Author Topic: 2020-21 Offseason  (Read 61578 times)

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Offline hotshot

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #175: October 12, 2020, 05:13:35 PM »
Don Cooper was let go from the White Sox today.
Guy who predicted in Strasburg's first season that Stras would break down often due to his mechanics.

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #176: October 12, 2020, 07:35:46 PM »
Guy who predicted in Strasburg's first season that Stras would break down often due to his mechanics.
Remember the Inverted W.

Offline Mattionals

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #177: October 12, 2020, 08:57:29 PM »
Guy who predicted in Strasburg's first season that Stras would break down often due to his mechanics.

Uhhhh, I mean he hasn't been totally wrong. I went back to reread the comments and Cooper said Strasburg reminded Cooper of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood. He also said it may be hard to get 220 innings out of Strasburg a season. For arguments sake, Stras has gone over 200 innings twice in his career and never hit 220 innings. Granted, pitchers aren't asked to go 220 innings a season anymore, but to just say Cooper wouldn't be a for here because he said Stras was going to blow out, it's a big stretch.

Granted you didn't say any of that either so I don't mean to put words in your mouth.

Offline hotshot

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #178: October 12, 2020, 09:06:47 PM »
Looking back, I don't think Cooper was wrong at all. As for whether those comments back when may preclude him joining the Nats now, who can say? Stras seems to me the kind of person who might just hold a grudge.

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #179: October 12, 2020, 09:09:55 PM »
Looking back, I don't think Cooper was wrong at all. As for whether those comments back when may preclude him joining the Nats now, who can say? Stras seems to me the kind of person who might just hold a grudge.
Strasburg did not turn into Mark Prior or Kerry Wood.

Online Slateman

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #180: October 12, 2020, 10:08:26 PM »
I'd say Cooper was freaking dead nuts on


Hire him.

Online Slateman

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #181: October 12, 2020, 10:09:36 PM »
Strasburg did not turn into Mark Prior or Kerry Wood.
No, but Strasburg has been the opposite of reliably healthy

Offline Elvir Ovcina

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #182: October 13, 2020, 10:35:10 AM »
Strasburg did not turn into Mark Prior or Kerry Wood.

No, but to say he hasn't hit the worst-case scenario doesn't mean Cooper didn't have a point.  Strasburg is a starter who's made 30 starts three times in eleven years.  In other words, he misses a month or so's worth of starts almost every season.  And now he has a very long, very expensive contract, and isn't healthy. 

Similar arm action as JZ, by the way, who turned into an injury-riddled pumpkin at 30, killed the Tigers for 5 years, and will likely never pitch in the majors again.  Strasburg just turned 32.

Online JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #183: October 13, 2020, 11:49:30 AM »
No, but to say he hasn't hit the worst-case scenario doesn't mean Cooper didn't have a point.  Strasburg is a starter who's made 30 starts three times in eleven years.  In other words, he misses a month or so's worth of starts almost every season.  And now he has a very long, very expensive contract, and isn't healthy. 

Similar arm action as JZ, by the way, who turned into an injury-riddled pumpkin at 30, killed the Tigers for 5 years, and will likely never pitch in the majors again.  Strasburg just turned 32.
on the other hand, Strasburg now has 50% more career fWAR than Wood and more than twice that of Prior.  Putting Prior aside because I think his injuries are tied to freak things like getting hit by balls and breaking things that disrupted his motion rather than normal wear and tear, Stras also has a half run better ERA than Wood (even bigger FIP difference, but you hate FIP).  Wood also was only a starter for 5 seasons.   Maybe the fairest thing to say about Strasburg v. Wood is that the Nats have been able to deal with Strasburg's injury pattern and keep him as a major piece of a rotation while Wood ended up pitching most of his years as a reliever after a brilliant start to his career.   It's not quite like Dr. Jobe telling the Dodgers to trade Pedro for Delino DeShields because of his arm motion would lead to his shoulder going (it certainly did in 1999 in the playoffs, and he only won one more Cy Young after that and continued to pitch well until 2006 or so), but I'll take what we ended up getting out Strasburg.  A guy you need to manage, but a nice problem to have.

Online Smithian

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #184: October 13, 2020, 11:53:44 AM »
Looking back, I don't think Cooper was wrong at all. As for whether those comments back when may preclude him joining the Nats now, who can say? Stras seems to me the kind of person who might just hold a grudge.
The comments were completely unneeded. Stay in your own lane.

And I'm not sure what Strasburg would think about hiring him. If they consider Cooper and Strasburg even blinks, screw him, onto the next guy. Pitching coaches are a dime a dozen and are a reflection of their talent. There is a reason even Steve McCatty looked like a guru for stretches.

Online Smithian

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #185: October 13, 2020, 11:55:28 AM »
No, but Strasburg has been the opposite of reliably healthy
He has had at least 5 seasons of 28 or more starts. Not bad. I'm not mad the Nats have handled him with kid gloves.

And I'm fine with him peaecing out on this season early. I wish they shut Scherzer down the first sign of struggles.

Offline imref

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #186: October 13, 2020, 12:44:40 PM »
it's the end of an era - Wilmer Difo elects free agency

Offline bluestreak

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #187: October 13, 2020, 01:05:13 PM »
That makes very little sense, in addition to firing the manager.  Those guys took a young, bad team and turned it into a playoff team that looks like a potential monster going forward.  In particular, Cooper fixed Giolito.  That team went into the season a damaged-goods Keuchel and a bunch of under-25s for a rotation and made the playoffs.  If that gets you fired, what was he supposed to do, turn Ross Detwiler into Kershaw?

I think they do this because Cora and Hinch are available again.

Online Slateman

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #188: October 13, 2020, 01:48:06 PM »
He has had at least 5 seasons of 28 or more starts. Not bad. I'm not mad the Nats have handled him with kid gloves.

And I'm fine with him peaecing out on this season early. I wish they shut Scherzer down the first sign of struggles.
Funny you chose 28 and not 30. And only two of those seasons have been in the last 6 seasons.

If you hold that 33 starts is a full season of starts in a 162 game season (162 ÷ 5 (every fifth game) = 32.4, so Stras gets the remainder) and that a full season of starts this season was 12, then Strasburg has missed 22% of his expected starts after his shutdown season.

The truth is that if Strasburg were in any other team, we would be laughing at the team that gave 7 years, 245 million to a pitcher that missed over 20% of his starts, was 32 years old, and has never been in contention for a Cy Young. We would be laughing hysterically and slapping ourselves on the back about how great our GM is for not being so desperate.

Sorry, you don't pay for aces to miss 20+ percent of their starts over their contracts, and you don't pay pitchers that do ace-type contracts

Online JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #189: October 13, 2020, 05:09:27 PM »
I think they do this because Cora and Hinch are available again.
Hire Joey as manager and they can ease Alex back in as bench coach ;)

Offline Elvir Ovcina

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #190: October 13, 2020, 05:18:57 PM »
on the other hand, Strasburg now has 50% more career fWAR than Wood and more than twice that of Prior.  Putting Prior aside because I think his injuries are tied to freak things like getting hit by balls and breaking things that disrupted his motion rather than normal wear and tear, Stras also has a half run better ERA than Wood (even bigger FIP difference, but you hate FIP).  Wood also was only a starter for 5 seasons.   Maybe the fairest thing to say about Strasburg v. Wood is that the Nats have been able to deal with Strasburg's injury pattern and keep him as a major piece of a rotation while Wood ended up pitching most of his years as a reliever after a brilliant start to his career.   It's not quite like Dr. Jobe telling the Dodgers to trade Pedro for Delino DeShields because of his arm motion would lead to his shoulder going (it certainly did in 1999 in the playoffs, and he only won one more Cy Young after that and continued to pitch well until 2006 or so), but I'll take what we ended up getting out Strasburg.  A guy you need to manage, but a nice problem to have.

I mean, yeah, Strasburg has worked out to date, even with the injuries.  He's been excellent when he's pitched.  He's also pitched not entirely that much.  But I was more talking about going forward.  That contract coupled with that injury history is frightening. 

Online Slateman

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #191: October 13, 2020, 05:39:27 PM »
on the other hand, Strasburg now has 50% more career fWAR than Wood and more than twice that of Prior.  Putting Prior aside because I think his injuries are tied to freak things like getting hit by balls and breaking things that disrupted his motion rather than normal wear and tear, Stras also has a half run better ERA than Wood (even bigger FIP difference, but you hate FIP).  Wood also was only a starter for 5 seasons.   Maybe the fairest thing to say about Strasburg v. Wood is that the Nats have been able to deal with Strasburg's injury pattern and keep him as a major piece of a rotation while Wood ended up pitching most of his years as a reliever after a brilliant start to his career.   It's not quite like Dr. Jobe telling the Dodgers to trade Pedro for Delino DeShields because of his arm motion would lead to his shoulder going (it certainly did in 1999 in the playoffs, and he only won one more Cy Young after that and continued to pitch well until 2006 or so), but I'll take what we ended up getting out Strasburg.  A guy you need to manage, but a nice problem to have.
They were able to work around Strasburg because he wasn't costly. He is now. Teams aren't succesful when the core of their team misses 20 percent of their games

Online JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #192: October 13, 2020, 05:55:37 PM »
the 2d extension was very risky, at least from what us outside observers know.  The first can only be criticized for giving him an opt out too soon. had the opt out been a year later, no extension and I could live with the contract.

How we got into this discussion was that Cooper made it sound  like Stras was an avoid at all cost, and I don't think that turned out correct, at least until after we won a world series with him as the MVP.

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #193: October 13, 2020, 06:27:30 PM »
They were able to work around Strasburg because he wasn't costly. He is now. Teams aren't succesful when the core of their team misses 20 percent of their games
No reason to expect he won’t be healthy next year. More worried about Max and Corbin. And the lack of 4/5 starters.

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #194: October 13, 2020, 06:42:42 PM »
No reason to expect he won’t be healthy next year. More worried about Max and Corbin. And the lack of 4/5 starters.
There's no reason to expect him to make more than 80% of his starts, since historically, he doesn't

Offline Elvir Ovcina

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #195: October 13, 2020, 07:05:35 PM »
No reason to expect he won’t be healthy next year. More worried about Max and Corbin. And the lack of 4/5 starters.

He had arm surgery.  I get that it's not like he had Tommy John, but he'll be coming off basically a year of no game action plus arm surgery.  That's not a slam dunk for recovery to any immediate level of effectiveness.  I'm pretty worried about the whole rotation, honestly.  Scherzer will be fine - just not what he used to be.  He's a man, not a machine.

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #196: October 13, 2020, 07:36:55 PM »
He had arm surgery.  I get that it's not like he had Tommy John, but he'll be coming off basically a year of no game action plus arm surgery.  That's not a slam dunk for recovery to any immediate level of effectiveness.  I'm pretty worried about the whole rotation, honestly.  Scherzer will be fine - just not what he used to be.  He's a man, not a machine.
He had wrist surgery. Not his arm or elbow. I have to assume he will recover as most do from it although not many pitchers have had that. Not a slam dunk but have to think the odds are very good.

Offline bluestreak

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #197: October 13, 2020, 10:02:32 PM »
Carpal tunnel is a lot different than a structural wrist injury.

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #198: October 13, 2020, 10:05:46 PM »
Carpal tunnel is a lot different than a structural wrist injury.
Got ya.  But have to think it's less serious for pitcher than shoulder or arm surgery.  Don't they just do small cuts nowadays so it's minimally invasive? 

Offline imref

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Re: 2020-21 Offseason
« Reply #199: October 13, 2020, 11:22:47 PM »
James Bourque and Raudy "Roddy" Reed outright to Fresno, down to 34 on the 40 man.