I for one hate the way the Nationals are mismanaging this situation with these unfounded Strasburg Rules when pitchers might get hurt anyway so why not just keep pitching him and at his age King Felix was throwing 200 innings and this is just over the top with little reason to support and might just hurt him anyway so what the hell.

I'm just wondering where the magic number 160 came from. Also, is it really better for Strasburg to just ride the bench for the last month / month and a half of the season?

Inning cap is stupid. How is it good for his stamina and development to sit on the bench for an extra month?

I'm just wondering where the magic number 160 came from.

I assume it comes from adding an arbitrary number (~30) to the innings he pitched in 2009 (~130 between San Diego State and the Arizona Fall League).

‘You guys have played hard. You’re keeping us in range. Let’s stay in range...

...until September when we'll just give up.

At least the team has a plan. That is a good sign

So did the underwear gnomes.

Is there any precedent for this kind of development of a young star? I can't think of any healthy young pitcher who was simply mothballed after a certain limit. Clay Buchholz didn't pitch much in 2007 after the no-hitter, but I can't recall whether that was an injury, a mothballing, a scheduled demotion, or the Sox simply didn't want to #### around with a rookie starter as they were trying to win a championship. On the principle that they have paid the young man a lot of money to play baseball, people are willing to pay a lot to see him, and he has all winter to rest, I somehow think that Strasburg will keep starting through September.

Buchholz didn't pitch much in the majors before the no-hitter. Looking at the transaction record, it looked like the Red Sox were using their typical call up a guy for a spot start strategy-his debut was 8/17 in first game of doubleheader, optioned to Pawtucket the next day, called up on 9/1 when rosters expanded, where he proceeded to pitch a no-hitter. If anything it looks like they were using Julian Tavarez and Buchholz as parts of a six-man rotation for part of September, but his official mlb.com bio says "Did not pitch after that start [9/19] and was officially shut down for the remainder of the regular season and post-season on September 28 due to fatigue in his pitching shoulder")

If the Gnats stick to this plan, Strasburg will be held out of five starts in Sept-Oct, which would've added 30-35 IP to his 2010 total.

Strasburg has yet to break 95 pitches in a game, and his highest BFP is 28, so if one believes in this stuff it would seem even more risk-averse than the famous Paul Richards/Milt Pappas scenario.

I think it's instructive to note that baseball as a whole continues to limit high BFP games. In 2000, 23% of all games had starter BFPs of 30 or higher. By 2009, that average had fallen to just 11%. It would be interesting to break all that out by pitcher age.

For my $$, the Gnats ought to consider simply starting Strasburg on five days' rest for the balance of the year. That would lop off one scheduled start for the year--and, given that they're going to pitch him in the first game after the Break, it would slot him to face Arizona twice (which won't be the case otherwise).

Strasburg vs. the D-Backs, who are still on track to strike out 1500 times, is something that shouldn't be missed. With some slight "days rest" juggling, the stage would be set for what ought to be some high-level K-jinks.

BTW: the K-to-2-strike ratio for Strasburg is now at just under 66% (61 Ks out of 93 2-strike counts).

I believe the Red Sox shut down Buchholz after he didn't pass their fabled shoulder strength test.

For my $$, the Gnats ought to consider simply starting Strasburg on five days' rest for the balance of the year. That would lop off one scheduled start for the year--and, given that they're going to pitch him in the first game after the Break, it would slot him to face Arizona twice (which won't be the case otherwise).

TFA claims that this was the original plan, and that for some bad reason, they switched to this plan because the Nats are in contention (?!).

By the way the Nationals' announced attendance last night was 34,723 and it was fireworks night. That is Strasburg's lowest attendance night so far.

34,723
39214-Sat and the day before the 4th of July
31,914-Wed
40,325-Friday and fireworks night
40,315-Tue and first game.

He'll help sell tickets but baseball isn't like the NBA where one player can guarantee sellouts.

He'll help sell tickets but baseball isn't like the NBA where one player can guarantee sellouts.

This is probably the reason that they keep "switching" plans for Strasburg. Didn't they announce that he'd pitch every 5 days until the ASB? Then a week later (giving plenty of time for people to buy tickets), they skipped a day.

It's possible though I don't know for sure. I do see that the Saturday after his second start sold pretty well and I do recall a buddy of mine telling me that there were some shenanigans with his start that week. But I never heard anything about it and they were playing the White Sox and drew pretty well all weekend.

He'll help sell tickets but baseball isn't like the NBA where one player can guarantee sellouts.

Well, Nationals Park has double the capacity of most NBA arenas.

#2 I'm pretty sure that the IP total is one of two specific recommendations by Craig Wright in The Diamond Appraised (I know he has a suggested IP and batters faced per start but I can't find my copy right now)

However, an old Scott Fischtal post in rsba has the heart of Wright's study (which could stand to be revisited. In particular grafting on the minor league pitching numbers)


Okay, here's the BFS data from Craig Wright. The pitchers are all drawn
fomr the period 1966-1980. BFS is only given for season of 170+ IP.


Haas followed with 252/32.1 at age 24
Keough followed with 250/32.2 at age 24
Matlack followed with 265/32.1 at age 24
McGlothen followed with 237/32.6 at age 24
McLain follwed with 326/31.3 at age 24

All of these pitchers had a least one exceptional season in this period;
the composite of the best seasons was a 2.54 ERA in 249 IP at age 22, yet
the composite of their best seasons past age 25 was awful (though
Wright doesn't publish them, a weakness of the study).

Let me toss in a couple more in recent years:


(BTW, if anyone has a list of guys in recent years who flamed out, I'd like to
run them through the formula).

Valenzuela kept getting killed for several more years: 272/32.3 at age 24, 269/32.9 at 25, 251/33.3 at age 26 (and a major loss of effectiveness), before collapsing at age 27. After Gooden's '89 injury, he hasn't worked QUITE so
hard. Look at that record on Gooden; the guy faced 29.9+ batters per game at ages 18, 20, 21, 22 and 23 before getting hurt at 24 (the only exception being his rookie year with the Mets). Eckersley had a 247/31.3 at age 24 before falling off the next year. He later was having a pretty good year in '85 (age 30) before getting hurt. He recovered to have a second career starting at age 32 in Oakland, of course.

Now, for the "VETS"


-Gibson was very ineffective at age 24, a 5.59 ERA in 128 innings, with most of
his appearances coming in long relief.
-John, of course, did get rather seriously hurt.
-Palmer racked up a 305/32.8 at age 24.
-Seaver had a 273/31.1 at age 24.

Anyway, clearly Palmer doesn't look too overworked, as opposed to what we thought in our discussion yesterday. Sutton had one rough year in the minors (1965), but otherwise was rather lightly worked.

BTW, Wright shows in his study that the IP totals and BFS counts for the Vets and Flashes converge at age 24.

Some other pitchers mentioned earlier:


Clemens did put up a 32.1 at age 24 (or 25, the age he turned on August 4, 1987), by the conventions I'm following.

Maddux next cleared 30 BFS at age 26 (30.3), before dropping back to 29.6 last year. He is, however, at 31.7 right now this year. Then again, he is 28 already.

Vida Blue is an interesting case; one season of rather obvious abuse, one borderline case but three years of extreme underwork intermingled. Total Baseball puts his career Total Pitching Rating at 9.4, with 92 adjusted pitching runs, or only about 9 games over a average pitcher for his career.

Saberhagen followed the 31.8 with a 261/31.1 at 24, 262/29.2 at 25. Like Blue, he intermingled years of overworked with underwork.

Wright had lots more data comparing the "Vets" and "Flashes" at various stages of their careers; rather than republish the whole study here, let me restate the reference: "The Diamond Appraised", by Craig Wright and Tom House, Simon and Schuster 1989.

"in range"? The Nats are 9 games under 500, 12.5 games back in the NL East, 9 games back in the Wild Card with 7 teams in front of them. At best they're "in range" of 500.

"in range"? The Nats are 9 games under 500, 12.5 games back in the NL East, 9 games back in the Wild Card with 7 teams in front of them. At best they're "in range" of 500.

Exactly. Let Strasburg pitch and worry about September later, since it's rather unlikely they'll even be a WC contender. Or having him throw an average of 90 pitches per start from here on out. Just don't do the "skip every other start" nonsense--it messed up Joba Chamberlain, it might mess up Hughes (his worst start was the first one after his start got skipped), and I can see it messing up any pitcher's prep.

I'm just wondering where the magic number 160 came from.

Qualifying for the ERA title? Although I'm not sure if Washington would want to get him to qualify, or to avoid it in order to depress his perceived value come arbitration and contract time.

Thank you #16. I'm headed for Amazon as I write this.