Author Topic: Strasburg in October..  (Read 44066 times)

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Offline wpa2629

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1000: August 22, 2012, 07:22:23 PM »
that seems to be the assumption among the talking heads on local radio- i still maintain it's akin to poking the baseball god in the eye with a pointy stick to shut a player down with the assumption that we'll be here again 

I don't think the Nats FO is assuming anything.

Offline Ray D

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1001: August 23, 2012, 12:08:25 AM »
No. They're saying you're naive if you think shutting down Strasburg guarantees a window of winning in the future.

I'd have to say to that that I think they're naive if they think that anyone thinks that.    What we think (those of us who support shutting him down) is that shutting him down increases our chances of winning in the future, and not shutting him down decreases the chances.


Online Smithian

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1002: August 23, 2012, 12:17:38 AM »
I don't give two flip what some national guys who took daily dumps on the "Natinals" as recently as last season thinks about the Washington Nationals. And screw that "don't assume we'll be in this position again" storyline.

I stayed positive when we were ass pounded nightly in 2008 and 2009. I was preaching patience in 2010. I was bouncing off walls promising a white hot future last season. I was laughed at not only by opposing fans but also by some on here.

We have the best record in the majors. Young pitching, young hitting talent, youth everywhere. Payroll flexibility. Awesome ballpark. Rich market that will financially support a winner.  The future is so bright it isn't funny. The rest of major league baseball will be looking at the Washington Nationals for some guide to how to rebuild their team. Asshat scouts and GMs who laughed at the Nats in 2009 will now sit around gazing sadly at the riches Mike Rizzo and the front office has assembled.

I'll enjoy every day and I will PROMISE we will be back here again over the next few years. As soon as the Nationals qualify for their first playoff berth, I will absolute dump Sunshine everywhere and be so happy even CAL and BiL will caution me to temper it down.

If I could stay optimistic when we were marching out horrible players like Elijah Dukes, Luis Atilano, Anderson Hernandez, JD Martin, etc then I'll be super happy as long as the roster stays as it is. I survived Guzman in the outfield(:hang:), I'll survive the Strasburg shutdown.

The past makes us appreciate today. Today is awesome. The future is great.

Offline Slateman

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1003: August 23, 2012, 08:46:43 AM »
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/johnson-strasburg-could-miss-final-225552931--mlb.html

Davey's saying that Strasburg could miss final two or three starts of the season. Sounds about right. I think a lot of is dependant on how he looks the next two or three starts. If he looks like he did his last start against the Braves, I could see them stretching to about 180 innings. If he has command issues ... probably a little more than 160

Online JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1004: August 23, 2012, 08:57:53 AM »
Two points:

1)  I remember talking to a kid whose dad was a Reds scout after game 6 of the 1975 world series. he was saying with Fisk, Lynn, Evans, Burleson, a return of Jim Rice, and kids like Cecil Cooper, not to mention pitchers like 17 game winner Bill Lee hitting their prime, he was rooting for the Reds to win Game 7 because the Red Sox would win many WS with that crew.  Easily the best young talent in the game.  When a team is built around pitching, it just takes reinjuring an arm mess up your future.  No one should kid themselves like this:
Quote
We have the best record in the majors. Young pitching, young hitting talent, youth everywhere. Payroll flexibility. Awesome ballpark. Rich market that will financially support a winner.  The future is so bright it isn't funny. The rest of major league baseball will be looking at the Washington Nationals for some guide to how to rebuild their team. Asshat scouts and GMs who laughed at the Nats in 2009 will now sit around gazing sadly at the riches Mike Rizzo and the front office has assembled.

I'll enjoy every day and I will PROMISE we will be back here again over the next few years.

2)  As far as the roster for the playoffs, you must be in the organization (and I think on the 40 man roster) as of 9/1.  Among those players, I think you start with the 25 man roster at that point, plus the guys on the 15 day DL.  The guys on the DL can be activated for the playoffs or can be replaced by another guy on the 40 man as of 9/1, even if that guy was not on the 25 man roster as of 9/1.  I think this is how a few guys like K-Rod, Moore, Price, and Ellsbury made the post season rosters.

Offline Sharp

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1005: August 23, 2012, 09:19:10 AM »
That's a very good point.  Even if the Nats don't regress--even if the hitters and pitchers are as good or better in the future--the fact remains that we're relying on two pitchers who have already had Tommy John surgery staying completely healthy.  We've been tremendously lucky with our starting pitching this year; I don't think we've missed a single inning to injury.  Take away JZimm and Strasburg and we lose about nine WAR--suddenly we're fighting for a wildcard spot instead of comfortably atop the NL East.  Even if they don't show lingering effects from their surgery, it's still likely that one or both get injured for an extended period of time within the next few years.  I hope the Nats front office is taking notes and making sure we have both the starting pitching depth and the position players to help us stay afloat when that happens.

Online Smithian

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1006: August 23, 2012, 09:21:28 AM »
No one should kid themselves like this:
We'll see how it goes.

Offline HalfSmokes

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1007: August 23, 2012, 09:21:32 AM »
That's a very good point.  Even if the Nats don't regress--even if the hitters and pitchers are as good or better in the future--the fact remains that we're relying on two pitchers who have already had Tommy John surgery staying completely healthy.  We've been tremendously lucky with our starting pitching this year; I don't think we've missed a single inning to injury.  Take away JZimm and Strasburg and we lose about nine WAR--suddenly we're fighting for a wildcard spot instead of comfortably atop the NL East.  Even if they don't show lingering effects from their surgery, it's still likely that one or both get injured for an extended period of time within the next few years.  I hope the Nats front office is taking notes and making sure we have both the starting pitching depth and the position players to help us stay afloat when that happens.

throw gio into the mix- the odds of all three staying healthy (ie not an extended dl stint) for the next few years have to be very long

Offline Kevrock

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1008: August 23, 2012, 09:26:24 AM »
That's a very good point.  Even if the Nats don't regress--even if the hitters and pitchers are as good or better in the future--the fact remains that we're relying on two pitchers who have already had Tommy John surgery staying completely healthy. 

Are the injury rates for pitchers who have had TJS higher than pitchers who have not had TJS?

This is all I have found so far:

Quote
"The re-injury rate is highest in the second year," Andrews said. "So standard procedure is to watch the fatigue factor the first year back [pitching]."

Quote
Despite all the recent advances in sports medicine, there is no quantifiable innings benchmark for a pitcher in his first year back from Tommy John, Andrews said. But if a pitcher does re-injure the reconstructed ligament, the statistics are grim. Andrews' Tommy John patients have an 85 to 90 percent recovery rate from the surgery, but for those unlucky few that have to redo the procedure, the success rate drops to 25 to 35 percent.

"A redo is a career-threatening operation," Andrews said. "You're dealing with the existing scar issue, and you have to re-drill holes into already weakened bones. The scar tissue bleeds more, so the infection rate is higher. You don't wish that on anybody."

Quote
"If you shut someone down for a month and crank them back up to a high level, a playoff level, there's some worry there might be a higher rate for re-injury," he said. "You don't just all of the sudden go to a playoff level after you've been shut down for a period of time. There's rust there."

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/08/why-the-nationals-are-right-to-shut-down-stephen-strasburg/261451/

Offline Sharp

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1009: August 23, 2012, 09:38:21 AM »
I don't know if the injury rates are higher for pitchers who have had TJS, to be honest.  But I do know that pitchers who have had TJS tend to be harder hit by elbow injuries than other pitchers, and I also know that pitchers in general are huge injury risks, so I don't think it's going out on a limb to say that one of JZimm and Stras is going to miss significant time on the DL in the future.

Offline Kevrock

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1010: August 23, 2012, 09:43:51 AM »
Well, you could say the same thing about any team that relies on pitching.

Offline HalfSmokes

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1011: August 23, 2012, 09:45:18 AM »
Well, you could say the same thing about any team that relies on pitching.

that's the point, you can't be positive that a team reliant on starting pitching will continually be competitive due fragility of pitchers

Offline Sharp

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1012: August 23, 2012, 09:47:38 AM »
Well, you could say the same thing about any team that relies on pitching.
I think that was the point, really.  It's why the best position players make comparatively more than the best pitchers--even if they provide similar value when healthy, teams have to assume that the position players will be healthy for longer.  It's also why we need to make sure that we are always on the hunt for more pitching, so we can survive a period without one or more of our starters.

(I don't have HalfSmokes on ignore!)

Offline tomterp

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1013: August 23, 2012, 09:47:54 AM »
But I do know that pitchers who have had TJS tend to be harder hit by elbow injuries than other pitchers

Do you have support for this?  Runs counter to my impressions/mindfacts.

Offline Sharp

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1014: August 23, 2012, 09:48:58 AM »
Do you have support for this?  Runs counter to my impressions/mindfacts.
"Hit harder" in the sense that an elbow injury can cause much longer DL time and have much more significant career ramifications.  See the article Kevrock posted above about second-round TJ surgery.

Offline PC

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1015: August 23, 2012, 09:49:42 AM »
that seems to be the assumption among the talking heads on local radio- i still maintain it's akin to poking the baseball god in the eye with a pointy stick to shut a player down with the assumption that we'll be here again 

If you run a sports franchise and ever assume that you will ONE year to win a championship for all of sports eternity, you may as well close up shop and find a new business.

You can't fear that you'll only get one chance to win a championship.  That's a horrible way to run a franchise.  You'll make so many bad decisions if you think that way.

You have to assume that you'll get other chances. Even if that's not the case, you still have to run the franchise as if you will.

Offline HalfSmokes

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1016: August 23, 2012, 09:53:56 AM »
If you run a sports franchise and ever assume that you will ONE year to win a championship for all of sports eternity, you may as well close up shop and find a new business.

You can't fear that you'll only get one chance to win a championship.  That's a horrible way to run a franchise.  You'll make so many bad decisions if you think that way.

You have to assume that you'll get other chances. Even if that's not the case, you still have to run the franchise as if you will.

there has to be a balance otherwise you're constantly either signing guys to deals that kill you in the long term or you're constantly trading away productive players for more prospects

Offline blue911

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1017: August 23, 2012, 10:00:08 AM »
Two points:

1)  I remember talking to a kid whose dad was a Reds scout after game 6 of the 1975 world series. he was saying with Fisk, Lynn, Evans, Burleson, a return of Jim Rice, and kids like Cecil Cooper, not to mention pitchers like 17 game winner Bill Lee hitting their prime, he was rooting for the Reds to win Game 7 because the Red Sox would win many WS with that crew.  Easily the best young talent in the game.  When a team is built around pitching, it just takes reinjuring an arm mess up your future.  No one should kid themselves like this:
2)  As far as the roster for the playoffs, you must be in the organization (and I think on the 40 man roster) as of 9/1.  Among those players, I think you start with the 25 man roster at that point, plus the guys on the 15 day DL.  The guys on the DL can be activated for the playoffs or can be replaced by another guy on the 40 man as of 9/1, even if that guy was not on the 25 man roster as of 9/1.  I think this is how a few guys like K-Rod, Moore, Price, and Ellsbury made the post season rosters.

JCA, Boston didn't even have the second best staff in the AL East. Baltimore staff was damn near a run better than the Red Sox and the Yankess 3/4 of a run. The reality was that their pitching was second rate, much like today's Red Sox team. 

Offline wpa2629

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1018: August 23, 2012, 10:28:30 AM »
JCA, Boston didn't even have the second best staff in the AL East. Baltimore staff was damn near a run better than the Red Sox and the Yankess 3/4 of a run. The reality was that their pitching was second rate, much like today's Red Sox team. 

Ouch Damn  - easy on poor JCA there - You know how much he's suffered ;)

Online JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1019: August 23, 2012, 10:34:18 AM »
Oh, yes.  I can't remember the rotation after Tiant and Bill Lee.  I think they used Reggie Cleveland and maybe Rick Wise at that point.  Horrible depth.  The winning run of the world series i think was scored off of Jim burton, I think, a rookie who I don't think ever pitched again in the majors. This was before Bill Campbell, Bob Stanley, Mike Torrez, and Dennis Eckersley. 

Major point is that saying multiple opportunities to take the best record in baseball into the playoffs, make a world series run, and win it due to wonderful young talent is not a given and foolish to assume.  Shutting down Strasburg due to his injury status and age should be considered independent of its effect on the playoffs.  Sure shutting down Strasburg will hurt the odds of winning, but it is pretty clear that Yocum thinks pitching Strasburg in the playoffs increases the odds of a career ending reinjury, and there is enough evidence supporitng that to make pitchign Strasburg in the playoffs a foolish gamble.

clarification: I corrected a couple of "it" references because I used the word two different ways

Offline PC

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1020: August 23, 2012, 10:44:22 AM »
Oh, yes.  I can't remember the rotation after Tiant and Bill Lee.  I think they used Reggie Cleveland and maybe Rick Wise at that point.  Horrible depth.  The winning run of the world series i think was scored off of Jim burton, I think, a rookie who I don't think ever pitched again in the majors. This was before Bill Campbell, Bob Stanley, Mike Torrez, and Dennis Eckersley. 

Major point is that saying multiple opportunities to take the best record in baseball into the playoffs, make a world series run, and win it due to wonderful young talent is not a given and foolish to assume.  Shutting down Strasburg due to his injury status and age should be considered independent of its effect on the playoffs.  Sure it will hurt the odds of winning, but it is pretty clear that Yocum thinks it decreases increases the odds of a career ending reinjury, and there is enough evidence supporitng that to make it a foolish gamble.

ftfy

Offline blue911

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1021: August 23, 2012, 10:48:35 AM »
Oh, yes.  I can't remember the rotation after Tiant and Bill Lee.  I think they used Reggie Cleveland and maybe Rick Wise at that point.  Horrible depth.  The winning run of the world series i think was scored off of Jim burton, I think, a rookie who I don't think ever pitched again in the majors. This was before Bill Campbell, Bob Stanley, Mike Torrez, and Dennis Eckersley. 

Major point is that saying multiple opportunities to take the best record in baseball into the playoffs, make a world series run, and win it due to wonderful young talent is not a given and foolish to assume.  Shutting down Strasburg due to his injury status and age should be considered independent of its effect on the playoffs.  Sure it will hurt the odds of winning, but it is pretty clear that Yocum thinks it increases the odds of a career ending reinjury, and there is enough evidence supporitng that to make it a foolish gamble.

The Yankees did a wonderful job of using free agency to add pitching depth, Catfish in '75, Gullett in '77, and Gossage in '78.  Don Gullett was a tremendous pitcher, probably one of the most under appreciated of that generation, but like Steve Avery he was cooked by the time he was 27.

Offline HalfSmokes

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1022: August 23, 2012, 10:50:21 AM »
if we cook Stras like Avery, it seems like we'd get a great return on our record setting draft bonus

Offline DPMOmaha

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1023: August 23, 2012, 10:51:57 AM »
if we cook Stras like Avery, it seems like we'd get a great return on our record setting draft bonus

I think that's why they're taking this course of action to give us the best possibility of avoiding that.

Offline LostYudite

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Re: Strasburg in October..
« Reply #1024: August 23, 2012, 11:22:04 AM »
We'll see how it goes.

Quote from: Gus Avrakotos
There's a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets a horse... and everybody in the village says, "how wonderful. The boy got a horse" And the Zen master says, "we'll see." Two years later, the boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everyone in the village says, "How terrible." And the Zen master says, "We'll see." Then, a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and fight... except the boy can't cause his legs all messed up. and everybody in the village says, "How wonderful."

Smithian, I love your enthusiasm :minigunz: and I even agree that on paper, the Nats look good to be at or near the top of the division for several years to come, but the difference between 95 wins and winning the division and 89 wins and out of the playoffs is <--> thin. 

That's fundamentally why I'm in favor of shutting him down.  We're close to winning the division this year, the playoffs are a crapshoot, we'll hurt our chances this year but might be good enough to overcome and we (hopefully) position SS to pitch more completely heathily into 2013-2015. 

We'll see.