Count Chipper Jones among those who wouldn't shut Stephen Strasburg down in the midst of a pennant race. Talking to Yahoo Sports' Les Carpenter, Jones pointed to his own lone World Series title despite the Braves' many postseason appearances as an example of how difficult it is to attain a championship. "Next year what if [Jordan] Zimmermann gets hurt again?” Jones said. “What if Gio Gonzalez goes down? There is a certain set of circumstances. Sometimes things aren’t the same. As those [pitchers] get older they will lose a little bit of speed on their fastballs. They will be a little more hittable. You have to strike while the iron’s hot.”
Here's the latest from Washington…
- Dr. James Andrews support the Nationals' decision to limit Strasburg's innings in an interview with ESPN Radio's Scott Van Pelt (Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post has a partial transcript). Andrews admitted he didn't have direct knowledge of the situation since he didn't perform Strasburg's Tommy John surgery but he "would certainly take up for the decision….I don’t think you can criticize that one bit, to be honest with you."
- Lucas Giolito will undergo Tommy John surgery on August 31, reports Amanda Comak of the Washington Times. The Nats took Giolito with the 16th overall pick of the 2012 draft amidst injury concerns due to a UCL sprain that sidelined the right-hander for much of his final high school season. Giolito has thrown two innings as a professional thus far, pitching for the Nationals' rookie league team. Giolito's surgery will be performed by Dr. Lewis Yocum, who also handled Strasburg and Zimmermann's Tommy John procedures.
Nice job, Chipper. Way to encourage the Nats to come to their senses.
What if he blows out his arm in Sept., never pitches again? No World Series this year buddy
It was a gamble when they took him– either you get a #1 potential pick or a TJ..
The Nats obviously ended up on the wrong side of the wheel this time around. Alas, they have been successful with TJs in the past with Stras and Zimmermann, so I don’t believe it will be an issue.
Well at the very least it is a small issue, a tommy john will make Giolito lose considerable devolopment time. He might be at low a ball fullseason in 2014 which certainly isn’t ideal for a 2012 high draft pick.
Given that he’s an 18 year old out of high school, restarting his professional career at the end of next year at 19 is hardly a crippling setback to the organization’s plans. He was going to get limited innings in his beginning years anyway so this is just not that big a deal, assuming he recovers well from surgery. He’s also not next in line in the system anyway to be counted on to pitch on the major league club.
Never said it was crippling setback or anything like that, but one of the reasons high schoolers get drafted in general higher than college arms is because of upside and they have more time to improve cause of age, Giolito starting his devolopment basically at almost age 20 is far from ideal as a high school arm, and no one knows how he will react after the surgery and rehab. They may not have wanted him to start at fullseason ball in 2013 but they definitely wanted him to finish there at the worst, and probably be read high A ball in 2014.
Why does everyone want the Nats to sacrifice the future of their ace for a post season run? And how come Batman doesn’t dance anymore? Remember the Batusi?
future is now.
Couldn’t agree more. The Nationals are built to win now…SO WIN.
they’re built to win next year, too, but chipper nailed it. the future is uncertain
Because they are in first place and that may not happen again during the strasburg era. They ate playing great ball and have a legit chance to make noise in October that does not happen often for teams not named the Yankees.
not future ace, present ace. present pennant. present opportunity
it’s the same mindset that motivates teams to trade away prospects for rentals. purely by the numbers, you lose those trades. but you pay that price for an opportunity to win now, because you can never be certain that you’ll get another opportunity soon
give him strict pitch count limits if you must, but unless strasburg himself says he doesn’t want to pitch, it’s just too presumptuous to shut him down because you expect to get another chance with him later
Sorta want the Nats to get Agon
Ill take Morse, Gio and desmond. Sounds good??
Morse? Gio? Desmond?
No thank you.
Gotta start negotiations somewhere, right?
In all seriousness I think both teams match as trade partners this offseason.
This could be Strasburg’s best chance to pitch in the World Series. He may never be on another team that is entering the postseason as one of the favorites to represent the NL in the fall classic. Pennants are rare. No team knows how things will go in the future. Look at the Angels. Surely they thought they’d be one of the top teams in the AL this year. You just don’t know. He could be shut down and still blow out his arm next season. Just because that’s how pitchers are…unpredictable. I think the decision should be his.
Definetely, sure it will make it a bigger injury risk, but the nats are very well positioned to go to the ws. They have some very good young pitchers, I think they should push strasburg. I think that it would have been smart to limit him to 90 pitches for many starts to keep his innings down.
This could have all been avoided had they just started Strasburg 2 months in to the season.
I’m actually surprised the argument hasn’t been brought up more. Why didn’t they plan even mid season for this? Shut him down for a month or 2. Slowly rev him back up.
shutting him down and building him back up is probably counter productive to the keep him healthy plan. but he could have just had an extended offseason.
you’d think he could pitch a couple abbreviated, simulated games to keep fresh without enduring much stress, but i really don’t know if it works that way
It’s hard to simulate the stress level of pitching in an MLB contest.
“Why didn’t they just send him to the pen”?
-Joba
Now THIS is a good question. Maybe Stras isn’t good out of the pen, or maybe it’s hard to switch people back and forth but honestly I have no idea. Aroldis (who everyone thought was a left-handed Strasburg when he came on the scene) seems to be doing pretty well in the pen. He’ll be starting next year.
Because if he’s as important to the team’s winning as everyone argues he is, then we wouldn’t have his wins from the first 2 months of the season, and we wouldn’t be 77-47. We are 30 games over .500 and 6 games ahead in the division BECAUSE we started him on opening day and didn’t wait until June.
Now if you say he’s not THAT important, and that we’d still be 77-47 if we had started him June 1, well then clearly, we’ll still reach the same heights in the postseason whether it’s Jordan-Gio-Stras or Jordan-Gio-Jackson/Detwiler.
the argument for his value is primarily about a postseason series. there’s no question he’s extremely valuable over the course of a season, but for obvious reasons his contributions are many times more valuable in 5 and 7 game series than a 162 game “series”
Can’t get to the postseason if you don’t make the playoffs.
Again, we have the Braves breathing down our backs. (Although we’re finally starting to get a little separation at the end of August.) If the other pitchers in the Nats’ arsenal are good enough to maintain the 6 game lead we now have, why are they not good enough to fill in for Stras in the playoffs? If you think that we would still be in this position had we started Stras later, you have to accept that it’s because our whole arsenal is sweet.
No one has answered that.
“If the other pitchers in the Nats’ arsenal are good enough to maintain
the 6 game lead we now have, why are they not good enough to fill in for
Stras in the playoffs?”
is this a serious question?
…because playoffs teams are…better. because in the playoffs, teams – which, again, are already better – don’t send out 4th and 5th starters 40% of the time
in the playoffs, the best teams run out their best starters and bullpen arms 100% of the time. and the margin for error is 2 or 3 games instead of ~50
no offense, but no one answered your question because it’s a ridiculous one. the playoffs are a completely different animal
you may not have the same record, that I will not argue.. but you are shutting him down now anyways are you not, so he’s still going to miss starts.
I’d rather be 3 games up on the division, with strasburg not being shutdown, as opposed to the current situation.
Why didn’t they just skip him regularly in the early part of the season. Skip a start in April, 2 in May and June, 1 in July, 2 in August, 1 in September. Boom. There’s 35-40 innings you can use for the playoffs.
It doesn’t make sense. That Nats are playing so well why shut down the best pitcher. The more he throws the stronger he will get.
It would have made more sense to pace him early in the season so that you have your best pitcher available when it counts most (in the post-season). Rizzo created a no-win situation for himself when he announced early on that Strasburg would be shut down. Now, he’s damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t. Even Strasburg can’t be happy about the possibility of missing out on a chance to pitch in the playoffs and WS. What a mess!
I see them shutting down his regular season then succumbing to the scrutiny of everyone, fans and sports writers alike, and acrivating him for the post season. Just my guess though.
Everyone forget that a ccommitment and decision was made in the begining of the season. The Nats were hoping to be a game or so over 500 by the end of the season. Monday morning quaterbacking is easy.
I don’t see why so many people seem to think that baseball won’t be played after 2012. He should be shut down, both for the long term health of his arm and the organization. If you value 2012 > 2013-2017, I don’t understand that. There’s no reason to think that a team that’s built like the Nationals won’t be competitive going forward, especially as the Phillies do their best to sink faster than the Titanic, the Mets are the Mets, and the Marlins have some serious holes. The Braves are basically the only stable team in that division. Just because they poorly handled the innings limit early in the season doesn’t mean they should ignore it now and keep him on the mound. Shut him down so he’s good going forward.
The Colon deal in 2002 ruined the moving can for DC. A reminder
This is interesting because everybody involved has an interesting history with innings. Strasburg’s 3 seasons 68-24-145. Not very many. Dave Johnson had a young Dwight Gooden and he went 218-276-250. 276 led league, 250 was the WS year. Also wonder if pitching coach Steve McCatty will weigh in. Remember, he was the #4 starter for the 1980 A’s, which had 94 CG. Their starters pitched 290-284-250-221-211, but it should be noted that after the 81 playoff run, the 5 starters combined only had 2 winning seasons and 16 losing ones.
Please talk # of pitches not innings