Poll

 Should Strasburg be shut down for the 2012 season before the playoffs?

Stras should be shut down when he's reached the limit determined by management and consistent with his doctors' recommendations.
84 (65.1%)
This may be our best shot at going deep into the playoffs, you can't shut our ace down.  Let him pitch.
26 (20.2%)
I can't decide.
9 (7%)
Shut up. It's a done deal.  Move on already.
10 (7.8%)

Total Members Voted: 129

Author Topic: Poll: Should Strasburg be shut down before the playoffs?  (Read 29114 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Lintyfresh85

  • Posts: 35130
  • World Champions!!!
Not a very insurable risk.  I think Lloyds got burned too many times and quit offering it.

They quit offering it to pro wrestlers after they figured out that just because the action was scripted... it didn't mean the injuries always were, as well.

Offline mimontero88

  • Posts: 6240
  • The GOAT
I have finally changed my view.  Shut Stras down when the time comes.  If I thought he was the difference between us being able to win a World Series or not I would say World Series are too valuable and you have to pitch him.  But I think this team has shown they are good enough to win without him.  If the season ended today the Reds, Giants, Braves, and Cardinals would be the other playoff teams.  The Nats are a combined 23-9 against those teams this year.

Online Smithian

  • Posts: 11498
  • Sunshine Squad 2022
The Strasburg shutdown will be an occasion of contrasts.

Most Nats fans will move on happily and watch as the Nats keep rolling.

The outside observers will pound sand.

Offline GSW

  • Posts: 166
Rizzo f'd up bad on this one!

They could have keep him under 180 and still had him thru Oct. :(


Online Smithian

  • Posts: 11498
  • Sunshine Squad 2022
Boswell, as always, making a great argument;

Quote
Washington Nationals are built to last, which is why they need Stephen Strasburg for the long haul

By Thomas Boswell, Published: September 6

“Whack-O, whack-O, whack-O,” yell the Washington Nationals each night as they greet another of their home run hitters as he returns to their dugout. With a roster that’s finally healthy, Nats hitters have turned this homestand into a coming-out party for the entire offense.

If the postseason started now, the Nats would not only have the top-rated pitching staff in the National League playoffs, but the second-highest scoring offense, too.

For those who think that the Nats are lucky or ahead of schedule or a dubious proposition to reach the playoffs in future years, stop and smell the 12 home runs they dropped on the Cubs on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. After those drubbings, Chicago Manager Dale Sveum said, “That’s just men playing against boys right now” and “this is by far the best team we’ve played all year.”

Men against boys? The Nats are baseball’s second-youngest team.

When Stephen Strasburg pitches his next-to-last game Friday, don’t forget the most important reason he’s being shut down: The Nats are close to building an exceptional team, not just a very good one. They want to maximize all the odds of a long run as a dominant club.

This is how great baseball projects look at the beginning. If you don’t get this far, with your own fans in disbelief and foes stunned to realize they are not just beaten but outclassed, you never make the whole journey. But if you do, it’s amazing.

The Orioles had baseball’s best record from 1960 to ’83. The Braves won 14 straight division titles. The Phillies, a joke for much of a century, just won five straight NL East titles. Boston has just six losing seasons in the last 44 years. St. Louis has been over .500 69 times in 91 years: 76 percent winners!

Six months ago, it looked like by 2013 or ’14 the Nats might be a team with such a chance. Now it already has happened. As Ryan Zimmerman says, “We haven’t done anything yet.” And they haven’t left their first permanent mark.

But after 137games, the Nats are on a 100-win pace. More important, from a 30,000-foot perspective, they’ve done it despite injuries and without even one player performing above his previous best level or above what his potential appeared to be on Opening Day.

Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez, Jordan Zimmermann, Ross Detwiler, Edwin Jackson, Tyler Clippard, Sean Burnett and Drew Storen all have ERAs at the same levels they had in ’11 or in multiple previous seasons. None is a surprise. True, the rotation has been abnormally healthy. But John Lannan was always waiting at Class AAA to fill a gap. And as counterbalance, everyday players were abnormally injured.

Zimmerman, Michael Morse, Adam LaRoche and Jayson Werth, as a group, are slightly below their career-long offensive production per at-bat. Factoring injuries, they’re far below projections. All four have had 30-homer years. In ’12, just 63 combined so far.

Three young players with big obvious talent are all panning out: Ian Desmond, Danny Espinosa and Bryce Harper. But no talent evaluator would have been surprised if you said they would have an OPS-plus (on-base plus slugging adjusted to ballpark) of 121, 101 and 109 this season (100 is MLB average). As a group, you’d expect them to trend even higher in future.

All in all, we’re going to have to accept a reality that seemed remote in April: The Nats are having a fairly normal season and yet they are really, really good. Right now.

The conclusion? This is a franchise that should make every decision based on pursuit of long-run excellence, not high-risk, high-reward gambles for short-term success.

That’s why those, mostly outside the Washington area, who are (still) shrieking about Strasburg, deserve to be ignored. Don’t feed the trolls.

We live in an age that is addicted to trashy controversy, designed to distract us constantly. A byproduct of these fake debates is the need to disregard facts or science or common sense. Such things would ruin a perfectly good shouting match. If you want to spot such waste-of-time “issues,” do a simple trick. Invert. Turn everything upside down.

To illustrate, what would be happening right now if the Nats had chosen to continue to pitch Strasburg? We all know, don’t we? Right now, the Nats would be in the public pillory, pelted with rotten tomatoes, but for all the opposite reasons.

The Nats would be called win-now instant-gratification opportunists who didn’t learn the lessons of the ’03 Cubs, who ruined both Kerry Wood (for a second time) and Mark Prior (at 22) in a pedal-to-the-metal run at a World Series that failed, in part, because a Wrigley Field fan tried to catch a foul ball at the worst moment. Davey Johnson knows about fans that touch flyballs. His ’96 Orioles still wonder what Jeffrey Maier cost them.

For this kind of crapshoot postseason format, do you trash the same medical protocol that worked so well with Zimmermann?

If Strasburg kept pitching, the “rage” wouldn’t stop with Cubs comparisons: “Didn’t the Nats learn the cost of impatience from the decade-long Redskins fiasco in their back yard?”

The Nats might also, and with cause, be called two-faced. They signed high-pick pitchers, such as Alex Meyer and Lucas Giolito, by saying, “Look how sensibly we treated Zimmermann and Strasburg — like family, not raw meat. We’ll do the same if you get hurt.” (Giolito already has.). So what would the reaction be if they set fire to those promises for a 15 percent chance to win the World Series?

What about business ethics? Strasburg may have a $300 million future. But you exploit his youthful enthusiasm? Is that how you treat employees?

The District built the Nats a $630 million park. Don’t the Lerners, as native Washingtonians, have a civic duty to maximize their resources so the Southeast Washington waterfront can be as big a success as the Verizon Center neighborhood? How many bigger resources do they have than Strasburg?

When you hear the endless Strasburg Shutdown muttering, remember that if the Nats had made the opposite decision, the criticism would have been just as loud.

But it would have been justified.

Instead, save your attention for what matters: watching the birth of a formidable franchise. Listen for that “whack-O,” team code for one of Davey’s hitting tips.

That’s how this whole season has felt: wonderfully whack-O. But it’s not. It’s real.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/nationals-are-built-to-last-which-is-why-they-need-stephen-strasburg-for-the-long-haul/2012/09/06/45fbc2cc-f862-11e1-8253-3f495ae70650_story.html

Offline spit

  • Posts: 416
If the season ended today the Reds, Giants, Braves, and Cardinals would be the other playoff teams.  The Nats are a combined 23-9 against those teams this year.

woooo

Offline PebbleBall

  • Posts: 3440
  • Now that right there is baseball.
The Strasburg shutdown will be an occasion of contrasts.

Most Nats fans will move on happily and watch as the Nats keep rolling.

The outside observers will pound sand.

Even though a lot of people support it, I do think that winning the World Series is the only thing that would stop it from being endlessly debated.  Even some fans that are happy now will end up playing "what if."

Offline houston-nat

  • Posts: 19050
Even though a lot of people support it, I do think that winning the World Series is the only thing that would stop it from being endlessly debated.  Even some fans that are happy now will end up playing "what if."


I think losing a World Series where every loss is 1-0 might silence the debate too, but...I'd rather win.

Offline Tyler Durden

  • Posts: 7970
  • Leprechaun
Boz makes a good point.  The Nats would face criticism no matter what they decide with Strasburg.

Offline Lintyfresh85

  • Posts: 35130
  • World Champions!!!
Who would criticise the team if they let Strasburg pitch and he never got injured the rest of his career?

Offline Minty Fresh

  • Posts: 20386
  • BOOM!
Who would criticise the team if they let Strasburg pitch and he never got injured the rest of his career?

The whiners who enjoy whining?   :shrug:

Online Smithian

  • Posts: 11498
  • Sunshine Squad 2022
Who would criticise the team if they let Strasburg pitch and he never got injured the rest of his career?

Offline Tyler Durden

  • Posts: 7970
  • Leprechaun
Rob Dibble

Offline NatsDad14

  • Posts: 5241
We aren't going to ride him death. 20 extra IP is not the end of the world for his arm. If he breaks down because of 20 extra IP, we find out early on that his arm was never meant to be used as a big league ace. Better to find out now, than in 2015 when you need him in the WS.

Offline PowerBoater69

  • Posts: 14265
    • Twitter
We aren't going to ride him death. 20 extra IP is not the end of the world for his arm. If he breaks down because of 20 extra IP, we find out early on that his arm was never meant to be used as a big league ace. Better to find out now, than in 2015 when you need him in the WS.

Right, there's no chance that three or four extra starts has any significant impact on his career.

Boz says the Nats are built to last, just like the Caps were huh?

Offline houston-nat

  • Posts: 19050
Who would criticise the team if they let Strasburg pitch and he never got injured the rest of his career?

Everybody. As you know, the criticism is happening now, rather than when Strasburg turns 45.

Offline Kevrock

  • Posts: 13788
  • That’s gonna be a no from me, doge.
Right, there's no chance that three or four extra starts has any significant impact on his career.


There's always a breaking point somewhere, isn't there? That breaking point has to be inside a 30 inning window somewhere, whether it's 150 or 180 or 210 or 240 or 1000.

Offline Kevrock

  • Posts: 13788
  • That’s gonna be a no from me, doge.
We aren't going to ride him death. 20 extra IP is not the end of the world for his arm. If he breaks down because of 20 extra IP, we find out early on that his arm was never meant to be used as a big league ace. Better to find out now, than in 2015 when you need him in the WS.

You should stop commenting on the pitching side of this. Yesterday you claimed that throwing harder doesn't mean increased injury chances. Just stop or stick to the business side of the issue.

Offline NatsDad14

  • Posts: 5241
You should stop commenting on the pitching side of this. Yesterday you claimed that throwing harder doesn't mean increased injury chances. Just stop or stick to the business side of the issue.

Where did I say that throwing harder isn't an increased injury risk? If you believe in that, why not shut down Strasburg every year because he is an increased risk the more he pitches with that velocity.

Offline MarquisDeSade

  • Posts: 15101
  • Captain Sadness
Where did I say that throwing harder isn't an increased injury risk? If you believe in that, why not shut down Strasburg every year because he is an increased risk the more he pitches with that velocity.

I really wish you'd get mistaken for a terrorist.

Offline wpa2629

  • Posts: 17048
  • No Trade Clause
Right, there's no chance that three or four extra starts has any significant impact on his career.

Boz says the Nats are built to last, just like the Caps were huh?

Not sure what your point is - Caps have been in the playoffs each of the last 5 years - and many think they'll make the playoffs again this year.

I will be absolutely thrilled if the Nats make the playoffs the next 6 years ...

Offline Lintyfresh85

  • Posts: 35130
  • World Champions!!!
Not if they lose each year.

By even SSS's loose definition of failure, which is apparently impossible, cause everything will go right for the next 6+ years, losing in the playoffs and never winning a WS is a huge failure.

Offline Terpfan76

  • Posts: 3924
  • ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
I really wish you'd get mistaken for a terrorist.

It's like Christmas in September

Offline wpa2629

  • Posts: 17048
  • No Trade Clause
Not if they lose each year.

By even SSS loose definition of failure, which is apparently impossible, cause everything will go right for the next 6+ years, losing in the playoffs and never winning a WS is a huge failure.

Playoff success or failure is a completely different subject - Getting there means you have a chance.

Besides, a Stanley Cup is pretty much the hardest trophy to win in sports and unlike baseball, can practically be dictated by 1 guy

Not to say the Caps haven't had their fair share of gags, because they have. But the nature of playoffs in their essence is that they're a crapshoot.

Offline Baseball is Life

  • Posts: 20393
  • Proud member of the Sunshine Squad.
Who would criticise the team if they let Strasburg pitch and he never got injured the rest of his career?

The people who understand that they would be taking a risk and rolling the dice with the kid's health and career. The outcome of taking the risk is not the point.

It's like saying I'm against gambling unless I win. It doesn't work that way.