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?

I hope I addressed that in my next post. I think the ideal balance was to not delay the start of his season, but once July rolled around and some form of playoffs appeared likely (division title or wild card), approach a break like a standard non-throwing injury and extend Strasburg's availability into early October.

Again, it's all about balance: you don't want to take a playoff appearance for granted, so you start him like normal for the first half, but you don't want to fail to acknowledge playoff goals altogether (or vital late September games, for that matter) by blindly marching off the cliff of an early September hard shutdown.

If Storen gets one more strike nobody is arguing about this.

well, this is BTF so we'd be having some other multi-hundred argument thread.

but ... fwiw, and maybe my memory is fuzzy, but storen was pitching well in my estimation. he wasn't getting calls and he wasn't getting bites by the cardinal batters. they had been going up hacking a lot in other games *ahem bases loaded nobody out game one ahem* and if i was the nat staff i would have been expecting that. instead everybody started doing quality at bats and making the nat staff work. i couldn't believe some of the pitches the cards started laying off of. maybe they got coached to stop swinging at everything, i dunno. but the results weren't all storen's fault.

Reading this thread still depresses me :-/

Yeah, I'm sure the Braves fans all love that Medlen only pitched 138 regular season innings so he could lose a wildcard game, instead of winning the division and not letting him pitch at all.

Rizzo picked the simplest path, normal time off from last season, normal spring training, normal usage in the regular season. I don't think it's CYA at all, no one would have complained if he went 170 or 180 healthy innings with the guy (unless of course he had three or four crappy starts that brought the Braves closer, in which case they would have said we want Lannan), because he never said 160 is the limit. They determined there was less benefit to that last start than there was risk of injury. That is yet another indication of how cautious they are with this guy, and in keeping with the pattern established. This pattern is totally consistent with Rizzo's caution in player development, and with the "babying" of Strasburg in particular. The development system that is proving productive in getting talented players through the system happens to also be the one with the cautious approach to young pitchers and injury recovery. Going for it, for Rizzo, means acquiring guys like Gio and Jackson, not pitching Strasburg 200 innings in 2012. He goes 160 so that he can then go 200 in 2013.

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?

I hope I addressed that in my next post. I think the ideal balance was to not delay the start of his season, but once July rolled around and some form of playoffs appeared likely (division title or wild card), approach a break like a standard non-throwing injury and extend Strasburg's availability into early October.

Again, it's all about balance: you don't want to take a playoff appearance for granted, so you start him like normal for the first half, but you don't want to fail to acknowledge playoff goals altogether (or vital late September games, for that matter) by blindly marching off the cliff of an early September hard shutdown.

I guess that's the best "middle ground" proposal, but it still doesn't amount to much more than squeezing the balloon in a different place. No matter what month** Strasburg were to be shut down in, you'd be running the risk that his absence from the roster might cost his team a postseason berth. You'd think you'd have a better handle of that by July, but there's no guarantee whatever that things would turn out as expected.

**And given the distance between early September and November 1st, it's really more like 6 or 7 weeks, not just a month, that he'd have to be shut down, unless you also demand to extend his innings limit beyond 160. That "three weeks" shutdown really would have amounted to seven weeks if the Nats had advanced to the World Series, which would have meant that he'd have had to have been shut down from (say) mid-July to early September. A lot can happen to a team in that long a time period, as both fans of the 2011 Red Sox and 2012 Yankees can testify.

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.

Andy, I have to call you on this f@cking bullsh!t. My argument is absolutely nothing at all similar, in any way, to "making this one World Series the overriding priority." Nothing at all. No one who deserves to be taken the tiniest bit seriously could possibly construe what I've written that way. What the hell are you doing?

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.

Here's what Dr. Andrews said, when asked about that possibility:

“The problem with shutting him down and getting him out of his cycle and then all of a sudden putting him back in, means you’ve got to recycle him,” Andrews said. “In other words, you can’t take him at a high level, shut him down for a month and then get back immediately to a high level. That could be dangerous, also.

“But that’s a good question,” Andrews continued. “The problem with that is starting him back up. You all know that the major injuries occur any time when you start somebody back up early in the season when they’ve been off. So it’s a little bit unknown to be able to do that and do that safely. I don’t know how that would actually benefit him. It could benefit him, it could benefit the team, but also it may be dangerous to start him back up with appropriate rest. So I’m sorry to say, but it’s a damned if you do and damned if you don’t deal.”

Not a ringing endorsement. And this goes back to my known vs. unknown risk and reward post above.

Andy, I have to call you on this f@cking bullsh!t. My argument is absolutely nothing at all similar, in any way, to "making this one World Series the overriding priority." Nothing at all. No one who deserves to be taken the tiniest bit seriously could possibly construe what I've written that way. What the hell are you doing?

Your position is to favor some poorly-defined "flexibility," with great benefits but no plausible method of delivering them. Andy's interpretation of your position seems quite reasonable given what you've written (but I'll take you at your word that he's wrong). From what you've written here (I may have missed other threads on this), what comes through most clearly (or least muddled) is that you wanted the Nats to make Strasburg available in the post-season, but you also don't want to take any responsibility for the fact that doing so means either 1) taking a greater risk you won't reach the playoffs, 2) taking a greater risk Strasburg won't be available when you need him in future pennant races or playoffs (due to injury), or 3) both. I understand why that's an emotionally attractive positioning, but IMO it isn't serious baseball analysis.

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.

Andy, I have to call you on this f@cking bullsh!t. My argument is absolutely nothing at all similar, in any way, to "making this one World Series the overriding priority." Nothing at all. No one who deserves to be taken the tiniest bit seriously could possibly construe what I've written that way. What the hell are you doing?

Maybe just trying to figure out exactly what your point is. Echoing what Guy just wrote, if the World Series (or the postseason in general, which is what I meant and should have written) isn't an overriding priority for you, then what are you complaining about to begin with? If adding an extra few percentage points to the Nats' odds in the "crapshoot" wasn't the point behind all of these anti-Rizzo arguments, then what was?

Here's what Dr. Andrews said, when asked about that possibility:
“The problem with shutting him down and getting him out of his cycle and then all of a sudden putting him back in, means you’ve got to recycle him..."
Not a ringing endorsement. And this goes back to my known vs. unknown risk and reward post above.

Again, what do the Nationals do if Strasburg suffers a non-throwing injury in July, maybe tweaks something while batting or running the bases, and can't pitch for 2-4 weeks?

Your position is to favor some poorly-defined "flexibility," with great benefits but no plausible method of delivering them.

I've specified multiple options, all feasible, none unprecedented. Nothing about it is "poorly defined," and there is nothing implausible about pitching staff management approaches that have been empirically deployed for many decades. You have failed to address any of this.

Andy's interpretation of your position seems quite reasonable given what you've written

No, it doesn't. At all.

you wanted the Nats to make Strasburg available in the post-season, but you also don't want to take any responsibility for the fact that doing so means either 1) taking a greater risk you won't reach the playoffs,

Wrong. I "took responsbility" for this explicitly and categorically.

2) taking a greater risk Strasburg won't be available when you need him in future pennant races or playoffs (due to injury)

What part of my writing, multiple times, "there is risk inherent in every choice" do you not comprehend?

Maybe just trying to figure out exactly what your point is.

Re-read #80, #85, #88, #91, #95, #126, and #183. I don't know how many more times I need to keep making the point. The idea that you don't understand it is ludicrous.

And given the distance between early September and November 1st, it's really more like 6 or 7 weeks, not just a month, that he'd have to be shut down, unless you also demand to extend his innings limit beyond 160

You don't have to plan on a complete postseason run, or even every series going the distance with two Strasburg starts in each. Maybe you leave room for 5 starts to hit 160 IP in Sep/Oct after tune-ups, and you can allocate those for regular season or postseason as the situation and schedule dictates.

Again, it's all about balancing the likely outcomes. Although they forecast to be in the thick of it at the beginning of the season, you don't want to take that for granted and hold out Strasburg then, I agree. But they were given an absolute gift of building a big lead early and having 4 other effective starters, so they could re-assess that balance of likely outcomes in July. No decision will ever be 100% fool proof, certainly not the path they chose either.

Anyone who suggests Strasburg should have been shut down and restarted is insane.

Not just because of any potential health risk, but because of a much more likely risk that he needs 3-4 starts to get back to his full level of performance, and that would make his "restart" a negative value that would hurt the teams playoff chances.

If Rizzo had confidence the team would compete, it's not unreasonable to delay Strasburg's season starts to have him ready for the playoffs. But that seems a bit presumptive and it's the clear area of the omniscient second guessers. Starting him with the other players is not just more efficent, but it gives him longer rest for 2013, his presumed break-out season, and timing it to when the team looked to be more ready to compete than in 2012, to any rational pre-season observer.

And obviously, all this kerfuffle over how the Nat's could have gotten more out of someone who was clearly no better than their 3rd best starter at seasons end, as he was clearly gassed and struggling by seasons end, is hilarious. Again, Strasburg likely could never even have pitched 10% of the Nats playoff innings, given his season ending condition and situation, he's clearly only a minor increase in win expectancy.

Strasburg had great FIPs, but lousy innings per start that devalued his FIPs. The short starts may have come from cautious handling by the Nats, or from his lack of conditioning or own super high exertion levels during games, either way it doesn't matter. The fact is his limits would have continued and gotten worse if he was continued to be used beyond the 160-190 innings limits (we know there never was a hard 160 inning limit, just that Strasburg was never going to see 200 innings according to Rizzo) the Nats book recommended.

I do admit the idea of pitching him out of the pen on good rest doesn't seem an unreasonable compromise, and much of the anti-Rizzo fever would have been dissipated if he did so. But I also don't know what the results of the study he did on recovering TJ pitchers told him, how strong and scary the innings/pitch counts to reinjury correlations were. If they were strong and scary, kudos to Rizzo for sticking to his guns.

This is a rehabbing pitcher who could potentially mature in into the best and most valuable pitcher in the league, worth 7-8 wins alone each year for the Nats. That alone is a reason to treat him carefully, you don't need a study of rehabbing TJ pitchers subject to high work loads their first year back to tell you it's likely a bad idea to stress a healing tendon that much right away.

Comparing this to one shot teams like the 2007 Diamondbacks, who had a Pythag of doom while ownership locked up much of their limited payroll on a aging and superfluous outfielder, is equally silly.

The Nats have a good team. Without Strasburg they have the opportunity to make several playoff appearances in the next few years. With a healthy Strasburg that likelihood goes up, maybe substantially. If he improves into a superstar, over the next 3 years they'll have a massive bargain that makes putting together strong teams much easier, and exclusive rights to lock him up at some (presumably reasonable due to risk concerns) discount to market, locking up a centerpiece for a decade of playoff competitive Nationals teams.

I love all this results oriented second guessing. The result oriented guys say "see the Nats lost, it proves they needed Strasburg", the results say "see the Nats lost, but won Strasburg's start so you have to jump through a bunch of hoops to say he'd have made the difference, the difference in getting to a 2nd round, not a World Series".

All playoff teams, with or without Strasburg, are potential World Series champions. He just would have made the odds slightly better for his team, this year. But in future years, he may have a much more massive impact if he's pitching 7 + innings per start and improves on his already gaudy peripherals.

The results oriented guys jumped on Beane for "tanking the season" before the season began. Then, the As actually started winning and not a peep has been heard from the results oriented guys since, EVEN WHEN BEANE SAID PUBLICLY THAT HIS PLAN WASN"T TO WIN THIS YEAR BUT TO BUILD FOR FUTURE YEARS. They let that go without comment, because the As won. So now it's okay for the As to piss all over the sanctity of the regular season if they over perform and fluke into a division title, but it's not okay for the Nats to slightly diminish their playoff expectations by carefully handling their most important future player?

Y'all are a bunch of hypocrites.

Again, it's all about balancing the likely outcomes.

Precisely. What about this is hard to figure out?

No decision will ever be 100% fool proof, certainly not the path they chose either.

Absolutely.

Again, what do the Nationals do if Strasburg suffers a non-throwing injury in July, maybe tweaks something while batting or running the bases, and can't pitch for 2-4 weeks?

If he's recovering from TJ surgery within the last year? Shut him down or rehab him extremely carefully before bringing him back in that season.

If he's in his 2nd season, or later, removed from TJ surgery? Put him through the standard recovery process and get him back in the rotation as soon as he's ready.

"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]."

... 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."

Anyone who tries the "pitchers are always at risk to get injured no matter what" argument, and doesn't understand that a pitcher in the first year back from TJ surgery has a vastly higher potential injury rate than a "healthy" pitcher, where re-injury means catastrophic risks to the pitcher ever being effective again, just is clueless.

Anyone who suggests Strasburg should have been shut down and restarted is insane.

...

Again, what do the Nationals do if Strasburg suffers a non-throwing injury in July, maybe tweaks something while batting or running the bases, and can't pitch for 2-4 weeks?

If he's recovering from TJ surgery within the last year? Shut him down or rehab him extremely carefully before bringing him back in that season.

If he's in his 2nd season, or later, removed from TJ surgery? Put him through the standard recovery process and get him back in the rotation as soon as he's ready.

So does your suggestion of "rehab him extremely carefully before bringing him back in that season" make you insane?

And obviously, all this kerfuffle over how the Nat's could have gotten more out of someone who was clearly no better than their 3rd best starter at seasons end, as he was clearly gassed and struggling by seasons end, is hilarious

Gee, maybe they should have done a different usage pattern for the guy then. It ain't the innings that is the problem is the stress one causes when pitching fatigued and or with improper mechanics that is the problem.

We curently have evidence that the Nationals let Strasburg pitch at least 15 or so innings at the end of his season fatigued so even if you want to say that setting a pitch limit and sticking with it is a good thing you still can't say Rizzo did a good job with it since he let Straburg pitch in dangerous situations at the end.


As for Andrews, again, what Andrew describe in terms of shutting him down and starting him back up again is not what was/is being suggested. It does not apply. Secondly taking his view as some absolute is simply stupid. As spycake already mentioned, what would happen if after Strasburg's second start he sprains his ankle and goes on the DL? Do the Nationals shut him down for the season because they don't want to start and stop him? Of course they don't. He would sit on the shelf for a month or so, rehab, and then finish out the season and everybody would be fine with that. It seems absurd to me that everyone is perfectly willing to accept Strasburg going down for a month with a sprain and then pitching again but sitting him down when he is healthy for a month and then rehabbing is verboten. How are the situations different? Why couldn't it be done.

KT's Pot Arb: your rant in #214 might be fine if directed at a particular person. To my knowledge, it does not apply to most of the critics/criticisms presented at this site this past season.

So nop matter what happens he can't go over 160 IP? 160 equals perfect but 165 is horrible? If you give Strasburg a month off and then a week to two weeks to get back in shape he then can't pitch 20 more innings? Why? What is the evidence that throwing 170 innings in a season a year after TJ is bad but 160 is perfect? What is the evidence that taking a rest for a month when you get fatigued and then coming back and pitching 4 to 5 more games when you are fresher is bad?


There is no evidence. None. None at all.

"Rizzo did it" seems to be the only evidence needed. As SugarBear pointed out, people have this bizarre obsession with thinking that "insiders" know all and should be trusted without question. Even when they know what isn't so.

The Treder plan is basically based on flexibility and that is what most of us have been saying Rizzo needed to be. I'm not Treder but I seriously doubt his reply is going to be "tough" if a situation occurs where the Nationals are in jeopardy of losing the division and Strasburg is on the bench.
I think that trying to limit Strasburg's innings is sensible. I would have started him a bit late and skipped a few more of his starts, and maintained twin goals of (a) keeping Strasburg fresh to pitch his best down the stretch and in the playoffs and (b) limiting the stress of his arm. This is what every organization in baseball would do. It's an art, it requires weighing risks and working with the players and the doctors and the trainers.

It would be possible, under this scenario, that Strasburg might end up <gasp> breaking his innings cap by 20 or 30 innings. He probably wouldn't - as the season played out, you probably could have kept him to 140 and been fine. If he ended up having to throw 160 innings in the regular season and 30 innings in the postseason, it would be because the Nationals first had a pennant race go down to the wire and then made a deep run into the playoffs. That's obviously worth the risk of those 30 extra innings.

It's funny how you guys keep arguing over a non-existent innings limit that no one has ever found any actual evidence that existed. Rizzo never claimed a 160 innings limit, that is for sure.

Treder wants a flexible plan. Rizzo HAD a flexible plan. He said he would shut down Strasburg essentially when he showed signs of fatigue.

If Strasburg hadn't faltered at the end, he likely would have pitched another 20 innings for the Nats, that's the fact. So you guys arguing over whether YOU would have given him another 20 innings are being silly.

Treder wants a flexible plan. Rizzo HAD a flexible plan. He said he would shut down Strasburg essentially when he showed signs of fatigue.

This word, "flexible"? I do not think it means what you think it means.

So does your suggestion of "rehab him extremely carefully before bringing him back in that season" make you insane?

LOL, cherry pick much?

My "insane" argument centered around two risks, injury and performance. The significant risk of shutting him down for a month then having him perform poorly in his first starts back, COMBINED with whatever increased injury risk that approch would produce (which could be tiny, could be significant, but you need to assume is non-zero) makes it dumb.

Ignoring team performance considerations, just looking at it as a rehab season, if he already has a decent amount of innings in, i would just shut him down in the given July injury scenario. But it's not unreasonable if ithe team wanted to use an extra careful rehab process to bring him back for a few more innings that year, obviously shutting him down at any sign of problems.

This word, "flexible"? I do not think it means what you think it means

Ok, Steve Treder has a "more" flexible plan. But what does that matter?

Does the Treder plan involve continuing to pitching Strasburg when he's starting to tire late season and that inverted W is getting worse and putting even more stress on his new elbow and all those little drill holes are bleeding slightly more? How "flexible" is that?

This conversation is already more tedious than Bonds-steroids and is quickly approaching Rose-HOF level craptastic.

Ok, Steve Treder has a "more" flexible plan. But what does that matter?

It matters because it would allow the Washington Nationals more options that could improve their chances of winning baseball games in the late regular season and post-season of 2012.

Does the Treder plan involve continuing to pitching Strasburg when he's starting to tire late season and that inverted W is getting worse and putting even more stress on his new elbow and all those little drill holes are bleeding slightly more?

I suggest that you argue against something I actually wrote, or something that could possibly be inferred from what I wrote. This isn't that.

that's the fact.

Cute. You call out people on the 160 inning limit and then state a "fact" based on zero evidence,

And obviously, all this kerfuffle over how the Nat's could have gotten more out of someone who was clearly no better than their 3rd best starter at seasons end, as he was clearly gassed and struggling by seasons end, is hilarious. Again, Strasburg likely could never even have pitched 10% of the Nats playoff innings, given his season ending condition and situation, he's clearly only a minor increase in win expectancy.

This is a little much. In 5 of his last 7 starts, he gave up 4 or fewer hits and 2 or fewer runs in 6 innings. His second-to-last start was pretty dominant; 2 hits and 1 BB in 6 innings. Even his bad starts weren't outrageous; it's not like he was giving up 4 HR or 6 BB in a game. I don't think there's really evidence that he was "clearly gassed and struggling."

KT's Pot Arb: your rant in #214 might be fine if directed at a particular person. To my knowledge, it does not apply to most of the critics/criticisms presented at this site this past season.

Sure it does.

Advocating the stop/start is silly, as I've pointed out, given the restart is likely to provide a lower performance so you increase injury risk for less gain than just pitching him to his end season fatigue point.

Multiple posters have ranted about Rizzo violating the "sanctity" of the MLB by not putting his best team out there, even on this thread, for shutting down an injured, recovering pitcher. I've never seen those "competitive obsessives" say squat about Beane since the As started winning. They are results oriented hypocrites because they feel since Beane over-achieved, he couldn't have tanked the season, even when Beane admits he tanked the season and just got lucky.

And again, the number of people arguing about a mythical 160 inning limit that never existed is just icing on the cake of hilarity.

The bottom line is, Rizzo wasn't creative enough to figure out a way to have one of his best, non-injured starting pitchers available in the postseason. He failed.

Cute. You call out people on the 160 inning limit and then state a "fact" based on zero evidence,

Yea, you keep declaring there was a 160 inning limit doesn't make it so.

The last time we had this conversation the only evidence you could produce was a quote from a random baseball person who wasn't Rizzo speculating that Rizzo might have a 160 inning limit on Strasburg, but never said they actually talked to Rizzo.

The bottom line is, Rizzo wasn't creative enough to figure out a way to have one of his best, non-injured starting pitchers available in the postseason. He failed.

The bottom line is that Strasburg was pitching with a substantially higher injury rate than other starters on the staff, and a far higher risk of catastrphic injury than other starters on staff. He pitched a good amount of innings already that season and his last start was terrible.

And his availability in the post season unlikely to make a significant increase in the Nats win expectancy, while he also has a high likelyhood of being one of the most valuable starters in baseball the next three years if he is healthy.

his availability in the post season unlikely to make a significant increase in the Nats win expectancy

Is this another fact?

This is a little much. In 5 of his last 7 starts, he gave up 4 or fewer hits and 2 or fewer runs in 6 innings. His second-to-last start was pretty dominant; 2 hits and 1 BB in 6 innings. Even his bad starts weren't outrageous; it's not like he was giving up 4 HR or 6 BB in a game. I don't think there's really evidence that he was "clearly gassed and struggling."

His K rate actually was very good all the way to the end, and his walk rate improved. But the last half of his season his HR rate skyrocketed, haven't looked at his pitch velocity data to see if maybe decline in speed was the problem there.

Even so, it's hard to imagine that you could get the best out of Strasburg in the playoffs this year, given the risks that hang over him in his first year back from TJ, and all the hoops you'd need to jump through to make him available.

Bullpen? Probably safest, most effective route, still some minor risk of adaption, but more importantly you only get to use him for at most, 5% of your pitchers innings? How much difference can he make that way. Obviously a huge difference if he pitches the highest leverage spots and is the difference between winning and losing. But what if you use him in a med leverage spot and he isn't able to make much difference, and then the next day you have a super high leverage spot and he's unavailable?

Starting? Again the stop/start means he's a crap shoot as a starter. He could come in the first start out of rhythm, without his best control, and walk a guy an inning and leave two fat pitches over the center of the plate to sluggers.

Obviously the Nats would have had a better playoff team with Strasburg in either role. But it's not likely to be significantly better. And the math on his re-injury risk is clear, and enormously scary.

You don't have to plan on a complete postseason run, or even every series going the distance with two Strasburg starts in each. Maybe you leave room for 5 starts to hit 160 IP in Sep/Oct after tune-ups, and you can allocate those for regular season or postseason as the situation and schedule dictates.

I think this is the least-implausible "middle path" -- let SS throw, say, 140 IP thru August, and then give him 4 Sept. starts if you are in a tight pennant race, shut him down if you are out of it, or save him for post-season if you have a big lead. But I still don't think it works. If shut him down for five weeks, and then try to start him up again, he will need a lot of throwing and/or rehab starts to get ready. You may effectively hit the 160 IP limit just doing that. Maybe you can thread the needle here and get a couple of post-season starts. But it won't be easy.

The bottom line is that Strasburg was pitching with a substantially higher injury rate than other starters on the staff, and a far higher risk of catastrophic injury than other starters on staff. He pitched a good amount of innings already that season and his last start was terrible.

And his availability in the post season unlikely to make a significant increase in the Nats win expectancy, while he also has a high likelihood of being one of the most valuable starters in baseball the next three years if he is healthy.

It's no use, KT. It just goes flying over their heads like one of Rick Ankiel's old heaters.

Obviously the Nats would have had a better playoff team with Strasburg in either role. But it's not likely to be significantly better.

So, you're saying those grapes are sour. Got it.

The last time we had this conversation the only evidence you could produce was a quote from a random baseball person who wasn't Rizzo speculating that Rizzo might have a 160 inning limit on Strasburg, but never said they actually talked to Rizzo.

I think you are mixing up people. I don't recall going on some hunt to prove there is a limit. Can you prove that Rizzo did not have a limit? But you talking about me looking for 160 inning limit doesn't actually address the point of the statement you are quoting.

Anyway, 160 inning limit has been the limit talked about since either before the seasons started or soon after it. Reporters and journalists wrote about it and TV/radio hosts talked about it at great length for most of the season. Yet somehow we are to believe that no one ever talked to Rizzo about it and that all of these people simply ignored what he had to say about the issue and kept on insisting it was 160 innings.

Strasburg had a limit and it wasn't like Rizzo was going to have him throw 220 innings just as long as Strasburg felt good. There was a limit and that limit in all likelihood was going to be around 160 to 180 innings and the full amount would be largely based on fatigue. If that is true there are ways of preventing fatigue and maximizing innings beyond doing absolutely nothing besides having Strasburg pitch every 5th or occasionally 6th day until he gets tired.

The bottom line is, Rizzo wasn't creative enough to figure out a way to have one of his best, non-injured starting pitchers available in the postseason. He failed.

Thank you. I think this is the real sentiment behind most of the Rizzo bashing. It's good to have it articulated clearly.

Translation: "We simply refuse to accept the reality of tradeoffs. We wanted to have our cake and eat it too, you [Rizzo] didn't give us that, so you suck."

Is this another fact?

Refute it. Show how a guy who the Nats couldn't get more than 5.5 innings out of in the regular season, with a massive reinjury risk that demands careful handling if you do use him the playoffs, could have pitched enough innings to make a significant difference in their playoff outcome, and shows by how much.

Could he have pitched 10% of their playoff innings? Only if the Nats were to throw health concerns out the window entirely.

How much better would we expect him to be than the alternatives the Nats would use, it's not like they were going to be forced to use replacement level pitchers with Strasburg out.

He would have been better, but not greatly so, than their alternatives, over a small percentage of the Nats innings, increasing their pitching effectiveness by again, a small amount. And pitching is less than half of the teams win expectancy, with hitting and fielding providing more than half.

So again, show how he makes a big difference, and show your math.

USA Today-February

Nationals manager Davey Johnson said Monday that Strasburg will be limited to 150-160 innings this season. Zimmermann threw 161 1-3 innings last year following surgery and hopes to reach 200 this season

Though there might be a temptation to have Strasburg skip a few starts in order to extend his year, Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo said Monday that was not in the team's plans.

"There's not going to be a whole lot of tinkering going on," Rizzo said. "We're going to run him out there until his innings are done … He's a young pitcher that's still learning how to pitch in the big leagues. I think it's unfair to get him ramped up in spring training and start the season on a regular rotation and then shut him down or skip him. We're just going to make him comfortable

Hmm, we're just going to run him out there until his innings are done. Yep, certainly sounds like Rizzo never said 160 innings or that the amount of innings was not some fixed number.

Anyway, 160 inning limit has been the limit talked about since either before the seasons started or soon after it. Reporters and journalists wrote about it and TV/radio hosts talked about it at great length for most of the season. Yet somehow we are to believe that no one ever talked to Rizzo about it and that all of these people simply ignored what he had to say about the issue and kept on insisting it was 160 innings.

You have to be kidding.

You claim that "reporters and journalists" said it, but can't cite one, and of course, even if you can you are assuming that what they said wasn't speculation, but fact. Right.

If an ESPN talking head speculates that Rizzo has roughy a 160 inning limit on Strasburg, the baseball journalist telephone game means that 20 baseball writers will write about the "160 inning limit" by seasons end based on that speculation alone.

There never has been a single direct quote from Rizzo saying there was a 160 inning pitch limit.

I have never seen a single quote from a reporter/journalist/analyst/player/baseball exec yet even saying "Mike Rizzo told me they have a 160 inning limit".

You may effectively hit the 160 IP limit just doing that.

Do you people not understand that pitchers throw a baseball in situations other than in a regular season game? Do you also not understand that a month of rest can and does refresh and heal the body?

Now that Strasburg hit 160 innings is he to never ever pitch again because he hit his limit? How about in the offseason? You think it is wise to have Strasburg do absolutely nothing with his arm until February?


The 160 innings is a number that has side sessions baked in. So stopping for a month and then starting up again with side sessions will not cut into his limit and since he won't be fatigued it is likely that he'll be able to go over 160 innings if the need should arise.

He would have been better, but not greatly so, than their alternatives, over a small percentage of the Nats innings, increasing their pitching effectiveness by again, a small amount. And pitching is less than half of the teams win expectancy, with hitting and fielding providing more than half.

Yes. But in a short series (especially best-of-five, but nearly as true in best-of-seven), small things can and do have dramatic impact. One decent five-inning start that they didn't get, or one key late-inning out or save they didn't get (game 5, I'm looking at you), could have been the difference between the Nationals winning and losing against the Cardinals.

To pretend that Stephen Strasburg's availability to a pitching staff in a post-season series is a triviality is to deny the abundantly obvious.

You claim that "reporters and journalists" said it, but can't cite one, and of course, even if you can you are assuming that what they said wasn't speculation, but fact. Right.

Cute. Just did. It is absolute revisionist history to argue that Rizzo did not have an innings limit on Strasburg and that it was 160 innings.

If shut him down for five weeks, and then try to start him up again, he will need a lot of throwing and/or rehab starts to get ready.

The Yankees had to shut down Andy Pettitte for a long stretch this summer. He came back and was great (1.62 ERA) in three September starts.

Chris Carpenter missed the entire season until three September starts, and then was pretty good (3.71 ERA, almost exactly his career average).

I'm sure the Nats are sitting at home and laughing at those teams for handling their pitchers in such a silly manner.

You may effectively hit the 160 IP limit just doing that.

You need to read KT's posts. There was no 160 IP limit!

Hmm, we're just going to run him out there until his innings are done. Yep, certainly sounds like Rizzo never said 160 innings or that the amount of innings was not some fixed number.

I never said "Davey Johnson", I said Rizzo:)

But seriously, Davey Johnson has been quoted about the 160 inning limit multiple times. But I've never seen it ever attributed to Rizzo, not even by Johnson.

Rizzo saying "his innings are done" has always been consistent with meaning " when his body shows he's pitched enough".

Davey's quotes have always been responses to reporters trying to unscrute Rizzo's unscrutable comments. "Davey, how many innings will Strasburg pitch this year?", "Oh, I guess round 150, maybe 160" etc.

Rizzo has clearly sayed multiple times that Strasburg would not pitch an excessive amount of innings (I think he said he'd never get to 190-200, so in that sense he had a limit), but that there was no fixed limit, it would be based on their analysis of his performance.

Show how a guy who the Nats couldn't get more than 5.5 innings out of in the regular season, with a massive reinjury risk that demands careful handling if you do use him the playoffs, could have pitched enough innings to make a significant difference in their playoff outcome, and shows by how much.

AS you would say, prove it. How was Stephen Strasburg a massive reinjury risk? Did he get injured? How many pitchers the first full season after TJ surgery reinjure the same old injuries?

The Yankees had to shut down Andy Pettitte for a long stretch this summer. He came back and was great (1.62 ERA) in three September starts.

Chris Carpenter missed the entire season until three September starts, and then was pretty good (3.71 ERA, almost exactly his career average).

I'm sure the Nats are sitting at home and laughing at those teams for handling their pitchers in such a silly manner.

Some veteran pitchers not recovering from recent tommy john surgery who came back and pitched well after a short rehab stint? I'm shocked you can cherry pick so well!

So you are saying that all pitchers, even TJ recovering pitchers, perform as well in their first start after a multi-week break as they were before they were shut down?

That would be extraordinary if true, if you could prove it.

AS you would say, prove it. How was Stephen Strasburg a massive reinjury risk? Did he get injured? How many pitchers the first full season after TJ surgery reinjure the same old injuries?

"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]."

... 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."

Proven.

So, you're saying those grapes are sour. Got it.

Steve, how much do you think the Nats playoff chances should increase in order to make it worthwhile risking Strasburg pitching?

Maybe I"m wrong. Dr. Andrews has put forth some scary statistics, but they aren't linked to an exact inning count. A few more innings increases the risk, maybe it's worthwhile.

But first, quantify what your expectation of the benefit of having Strasburg is.

Do the Nats increase their win expectancy from, say 54%, to say 56%, per series on average with Strasburg? Or do you think the impact is substantially higher?