Nationals are wrong to shut down Strasburg is simply this: The risk they're trying to mitigate has already been mitigated for them. Major League Baseball has changed the way it uses starting pitchers, and has succeeded in reducing pitcher injuries. The Nationals' failure to recognize this is putting them at needless risk for something else — a quick exit this October.