Meanwhile, in the nations capital.

[Roy Tucker]

I agree they could have spread him out so that he would be available. But shutting him down was the right call.

Honestly, I don't think anyone really anticipated they'd win 97 games. Perhaps they should have prepared for the possibility of needing him in the postseason and delayed/spread him out better, but in their explanation, they were advised that it was best to keep him on a normal schedule throughout the season, so they opted against it.

Yeah, they were certainly more well informed than me, a know-nothing fan. Maybe pitching him regularly was best. I dunno. Once they painted themselves in a corner, shutting him down was prudent. I can't argue with that.

But the baseball gods frown upon hubris.

[RedFanAlways1966]

You up to speed now?

Nope.

[lidspinner]

Limiting his innings was the 100% correct thing to do, limiting his innings the way they did it was 100% the wrong thing to do. They could have spread him out around the all star break and saved roughly 15 innings there....skipped a start or two early in the year when days off are a little more often....that right there might have saved another 10-15 innings.....then they could have skipped a few starts once they realized the playoffs were a sure thing, or close to a sure thing....that would have saved roughly 15 innings.......they also could have brought up a middle reliever to basically pitch on days that SS pitched and limit SS to 5 innings max.

I know those are tough calls to make and they usually are not choices that managers like Davey will make, he is just like Dusty....they would rather make the player happy at that moment and let him pitch.....but could you imagine had they saved those roughly 45 innings and had him available for the playoffs and they made the World Series or better yet won it all? Davey and rizzo would be looked at as pure geniuses. I would also think that SS would rather skip a few starts here and there and then go on to pitch in the postseason as opposed to pitching all year and having no limits then getting shut down come playoff time.....sometimes you have to look at the big picture while also doing what's best for you right now. It's not rocket science yet somehow these managers and GMs over think this stuff all the time....just like the 4 out save, managers think about it so much that they cannot see the pro's over the con's when the cons truly don't have to be cons at all....just have to manage a little different from time to time...

[757690]

The goal of a MLB team is to win the World Series. When given that chance by making the playoffs, the only correct moves are ones that help you win games in the playoffs and become World Champions. Players come and go, chances to win a World Series championship are rare, and need to be taken full advantage of every time.

[tomnuetten]

even if they would hold strasburg to a inning limit, they could have given him a break in the middle of the season (the way they played it was "sure" that they´ll be a playoff team)...

I don´t know why, but I never thought that the nats will win the same amount of games this year... I thought lots of them overachieved last year and they aren´t as good as their record showed last year..

[RedFanAlways1966]

The goal of a MLB team is to win the World Series. When given that chance by making the playoffs, the only correct moves are ones that help you win games in the playoffs and become World Champions. Players come and go, chances to win a World Series championship are rare, and need to be taken full advantage of every time.

Sure winning it all is the goal. But NOT at the risk of ruining the career of a great player in your organization. A lot of managers(?) in little league and high school had this mentality for their little championship/trophy back in the day. Hence, these organizations felt the need to implement inning/pitch limits. Pitching is not what an arm is made to do. Sure there are freaks of nature like Nolan Ryan, but there are a lot more Sandy Koufax arms than Ryan arms in the history of baseball. Tommy John surgery is a major thing. It should never be taken for granted or lightly for the sake of the team and at the expense of a human. Not only for Strasburg (stud/ace), but the #2, #3, #4, #5 and all others on a team. To think different seems selfish.

Miss starts and prolong the innings limit? Perhaps doing this is not as obvious as one plus one equals two. Can the arm take the toll it takes when going full bore without a regular routine? I am not an expert, but I trust those who are paid to make these decisions (and physicians) more than armchair GMs/doctors (fans). It seems that a routine is important for pitchers. I doubt this is the case for no good reason.

I am sure a WS title would be great in the DC area. Some fans might even be selfish enough to have it at the expense of Strasburg's future. Just win baby!

[Brutus]

To me, it's basic probability.

You might not be guaranteed of winning this year with a guy like Strasburg let alone 10 years from now. Some would say that you "go for it now."

But if you look at probability, it suggests the opposite:

If you have a 5% chance of winning in any given season, you'd have a much better chance of winning at least one title by maintaining or adding to that probability in future seasons. So your chances of winning a WS ring increase over a 5-year period (23% in this case) rather than going 'all in' for 'this year.' In fact, statistically speaking, your chances are just as good you'd win it twice in five years as winning it once this season.

That's not to say you shouldn't trade prospects. But when you have established commodities like Strasburg, you're statistically better off looking big picture, long-haul.

[Fil3232]

I am sure a WS title would be great in the DC area. Some fans might even be selfish enough to have it at the expense of Strasburg's future. Just win baby!

Strasburg's future is going to be risky no matter what WAS did, does, or will do. It's the nature of his mechanics and the act of pitching. I'm not sure it's prudent to make 3/5/7 year plans around Strasburg, necessarily.

Too, he's been compensated handsomely, relatively speaking, versus peers at similar service and production levels. This isn't a classic churn and burn scenario.

If I were a Nats fan, yeah, I'd trade Strasburg's already risky long term health, understanding he's already earned generational wealth (about $14M to date) from the game, for my team's first ever championship. If that makes me selfish, so be it.

[Fil3232]

To me, it's basic probability.

You might not be guaranteed of winning this year with a guy like Strasburg let alone 10 years from now. Some would say that you "go for it now."

But if you look at probability, it suggests the opposite:

If you have a 5% chance of winning in any given season, you'd have a much better chance of winning at least one title by maintaining or adding to that probability in future seasons. So your chances of winning a WS ring increase over a 5-year period (23% in this case) rather than going 'all in' for 'this year.' In fact, statistically speaking, your chances are just as good you'd win it twice in five years as winning it once this season.

That's not to say you shouldn't trade prospects. But when you have established commodities like Strasburg, you're statistically better off looking big picture, long-haul.

Is this assuming Strasburg remains healthy? If so, that's an assumption I wouldn't be comfortable making.

[757690]

To me, it's basic probability.

You might not be guaranteed of winning this year with a guy like Strasburg let alone 10 years from now. Some would say that you "go for it now."

But if you look at probability, it suggests the opposite:

If you have a 5% chance of winning in any given season, you'd have a much better chance of winning at least one title by maintaining or adding to that probability in future seasons. So your chances of winning a WS ring increase over a 5-year period (23% in this case) rather than going 'all in' for 'this year.' In fact, statistically speaking, your chances are just as good you'd win it twice in five years as winning it once this season.

That's not to say you shouldn't trade prospects. But when you have established commodities like Strasburg, you're statistically better off looking big picture, long-haul.

If you've already made the playoffs, those odds change big time. As your post pointed out, doing that is very difficult and impossible to predict. So if you know you've made the playoffs, it's best to take full advantage of it.

[757690]

Sure winning it all is the goal. But NOT at the risk of ruining the career of a great player in your organization. A lot of managers(?) in little league and high school had this mentality for their little championship/trophy back in the day. Hence, these organizations felt the need to implement inning/pitch limits. Pitching is not what an arm is made to do. Sure there are freaks of nature like Nolan Ryan, but there are a lot more Sandy Koufax arms than Ryan arms in the history of baseball. Tommy John surgery is a major thing. It should never be taken for granted or lightly for the sake of the team and at the expense of a human. Not only for Strasburg (stud/ace), but the #2, #3, #4, #5 and all others on a team. To think different seems selfish.

Miss starts and prolong the innings limit? Perhaps doing this is not as obvious as one plus one equals two. Can the arm take the toll it takes when going full bore without a regular routine? I am not an expert, but I trust those who are paid to make these decisions (and physicians) more than armchair GMs/doctors (fans). It seems that a routine is important for pitchers. I doubt this is the case for no good reason.

I am sure a WS title would be great in the DC area. Some fans might even be selfish enough to have it at the expense of Strasburg's future. Just win baby!

It's selfish to value one player's career over all the other's players' chance at a World Series ring. I have to imagine most of the Nat's players last year weren't too happy with that decision.

[_Sir_Charles_]

I agree they could have spread him out so that he would be available. But shutting him down was the right call.

I partially agree with several points in this thread regarding SS. They should have planned things better from the moment he came back. They should have had him skip a start here and there to spread it out more. They should have pulled him an inning earlier lots of times in the earlier part of the season. But, that being said, once it got to the point where they DID shut him down, the ship had sailed on those better plans. Hit innings at that point in the year were his innings at that point in the year. I know that it's the goal of every franchise to win ballgames and succeed in the playoffs....but that should NEVER come at the cost of sacrificing the health of a player. Once it reached the tipping point for his innings as far as safety went...you shut him down. Period.

So I say that they handled it VERY poorly in terms of time management, but they handled it VERY professionally once it came down to decision time as their options were bad and worse.

[_Sir_Charles_]

The goal of a MLB team is to win the World Series. When given that chance by making the playoffs, the only correct moves are ones that help you win games in the playoffs and become World Champions. Players come and go, chances to win a World Series championship are rare, and need to be taken full advantage of every time.

So if you've got Roy Hobbs on your team and the doctors have told him and you that if he plays...he'll quite likely die....you say screw the players health and go for the win?

Just playing devils advocate.

There IS a middle ground here and the bottom line is that it IS still just a game. A person's health and life should ALWAYS take precedence over his job or a game.

[757690]

So if you've got Roy Hobbs on your team and the doctors have told him and you that if he plays...he'll quite likely die....you say screw the players health and go for the win?

Just playing devils advocate.

There IS a middle ground here and the bottom line is that it IS still just a game. A person's health and life should ALWAYS take precedence over his job or a game.

If he wants to play, I'm not going to stop him. I'm not going to force him to play either.

Pretty easy middle ground to reach. Forcing a player to stop playing, who wants to play, is an extreme position.

[Edskin]

I just still don't get why Strasburg was treated so differently. Lots of people have suggested that Votto is still feeling the effects from his knee injury last year. I bet the absolute best thing for his longterm health would have been to sit out an entire season. That may sound ridiculous, but if he spent this entire season rehabbing his knee it would probably feel better than it does righ now. Same across the board for all players with injuries.

It is why guys in their late 20's or early 30's either dip in performance or have to call it quits altogether. The bumps and bruises add up. The "minor" surgeries add up.

The absolute best thing for any player would be to allow every single injury they have to heal fully before even thinking about returning. But that is not reality. Reality is that everyone knows these windows are small. If you are lucky enough to avoid the bumps, then your window is bigger. But for most it's pretty small.

BP is a guy to me that has clearly played through injuries the past couple of years. I would imagine it will someday bring a halt to his career. But he happens to play on a contending team and he is otherwise in the prime of his career so he has pushed through it. I think a bunch of guys do the same.

Maybe Kirk Gibson could have added a few more years to his career had he shut it down when he was hurt? And maybe he never hits the HR in game one?

I understand that Strasburg's situation is different and that arm ailments for young pitcher's are very delicate. I appreciate the Nats wanting to protect their investment.

But the bottom line here is that "the best" thing for any player nursing an injury or returning from surgery is to sit down. And it would probably be best if they sat down for much longer than they normally do.