Forum: blurb
Page 557
Subject: Daily Blurb - August 22, 2012


  Posted by: Guru - [330592710] Wed, Aug 22, 2012, 12:01

Quote of teh day
"It's funny. Nobody talks to me personally about it. Obviously, I can either scour the Internet or watch all the stuff being said on TV or I can just keep pitching and watch the Golf Channel, I guess." -- Nats pitcher Stephen Strasburg, on the possibility that he’ll be shut down (by team management) for the season after 160 innings pitched

Daily Blurb
For a season in which a team is out of contention by mid-August, shutting down a young pitcher early has few adverse consequences. And until this season, the Nationals have probably never been serious contenders in mid-August, so a pending Strasburg shutdown would not be particularly controversial (other than among Strasburg’s fantasy owners).

But the Nats are not only in contention, they sport the best winning percentage in baseball, and should easily advance to the postseason - barring an epic collapse. One might argue that shutting down Strasburg for the rest of the regular season might be OK in this situation as well, since he’d probably miss at most 5 starts. But you’d certainly want him pitching in the playoffs. And you’d certainly want the Nats to do whatever it takes to win the division, and not merely squeak in as a wild card team (given the one-game playoff format for wild card teams.) So if it were up to me and I was convinced that an overall innings limit was desirable, I’d find a way to limit his September workload without a full shutdown. Start him every 7 days, for example. Limit him to 80-90 pitches per outing (or less). Whatever it takes to keep him reasonably sharp, but not push the limits. The only team that could unseat Washington as division champ is Atlanta, currently 7 games back. Make sure Strasburg is available to pitch in the last Nats-Braves series in mid-September. Give him two limited starts after that series, and see where things go. The situation would be trickier if Washington were in a closely contested race. But that does not seem to be where things are heading.

GuruGolf tees off tomorrow morning for The Barclays, which is the first round of the FedEx Cup. That means there are only four events remaining in the GuruGolf season. The race for the best ball championship is certainly not yet settled, although only two teams are within 25 strokes of the frontrunner. The worst ball standings are much more congested at the top, where 18 teams are within 25 strokes of the leader. Keep plugging away!

 
1weykool
      ID: 8657121
      Wed, Aug 22, 2012, 12:10
I agree with saving Strasburg for the post season.
Setting an arbitrary 160 innings limits seems a tad silly anyways. An inning can be anywhere from 3 pitches to 30+ pitches.
If the Nats make the playoffs and Strasburg is unavailable due to a silly management decision the league should commence an immediate sale of the team.
 
2Frick
      ID: 14082314
      Wed, Aug 22, 2012, 12:37
As a Cubs fan, I wish Dusty Baker had subscribed to this logic. Both Wood and Prior had their careers ruined IMO by Dusty and his "Wait, the rookie has thrown 183 pitches through 7 innings? He's good for the next 2 innings."