Sunday, May 19, 2013
Weiner: The Supreme Court Judge and the Curt Flood Case reenactment
(www.examiner.com)
Shades of Hairspray!...“It was a time of tradition, a time of values, and a time…to shake things up.”
Read More...For a journalist, chance encounters at a restaurant or a hair salon can become a major opportunity for advancing a story and in some instances the journalist is in the right place at the right time because he was with his wife. I had a very chance encounter with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Saturday afternoon in lower Manhattan because my wife happened to have an appointment at a ...
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1 2 3 >Later this year, Newhan will defend his Hall of Fame votes on Jack Morrissey, Jeff Bagwheel, Les Smith, and Tim Rain Man.
By the way, here's the correct URL: http://newhanonbaseball.blogspot.com/2012/08/can-strassberg-really-be-this.html
Is this serious?
Are modern sports writers/bloggers memory's so short they can't remember Stras saying they'll have to pry the ball out of his fingers? At what point do these guys realize that they're just making a mockery of themselves?
can't remember what I thought of him when I lived out there.
Isn't the perception coming from the fact that they're not really going to have to pry the ball out of his fingers? All indications are he's going to be shut down.
Embarrassing spelling aside, I can't help but wonder some of the same things Newhan is. Are his teammates, many of whom may never have a better chance to win a World Series, really OK with this? And if they're not, and they're expressing that dissatisfaction, won't it start to wear on Strasburg?
I just can't imagine this won't become a much bigger issue. I also can't picture a big league ballplayer not going up to the GM's office and saying, "Screw my agent and my arm. I'm pitching."
But that's the thing, even if he did this the big shots upstairs just have to say no. He spoke his piece, management said 'no', and there just isn't any point to him pushing things any more. He's supposed to keep whining to the media about management ignoring him for the 3 months sense this whole thing started?
...but every time I selected "name/URL" and filled out the form, it just returned me back to where I started from. It was like trying to login to BTF on Firefox after I came back from my sit-down.
It sounds like a made-up controversy to me.
Neither you nor Newhan is in the GM's office and has any idea what sorts of discussions have taken place.
Edit: coke to chris h
1. Shut him down now and save his "reserve innings" for the playoffs.
2. Shut him down on schedule, let him rest, bring him back on a pitch count for the playoffs.
Maybe the Nats are already doing one of these two things. Who knows? But this saga has gotten weird. Mike Rizzo hovering over Strasburg on the steps after yesterday's rain delay like an overbearing little league dad was a bit much.
Juggled the rotation so that Strasberg only pitched against good teams to get largest advantage out of the innings he did pitch.
They have said that shutting him down and restarting him is more dangerous than just keeping pitching. If they believe that it seems unlikely they would budge. Maybe in time for the playoffs they unveil new pitcher Mysterio Mysterious, pitching in a luchador mask, to avoid losing face.
No, but they DO know what Strasburg's hired representative has been saying to the press -- namely, that Strasburg is going to sue the Nationals unless he's benched. Those words might as well be coming straight from the player's mouth. The words *actually* coming from the player's mouth are nothing but PR nonsense. Make no mistake, Strasburg is fully on board with this plan. If he wasn't, it wouldn't be happening.
The fact that so many otherwise perceptive people fail to see this is bewildering to me.
If pitching in the postseason was really his primary objective, couldn't he tell Rizzo that he'd never sign a long-term deal with Washington unless he got to keep throwing this season? Wouldn't that be significant enough leverage?
Don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating Strasburg do that. Only that he does have some options, and I would have thought that pressure from both his teammates and his own competitive instinct would have led him to use the leverage he has. And as long as this shutdown seems to be proceeding as planned, it doesn't appear that he has.
Edit: Also, what God said.
If I'm a player, I want an organization that makes plans and sticks to them. Not one that says, "Ok, we think we know the best way to keep you healthy, we're going to stay on this plan....oh, wait never mind, we're going to make the playoffs! We were just kidding before! I'm sure you'll be fine!"
I don't see how an auto-spellcheck would help with this. You'd need to actually google it.
Well, I don't think the fear is reverting to a pumpkin. A couple key injuries next season could marginalize them, especially if it takes a few years for Harper to reach his true talent level. Then you've got a window again before some interesting decisions get made.
The point isn't that the Nationals won't be good, but that a shot like this (literally being the best team in the NL) isn't guaranteed or even likely to re-occur for years, whether they're better than the Braves/Mets/Marlins or not.
I suspect that Strasburg probably wants to pitch but feels like it's out of his hands (and in many respects it is). The other players have to be frustrated but one break for the Nats is the youth and contract status of the team. Virtually all of these guys are likely to be back next year so there is probably a sense of "if not 2012, then 2013 or 2014" prevalent in the clubhouse. Adam LaRoche is the one guy who jumps at me who may feel like his one shot is being hampered.
I think he'd be in the wrong if he did that, actually, from an ethical perspective.
And what's so ludicrous about the blustery blabberings coming from the big mouth of Stevie's surrogate daddy is that he has absolutely no case whatsoever. This lawsuit threat is one of the most laughable, empty shyster threats in the history of all shysterdom.
But I would kind of love to know what is really going on in the kid's head through all this. If he's half the man that I would hope he is, he ought to be kind of embarrassed over the fact that he has like three daddies and that he is being treated as though he's the second coming of the Baby Jesus himself. Who knows though; this is a MUCH different era now and the society has changed dramatically even in the last twenty years.
Why? I know you don't seem to be a fan of the post-season but why would it be unethical for Strasburg to make such a stand? Guys make decisions about where to sign for any number of reasons, why would this be an unethical reason? If he went to them and said "in four years I'll only stay if you give me the biggest chunk of money" would that be unethical? It seems to me that if this is what was important to him then telling the Nats that fact would be quite appropriate, certainly better than not saying it, stewing about it for four years then telling them to shove it when the time came.
Given that they have known this was going to be an issue for at least the last several months, couldn't you have started him every 6 or 7 days over that time period so that he'd still have some innings left for the post-season?
That's what I've been thinking. They're intrepid enough to challenge the wisdom of letting a player perform through the entire schedule, but too timid to challenge the orthodoxy of starting every fifth day. What's up with that?
Yes, probably, but in a case of choosing which problem to have to face, there's a pretty good argument that the complicated schedule is the one to choose.
This is absurd. Haven't they heard of the DL?
Pitchers are shut down for weeks and months and then return all the time. Should the Yankees be shutting down CC Sabathia for the rest of the season since he hasn't pitched in 2 weeks?
Has there been a single team in the last 40 years better equipped to use a six-man rotation?
Pitchers are shut down for weeks and months and then return all the time. Should the Yankees be shutting down CC Sabathia for the rest of the season since he hasn't pitched in 2 weeks?
What's truly amusing about all this is the certainty the Nationals seem to be feeling about all. "Shutting him down and restarting him is more dangerous than just keep pitching" -- it's just simply and directly asserted, as though this is some sort of fact that the rest of us should know.
When the fact is that no one in the world knows diddly squat whether it's true or not.
Since he chose Boras as his agent, you start from the default position that he will not sign any contract that buys out any of his free agent years, and that when the time comes, he will sign with the highest bidder. So saying he won't sign a long-term deal is probably not much of a threat.
I don't know, but Strassberg should look at the career of Kerry Woods as a cautionary tale. Not every pitcher with his talent becomes Roger Clemons.
So fire Boras. Or agree to sign a long-term deal if Rizzo lets you keep pitching. Or tell Rizzo you'll ##### incessantly to the media about the pussies in the FO. The point is, Steven Strasburg is not some helpless flower here, if pitching in the playoffs was "pry the ball" important to him. Clearly it isn't (as God notes, since his employee keeps saying otherwise).
Now that's not a criticism. Honestly, I think the fact that a 24-year-old athlete is putting his long-term needs ahead of his short-term wants, and rebuffing what I expect are the pleadings of his teammates along the way, is more worthy of commendation than rebuke. It just surprises me.
That's what I've been thinking. They're intrepid enough to challenge the wisdom of letting a player perform through the entire schedule, but too timid to challenge the orthodoxy of starting every fifth day. What's up with that?
Probably the effect on the rest of the staff's schedules.
Yes, probably, but in a case of choosing which problem to have to face, there's a pretty good argument that the complicated schedule is the one to choose.
Just skip his turn once a month. This is how overtraining is avoided in every other sport under the sun. Do it following a day off and everyone else gets to pitch on regular rest instead of being pushed back a day. That this wasn't the plan goes a long way toward showing that making a production of having a plan was of greater importance than actually coming up with a sound plan.
Stroudsbard will be available off the bench to pinch-hit for pitchers.
I don't think so either. People say lots of things about how they're going to plan for the future and then when the shiny new toy comes out make an exception because this time is special. Maybe they'll end up pitching him only one game (i.e. the first) of each series. But I find it a little hard to believe that if they're at a game 7 and he's sitting there with 9 days or rest or whatever that he'll be on the bench.
I don't see how an auto-spellcheck would help with this.
Andy's actual old enough to remember when we didn't have computers to do our spell-checking for us.
Wouldn't that be significant enough leverage?
He's not a free agent until 2017. That's a pretty empty threat and I can't imagine Rizzo is exactly chomping at the bit to sign him tomorrow through 2021 anyway.
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