Thursday, May 16, 2013
Washington Post: Boswell: Reiser Offers Harper A Cautionary Tale
(www.washingtonpost.com)
At age 22 in 1941, Reiser finished second for National League MVP. In just 137 games, he had 70 extra-base hits and led the league in runs (117), batting (.343), doubles (39), triples (17), total bases, getting hit by pitches and, if they’d kept track of on-base plus slugging back then, that, too (.964).
He was as good in reality as Harper dreams of being.
Then Reiser started running into walls. He never led the league in anything again, except stolen bases a couple of times….
“In two ...
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Page 4 of 8 pages
< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 >146: I see no conceivable advantage in skipping April. You want to have as much info as possible when deciding how/if to limit him. What do you gain with a May start?
Two things:
1) An extra month of information when you are deciding what to do with him. If you know he's going to miss at least a month of the regular season, having an extra month of information about how you and your competitors are doing gives you the ability to use him less during the end of the regular season if you don't need him (and consequently, use him during the postseason).
2) When you're making this decision, you're closer to the post-season, so you don't need to worry about the consequences of shutting him down for a month and then starting him up again.
And then what happens if the Nats miss the playoffs by a game because they went 8-14 in April and couldn't make it up once Strasburg's season began? I'm sure that our current Rizzo critics would've just STFU and told everyone how brilliant a move that was.
It's unreasonable to me. Since when have we ever heard that it is a problem for any pitcher, of any age, now healthy after any injury, to miss 1-2 months because he sprained an ankle or broke a finger or broke a toe? Since when have people said, "Oh no, don't bring him back after he heals, this might hurt his arm"? It would be just the same thing here - Strasburg would just take 1-2 months off - minus the broken toe.
Now all of a sudden doing that would be a huge problem. On what basis? None. Rizzo and his fans have pulled it out of their rears.
Wrong. More likely we would acknowledge that there is risk inherent in every choice, and sometimes life's a #####, but given the information he had at the time, Rizzo's choice was entirely sensible and defensible. Sometimes good choices turn out poorly, just as sometimes bad choices turn out well. Not all analysis is results-based analysis.
Now risk-averse is not the same as conventional wisdom, which by the response of the national press and former players, was vehemently opposed to shutting down Strasburg. The Lerner family, the owners, probably view Strasburg as very valuable piece of capital equipment that has just been repaired. They're not going to overuse it because it's not easily replaceable. And the possible prize of a championship in 2012 was not worth the risk.
You can argue that an owner playing in a publicly financed stadium and not trying to win a championship is a crime on par with the Black Sox throwing the World Series. But owners are allowed to not to try to win. Marvin Miller called collusion on par with the Black Sox. Owners, regardless of how much personal wealth or revenue they get from their other businesses are allowed to claim poverty and not put a winning team on the field.
They probably misjudged the PR firestorm, figuring that saying they did the same thing with Jordan Zimmermann would be a sufficient response. As far as the perception of arrogance, when the same question is asked every day with pretty much the same answer, it will sound stubborn. When alternatives are offered which have already been considered and rejected, that's essentially saying,"Yeah, we thought about it, but we think our way is better," and that will sound arrogant. But that's why you choose any alternative - because you think that way is better, not saying that the other alternatives don't have merit. But you have to make some choice, and you sound arrogant by judging it better than the alternatives.
With all due respect to Bob -- and I have a great deal of respect for him, and love that he posts here -- I'm not sure what he could know about the issue of 160-IP vs. Sunday Starter vs. take July/August off, etc. The datapoints don't exist. That has been one of my main arguments.
I don't see how Bob could tell us that 160-IP is good, but 190-IP is not.
I don't see how Bob could tell us that 160-IP is good, but 190-IP is not.
Indeed.
Given that the two situations are different in every important respect, no.
Yes this was the lowest point of the entire farce. It's when the front office decided to just start actively insulting the intelligence of their fans.
I never made a comment regarding limits on innings pitched as the sole determinant of stress on a surgically repaired arm.
However, the Nats followed a similar program with Zimmerman last year post-surgery and he was fine in 2012. It may not be scientific enough for the residents of this site, but..... I guess because Jordan is not the next new thing the program that the team used to resurrect his career is not valid.
And then what happens if the Nats miss the playoffs by a game because they went 8-14 in April and couldn't make it up once Strasburg's season began? I'm sure that our current Rizzo critics would've just STFU and told everyone how brilliant a move that was.
I'm sure that our current Rizzo critics would've just STFU and told everyone how brilliant a move that was.
Wrong. More likely we would acknowledge that there is risk inherent in every choice, and sometimes life's a #####, but given the information he had at the time, Rizzo's choice was entirely sensible and defensible. Sometimes good choices turn out poorly, just as sometimes bad choices turn out well. Not all analysis is results-based analysis.
With all due respect, Steve, I doubt if that sort of reaction would have been the norm here. More likely we would've been bombarded with cries of "Doesn't Rizzo know that April games count just as much as September games?" And given that that's one of the 10 Commandments of Sabermetrics, I find it hard to believe that it wouldn't have been invoked, and with every bit as much certainty as the current "Flags fly forever" mantra has been shouted from the time the shutdown was announced.
The truth is that there were two questions here: The pitch limit itself, and the timing of the shutdown.
On the first issue, Rizzo went with what he thought was his best medical advice, based on Strasburg's age and his recent TJS. You can agree or disagree with the idea that he needed a pitch limit, but then you're not the one who's going to be responsible in the case of a breakdown. When it comes to a property as valuable as Strasburg, caution is hardly the Crime Against Baseball that some people here are making it out to be.
And if you agree with the innings limit, then those innings have got to come from somewhere, and unless you want to experiment with a midseason shutdown, you're either going to have to cut innings from the start of the season or at the end. If you cut them at the start of the season, then two possible starting points are possible: Either you assume a playoff run and start him even later, which means you're without your "best pitcher" for a long stretch at the beginning of the season---when "the games count just as much as they do in September"; or you start him earlier to avoid that, and then risk having him exceed his limit by the end of the season. The point is that there's no free lunch, and there's no way around that, except by ignoring the innings limit altogether or by chopping his season into segments, which IMO would be insane----not to mention that the same argument about "sitting down your best pitcher" would apply just as much in July as it would in April or September.
I have no doubt that the Zimmermann program was valid. But that's not the same thing as saying the Zimmermann plan is the only possible way to deal with a pitcher coming off TJ surgery, especially once the needs of the organization have changed.
They shut down Zimmermann at a time when the team was 62-70 and had no hope of the postseason. There was literally no cost to that decision.
As an economic entity, what does a major league baseball team want? To win a World Series? Yes, fans would want every team to go for it all every year, but the economic model that pays off is to be competitive for a playoff spot on a yearly basis. Rolling the dice and hoping for a championship (see Marlins, Florida and D'Backs, Arizona) isn't always the soundest business choice, as the payout for spending the extra dollars does not materialize - especially considering the three or four rounds of playoffs invloved. The decision by the Nats to follow inning limits is part of a longer term plan for the franchise in which Zimmermann and Strasburg as core members of their organization.
In other words, they're making money this year and in 2013 and that's fine by them!
Zimmerman was shut down on July 18, 2009 and started back up 13 months later. Strasburg was shelved on August 21, 2010 and returned 13 months later. The Nats' record at the time of Zimmerman's shutdown was 26-64, and at the time of Strasburg's shutdown was 53-70. The only difference between them was in the team's circumstances during their first full year of their return, and other than that there was no more or no less "cost" to either decision to shut down. In both cases it was clearly a medical decision.
Zimmermann underwent TJ surgery in August of 2009, and 2011 was his first full season back, making that season analogous to Strasburg's 2012 season. In the 2011 season, Zimmermann was shut down at the end of August, when the team's record was 62-70. That was the shutdown I was referring to.
Got it, Tom, but that still doesn't address the issue that unless you're opposed to both the shutdown and the innings limit, you're always going to be taking away (hypothetical) wins from one part of the season when you "give" them to another. And again, as the old sabermetric cliche goes, "A win in April counts just as much as a win in July or September."
Let's say, instead that Strasburg got stretched out with more days of rest so that some of the 160 innings fell in the post-season? Would he able to pitch on regular 4-5 days rest or would he still be stretched out in the post-season? The firestorm would inevitably be worse if he couldn't pitch on standard rest. What if the post-season ended before the 160 innings? Would Strasburg then be limited to 170 or 180 innings in 2013?
Put this in front of a CEO. Forget "Flags Fly Forever" and consider only profit. Put a bunch of possible solutions in front of them. Then they say,"Didn't we have this problem last year? How did that turn out?" Great! Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the CEO says,"If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Do the same thing."
Which according to some folks here practically amounts to a Crime Against Baseball.
Exactly. Again, nobody would have had a problem with shutting down SS if the Nats were 62-70 this year and out of it.
"The fans need to understand that there's a real risk in pushing this," said Dr. James Andrews. "[Strasburg] is exactly right with what he's doing."
Andrews has performed thousands of Tommy John surgeries in his career, many on major league pitchers. Though he could not discuss the specifics of Strasburg's case because he is not Strasburg's doctor, Andrews emphasized that the second year of a pitcher's recovery from Tommy John surgery - the first year the pitcher returns to game action - is the most important period for the long-term health of the elbow.
"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]."
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."
Or another - Dr. Lewis Yocum, the person who did the surgery:
“I would like to correct the misimpression generated from today’s L.A. Times article, that I have not been a participant in discussions with the Washington Nationals regarding the recovery strategy for pitcher Stephen Strasburg. In fact, I have been contacted repeatedly and have had numerous discussions with the Nationals GM Mike Rizzo and the team’s medical personnel, as recently as mid-August. While the final decision was up to the team, as is standard practice, I was supportive of their decision and am comfortable that my medical advice was responsibly considered.”
Wait a minute, Andy - have you been mocking the people criticizing Rizzo without understanding what the relevant comparison is? See Tom's 169.
Shutting a pitcher down after he blows out his elbow is not the "shutdown" being referred to. Nor is that a "medical decision," any more than it was a "medical decision" to end Jeter's season after he fractured his ankle.
It's quite frankly also the best way to increase your chances of winning a WS. Playoffs are crapshooty crapshoots. For the vast majority of playoff teams the odds of winning will be 12.5% +/- 2 or 3 (half that now for WC teams). No matter how great a player you are, being available for the playoffs is not going to move the needle by more than a fraction of a percent.
Making the playoffs otoh, increases your odds by a full 12.5% (blah new WC), and a healthy 5-win player goes a long way towards that, especially for a team expected to be in the hunt. The bottom line is, that the odds of success for keeping Strasburg healthy do not have to be very high, in order to make this a +EV move.
I both acknowledged and responded to that point just two posts below that.
Not if we are taking it for granted that we were only going to get 160 IP out of Strasburg anyway.
There are basically two schools of thought amongs the Rizzo critics:
1. The whole premise of limiting Strasburg's workload was stupid to begin with.
2. If the Nats had to limit his workload, they went about it in the worst way possible.
People in the first camp would be criticizing Rizzo no matter what if Strasburg didn't pitch a full season. People in the second camp, however, are taking it for granted that Strasburg was going to miss part of the season. If the alternatives were "miss playoffs by one game with Strasburg pitching May-Sept" and "miss playoffs by one game with Strasburg pitching April-August", I think we would have been ok with the former. You still got everything out of Strasburg that you could, theoretically. And if you were comfortably ahead in September, you could have skipped him for a start or two and maintained the ability to use him in the postseason without a 1-month layoff.
1. The whole premise of limiting Strasburg's workload was stupid to begin with.
2. If the Nats had to limit his workload, they went about it in the worst way possible.
I don't think anyone here is really arguing the first point. It would be pretty indefensible.
It seems like there are three legitimate criticisms here:
1) There is the appearance of inflexibility on the part of the Nationals. It certainly looks like there was a plan to stop as close to 160 as possible, and that this plan was committed to prior to the season. A team's first postseason since 1981 (or first ever, depending on how you count things) seems like something that might justify a slightly less conservative approach than a typical season might.
2) 160 innings is false precision, and a sample size of "looks like it worked for a different guy with the same injury a year before" isn't strong enough to indicate that it's the right number. (If innings even have a "right number," considering that all innings aren't created equal nor is it reasonable to assume that things just even out over within a pitcher-season.
3) Even with innings, there were other options for distributing those 160 innings. The Nationals could have occasionally skipped starts and/or pulled Strasburg a little earlier in individual games. They could have started his season a month later. They could have used him in the bullpen a little to reduce his innings.
This is one of my biggest problems, among many.
And, as you say, all innings are not created equal - as long as we're engaging in this.
1) There is the appearance of inflexibility on the part of the Nationals. It certainly looks like there was a plan to stop as close to 160 as possible, and that this plan was committed to prior to the season. A team's first postseason since 1981 (or first ever, depending on how you count things) seems like something that might justify a slightly less conservative approach than a typical season might.
2) 160 innings is false precision, and a sample size of "looks like it worked for a different guy with the same injury a year before" isn't strong enough to indicate that it's the right number. (If innings even have a "right number," considering that all innings aren't created equal nor is it reasonable to assume that things just even out over within a pitcher-season.
3) Even with innings, there were other options for distributing those 160 innings. The Nationals could have occasionally skipped starts and/or pulled Strasburg a little earlier in individual games. They could have started his season a month later. They could have used him in the bullpen a little to reduce his innings.
All this.
Well, really, Andy, who gives an F what your prediction of what the reaction around here would be, and for that matter, what the actual reaction around here would be? The more interesting question is what the best choice for Rizzo was. The argument that Rizzo made the best possible choice is overwhelmingly drowned by superior counterarguments.
I'm sure that our current Rizzo critics would've just STFU and told everyone how brilliant a move that was.
Wrong. More likely we would acknowledge that there is risk inherent in every choice, and sometimes life's a #####, but given the information he had at the time, Rizzo's choice was entirely sensible and defensible. Sometimes good choices turn out poorly, just as sometimes bad choices turn out well. Not all analysis is results-based analysis.
With all due respect, Steve, I doubt if that sort of reaction would have been the norm here. More likely we would've been bombarded with cries of "Doesn't Rizzo know that April games count just as much as September games?"
Well, really, Andy, who gives an F what your prediction of what the reaction around here would be, and for that matter, what the actual reaction around here would be?
Fine, but then why didn't you say that the first time, instead of making a prediction of your own?
The more interesting question is what the best choice for Rizzo was. The argument that Rizzo made the best possible choice is overwhelmingly drowned by superior counterarguments.
When all else fails, proclaim yourself the winner. Works for Ray, why not you?
Seriously, I'm absolutely amazed that the whole lot of you haven't been snapped up by one team after another----hell, they could make you the GM, the manager, and the team doctor all at the same time, and save themselves the unnecessary expense of having to pay three separate salaries. I haven't seen so much strategic erudition on display since the time that a TV monitor once caught Rob Dibble talking to himself.
This argument used to sound witty before one team after another started snapping statheads up.
here's a story about decision-making that was regarded as 'crazy'
so a bearing company was acquired by another bearing company and the new owners asked the leadership how they priced bearings.
'well, we use the gold standard. when we develop a new bearing we weigh it, find out the price of gold and then price the bearing on that price'
the new ownership thought that was nuts so they demanded the acquired company determine the 'true cost' of a bearing. so the acquired company folks nodded and working with members of the new team they spent about 3-4 months breaking everything down and adding everything up to determine this true cost. when they were done they presented to the new new ownership their results.
in an effort to demonstrate why this answer was superior someone in the new leadership team asked a lackey to go find out the cost of gold that day. that number was provided so he took the price and multiplied it by the weight of several new bearings. in each instance the 'gold standard' price was almost equivalent to the 'true cost' price.
why am i sharing this story which is 100 percent true by the way?
because you can get to the 'right' answer a 1000 different ways. nobody's method is guaranteed to be better.
rizzo is wrong if the only acceptable output of his decision was for the nationals to win a world series in 2012. but then he was not just wrong about strasburg but umpteen different things.
Wow, that's amazing. Not a single plan has been advanced that's better than Rizzo's (unless one favors the Ray Plan of letting Strasburg pitch until there are no more games scheduled, which I think is a reasonable position to take), and yet you continue to pretend there are multiple better choices.
Starting SS in May, BTW, makes zero sense. If your position is that "we'd like SS to throw 160 IP, but we'll go to 190 if it really matters" (replace 160/190 with your own choice), then the last thing you want to do is hold him out in April. In that case, you are deciding in March that it's more important to have Strasburg available for the playoffs than to actually, you know, make the playoffs. If the Nats fell short of winning the division by a couple of games using that plan, I would support firing Rizzo. (While, of course, you'd be defending his courage. LOL.) Does anyone really want to claim that the Nats "knew" in March that they would win at least 95 games?
But isn't it fairly common (at least well-heard-of) to take a recently-injured player and keep him in extended spring training till sometime in May?
Whatever a team's chances at a pennant, and fully granting that wins in April equal wins in September, it's nevertheless obvious that wins in the postseason are more vital than those in the regular season. So why not ease Strasburg along and get him into the rotation by mid-May? If you don't make the playoffs, so much the better; he has a light workload his first season back. If you do make the playoffs, he gets to pitch a bit then. In either case, he's pitched five or four-1/2 months of the regular season to give what help he can there. And if there's actual injury on the horizon at any point, shut him down immediately; take no chances.
My comment is predicated on the idea that the team has "always already" made a disconnect between 2012 success and Strasburg. They're not going to press him to the limit to win anything; they're going to treat the season as an experiment in light usage. So why not use him "experimentally" in a way that deploys him best?
Just a terrible, utterly hubristic job by the Nats at all levels.
EDIT: By which is meant: Strasburg's season and usage should have been managed so as to be available to be used as the back-up, if not primary, closer in Game 5.
This argument used to sound witty before one team after another started snapping statheads up.
But that still doesn't explain why they haven't hired any of you BTF geniuses,, especially given the bonus of your medical expertise.
--------------------------------------------------
why am i sharing this story which is 100 percent true by the way?
because you can get to the 'right' answer a 1000 different ways. nobody's method is guaranteed to be better.
rizzo is wrong if the only acceptable output of his decision was for the nationals to win a world series in 2012. but then he was not just wrong about strasburg but umpteen different things.
The irony is that two of the more prominent BTF exponents of "the regular season is the truest test of everything", "games in April are just as important as games in September", and "the postseason is just a series of crapshoot exhibition games" are also two of the more insistent voices here for making this one World Series the overriding priority.
Because it's equally obvious (to me) that wins in the regular season are MORE valuable if you need them to make the playoffs. And in March you have no idea if you will need them. I'm fine with a plan that says "let SS throw 160 IP by Sept 1, then allow him to pitch in Sept only if necessary to win the division." That makes sense (assuming you've decided that 180-190 IP is a reasonable health risk, given the payoff of a possible pennant). Deciding in advance that you'd rather lose the division title than give up SS for hypothetical playoffs makes no sense.
I think Andy gave an excellent summary of the issue above:
"And if you agree with the innings limit, then those innings have got to come from somewhere, and unless you want to experiment with a midseason shutdown, you're either going to have to cut innings from the start of the season or at the end. If you cut them at the start of the season, then two possible starting points are possible: Either you assume a playoff run and start him even later, which means you're without your "best pitcher" for a long stretch at the beginning of the season---when "the games count just as much as they do in September"; or you start him earlier to avoid that, and then risk having him exceed his limit by the end of the season. The point is that there's no free lunch...."
Staerting in May makes zero sense if the Nationals planned to be flexible on the innings limit. But they weren't flexible on the innings limit.
And in that case it also makes no sense to start in May, unless you think SS wasn't ready to go at the start of the season (since he was pitcher of the month in April, perhaps we can set that concern aside?). Starting in May just reduces his 2012-2013 recovery time. And wouldn't you rather pick his replacement after you've had another 4-5 months to evaluate Wang/Lannan/Detwiler/whoever?
Let's say I give you two boxes and say you are to open one of them. In one, there is $100, and no bomb. In the other, I tell you there is somewhere between $100 and $1 million, but I am not sure how much, and there may or may not be a bomb inside that goes off when you open it. You're probably going to open the first box. Unless of course, you have an illness that is terminal if you don't get a $100,000 operation, in which case you gamble on the second box.
Which brings us to the question of perceived payoff. It seems to me that people are talking at cross-purposes here. The Nationals were risk-adverse, so they adopted a very low risk strategy. Not zero risk, naturally, but they felt they understood the risks of 160 innings enough that they were comfortable setting that limit. Most people here are not as risk-adverse. Which is fine, but is sort of a meta-criticism. Maybe you value a winning season as 1, a playoff appearance as 100, and a World Series ring as 100,000, so you are willing to gamble more for that 100,000, while the Nats ownership may value a winning season as 95, a playoff appearance as 100, and a World Series ring as 120, so they are less inclined to gamble for a modest payoff.
1a) Greatest likelihood of reaching 160 IP
1b) Most flexibility for dealing with in-season injuries etc.
2) Greatest likelihood of consistent usage: no shutdown/startup or ramp-down/ramp-up required
Rizzo's Plan disadvantages:
1) High likelihood of being unavailable for pennant race in September
2) Almost certainly unavailable for playoffs in October
As much as I don't like the plan and think it was uncreative and mostly player/agent/CYA driven, it has a certain boldness in that fans and media focus more on September/October. Acknowledging that April is equal to September deserves credit, but the focus on October (playoffs) is pretty darn important and ostensibly shared by every player/team/fan ever.
But if shutting Strasburg down in April had wound up preventing the Nats from even making the postseason---and please don't wave away that possibility---then what?
Following from that, I'm not seeing how such a move, done very carefully and closely monitored, could not have been done in July/August given the standings, aiming for a September return and effectively pushing the target 160 IP date back about a month, allowing them to maximize Strasburg's usage in either critical pennant race games and/or potential playoffs, without over- or under-shooting the desired 160 IP target too much. With the same caveat as every other plan, that his actual physical condition/performance could always change the plan further.
Basically, by July, I think potential vital pennant race games and/or playoff games should have been an equivalent acceptable "detour" from the plan as a minor non-throwing injury. Like every plan, there would still be opportunities for second-guessing depending on the outcome, but it would have represented a more honest effort at fielding their best team for the playoffs, without taking the playoff appearance too much for granted.
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