Strasburg’s Innings Cap Revealed to Be 180 IP
Via Yahooo’s Jeff Passan:
While Mike Rizzo wouldn’t pin down a number, he said Stephen Strasburg will not exceed 180 innings.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) August 10, 2012
While the Nationals have been saying publicly for a while that they were going to take precautions with Stephen Strasburg, this is the firmest comment yet on just where the line is going to be drawn. The team shut down Jordan Zimmermann after 160 innings last year, so that had been where most guesses were falling, but it sounds like Strasburg will get to make two or three more starts than his teammate did a year ago.
Just doing the basic math, Strasburg is at 127 innings right now, leaving him 53 innings before he gets to 180. Strasburg is averaging 5.8 innings per start, so on his current trajectory, that would leave him with nine more starts this season. The Nationals have 50 games remaining on their schedule, so sticking with a five man rotation and not skipping the 5th starter would leave each member of the rotation with 10 more turns. Without alteration, this limit would essentially take Strasburg to the final week of the regular season, and he’d simply skip his final regular season start and watch the playoffs as a spectator.
However, the Nationals don’t have to follow the same path they’ve been on to date. With the best record in baseball and a 4 1/2 game lead in the NL East, significant diminishing returns from each additional win are going to kick in pretty soon. If the Nationals just play .500 ball the rest of the way, they’ll finish with 94 wins and are essentially guaranteed a spot in at least the wild card play-in game, and even that kind of mediocre finish should give them a pretty good shot at holding off the Braves for the division title. The Nationals don’t have to go for broke down the stretch – they just need to play decent baseball.
So, rather than just running Strasburg out there every five days, they can afford to skip a couple of his starts down the stretch. Rizzo has been firm that they weren’t going to shut him down for several weeks and then try to bring him back, but Major League starters skip one turn in the rotation all the time without ill effect. Simply using the off days in the schedule to reduce his regular season workload shouldn’t be that difficult.
His next three starts are lined up to come against ARI (tonight), SF (Wednesday), and ATL (August 21st), and since all of those teams are playoff contenders who you want to try and beat, you want him making those three starts. After that start, however, off days and the schedule become the Nationals friend.
Washington has a day off on both August 23rd and August 27th, so they can skip Strasburg once through the rotation without even having to make any roster moves. Edwin Jackson is line to pitch on the 22nd and could come back to pitch on the 28th, and because of the off day after the weekend series, Ross Detwiler would be able to go in his normal place on the 29th, as the two off days close to each other allow for the team to simply go with four starters during that sequence. Skipping Strasburg against a weakened Miami roster is unlikely to cost them a significant chance of winning, and a loss to the Marlins will only harm their own playoff chances and not benefit one of their competitors.
Strasburg would then be lined up to start September 1st against STL, and then the Nationals would have to make a decision based on their current place in the standings. If they had pulled away from Atlanta over the next three weeks, they could then afford to skip Strasburg’s start on September 6th against the Cubs — another game they should be able to win without him — and because of the roster expansion, they’d have the ability to cover the rotation without any serious re-working of the starters. They could then bring him back to face the Mets on September 11th, which would line him up to pitch the weekend series finale against the Braves on September 16th on five days rest.
Another off day gives them a chance to let him make his next start on five days rest as well, pitching on the 22nd against the Brewers and finishing up on the 27th against the Phillies. At that point, he’ll have made eight starts, and if they limit him to between 5-6 innings per start, he’ll have thrown between 167 and 175 innings on the year. With just a few games remaining, they should know how important that last scheduled start against Philadelphia is going to be in terms of winning the division. If it’s a dogfight with Atlanta for the division title, you probably use him in that final regular season start and try to avoid the wild card play-in game if you can, thanking him for his good work and giving him a front row seat for the playoffs.
If they have a cushion, though, Washington can give him that start off and still have him be under the 180 inning limit when the playoffs begin, planning to get one postseason start out of him. From there, it’s simply a decision of whether you want to fire that one bullet in the NLDS or give your team a chance to win in three or four games without him, saving him for a potential Game 5 of the first round or Game 1 of the NLCS. Either way, you’re getting a high leverage playoff start out of Strasburg this year.
With seven weeks to go and nine starts to use, the Nationals can get one playoff appearance from Stephen Strasburg. If they want to get even more creative, they could limit his workload in several of those starts and perhaps even manage to get two shorter playoff starts, all while staying below this 180 inning limit.
At 160 innings, they probably had no shot of seeing Strasburg in October. At 180, though, they can probably arrange things in such a way that they squeeze every last drop of value out of his arm this year.
I have never been sure how the playoff roster rules work. Can he pitch in one series and then be removed from the roster for the next one?
yes
What roster do you need to be on before Sep. 1 to be playoff-eligible? The 40 man?
You need to have been on the 25-man roster at some point in the season before September 1.
Actually, if I understand correctly, he needs to be on the 25-man going into roster expansion on 9/1, not just any point before that.
However, he’d be allowed an exception if he’s on the DL at that point in time.
And on the other side of DL/injury-related equation, IIRC, a DL-bound injury to a playoff roster member can allow someone else to take his roster spot although I’m not too clear on who’s eligible to take such a spot — I’d guess he has to already be on the 40-man roster before the start of the playoffs, if not as early as 9/1. IIRC, that’s more or less how K-Rod made his big MLB splash in the 2002 postseason despite being a mid/late-Sept call-up. In his case, he made the playoff roster before the postseason began. Matt Moore also got into the postseason in similar fashion last year as did David Price before him (back in 2008).
stras is starting against the Diamonbacks tonight, not the Cards
While Mike Rizzo wouldn’t pin down a number, he pinned down a number.
I imagine he’s pinned down a rotation schedule too.
Not quite correct. He pinned down the maximum.
Basically, my read of this, knowing Rizzo (and I’ve met him a couple of times), is that Strasburg will be shut down at no less than 160 and no more than 180 innings, his discretion in that range.
#humblebrag
C’mon, Dave–read more carefully.
Rizzo didn’t say Strasburg would pitch 180 innings, which is what all your calculations assume. Rizzo said Strasburg wouldn’t pitch more than 180, which is the # that the twit-o-sphere has been throwing around for weeks, and which Passan may well have posed to him as a question.
He also won’t pitch over 350 innings this season.
Rizzo has been pretty consistent about saying that they won’t be pulling any rotation shenanigans to keep Strassburg below his innings cap longer. So he’s probably just going to be taking the ball every fifth game until they shut him down. And since it’s Strassburg’s turn tonight, he wouldn’t quite make it to the last week of the regular season at his current pace; his last start would be September 24 against the Brewers.
Since when does skipping a start or two equal shenanigans?
Totally agree w/ Ben. If they’re too lazy or apathetic to try and shift 2-3 starts by one of the best pitchers on the planet earth from August-September into October to maximize their chances of winning a World Series, that seems to verge on a fire-able offense to me. They should haev seen this coming all year and planned accordingly.
Correction in the 5th graf, Strasburg starts against ARI tonight. I’m sure the Nats still want to beat Arizona, but they aren’t quite the playoff contender that STL is.
Strasburg has been far more streaky since the all-star break. Combined with anecdotes from TJ pitchers about never really knowing how each game will go during your first year back, Stras’s recent performances make me wonder how much more lethal that final bullet is than a start by Jackson or Detwiler. It would be cool to see the kid in the playoffs, but the Nats are less concerned about being cool than winning.
Since we all know season statistics only include regular season numbers, not postseason (eg, David Freese hit 10 HRs in 2011, not 15; Greg Maddux pitched 219.3 innings in 1999, not 247.3 innings), what are the chances that Rizzo is playing coy and leaving open the possibility that Strasburg will throw 179 innings in the season, and still end up starting multiple postseason games?
Zero.
Rizzo has been firm on the innings limit. He’s not being coy.
Guys, I think I found out the identity of Mike Rizzo. It’s this “cass” person above me. Anyone speaking with that type of certainty about what Mike Rizzo is going to do could only be Mike Rizzo himself.
FYI, I’m also available for private detective work. $200/day.
Bzzt. Wrong. “cass” is Rizzo’s director of scouting.
This is all so dumb. What if he pitches a bunch of low pitch count innings in the next few starts? Or the opposite?
Precisely. This has become a game of manipulating starts – based on an arbitrary standard, namely innings pitched, and not based on any objective proof that says, “if you pitch X innings, his arm will fall off”.
Doing *something* to protect Stras going forward is prudent and respectable. But doing *something* should at least be based on *something* objectively proven rather than the arbitrariness of innings pitched.
Well all things being equal, more pitches = higher chance of injury. Innings a pretty good proxy for pitches (although since we and the Nationals actually have pitch count data I’m not sure why they just don’t use that).
Either way, I can see the logic behind them having a hard cap. But I still agree that there are a lot of things they can do so that Strasburg pitches more in the playoffs.
What do you proposed though would be that “‘something’ objectively proven”?
I seriously doubt you’ll find a much more objectively proven, prudent enough approach than what they’re going w/ at this point. They could be more conservative to play it safer of course, but not sure if that’s what you’re hinting toward.
Anyway, since Rizzo’s only saying 180 max w/out explain much, not that it’ll definitely be 180, then the number may just be a simple, reasonably flexible target for all the watercooler and media banter (and to get the public off his back on it). Who knows how/where Rizzo will actually come down on the final tally (and whether it won’t actually involve much more than just what may appear arbitrary to you and the average Joe)…
Which is why Rizzo probably hasn’t pinned down an exact inning count.
I think innings are a better proxy than pitches, because of warming up and so on. Throwing 10 pitches, say, is not 10 times as bad as throwing a single in-game pitch.
Or they could consider having him throw 3-4 innings at the start of each game for the rest of the season, plus missing those starts that you mention. That would leave him with more availability come playoff time.
It does not make sense to me to use up all his innings before the playoffs. Playoff innings are in general more valuable and I would think they’d want their best pitcher available for those innings.
Are they really going to bench their best player during the playoffs? That seems silly, especially if he still feels good. No guarantees they’ll be back anytime soon.
nobody’s talking about benching gio gonzalez
Strasburg has a higher true talent level than Gio. Gio has better results right now, but that’s a different thing.
Nobody’s talking about benching Jordan Zimmermann either.
But Stephen Strasburg IS the team’s best pinch-hitter.
Jordan Zimmermann is the best pitcher on this team right now. Strasburg just has higher potential.
Depends on the stat you like. Strasburg’s 2.71 xFIP leads all of baseball. Gio (3.19 xFIP) and Zimmermann (3.51 xFIP) are also both very good, obviously.
Yeah, this is the question I wonder about. If they get to a deciding 5th or 7th game, and it’s win or go home, do you really just leave him on the bench? And knowing that, do you really leave him off the rosters?
I know what they’re saying now, but saying something in the abstract and doing it in the heat of the moment, when the stakes are much higher, is something else. I’d have tremendous respect for them if they stuck to their guns even as they’re getting booted out of the NLDS/CS/WS. And the saner fans will too. But the crazy fans, and the national media, and everyone else?
Though can you imagine late innings in Game 7 of the World Series (at home for the NL), after having sat out the entire postseason, “Now warming up in the Nationals bullpen, Stephen Strasburg….”
I think the question is whether the decision to bench him would hurt revenue. It would, to the extent benching him causes the Nats to lose early in the playoff, but (a) anything can happen in the playoffs and (2) you have to factor in the risk of reinjury and all the wins lost if he doesn’t pitch again.
It helps that Tom Boswell has already come out in support of Rizzo on this. The rest of the city will fall in line, even as the press tries to get page hits out of it.
No guarantees, but the reasonable working assumption has to be that they have a few good years in front of them, given how good the pitching is, and where the runs are coming from.
I’ve never understood the idea that you would knowingly put a player’s long-term health in jeopardy. This isn’t Schilling’s ankle — if Stras needs a second Tommy John, there’s an 80% chance that his career is over.
I also assume that Strasburg, his agent, and his GM have a better handle on the risks and potential benefits than we do.
How much would an additional 15-20 innings increase the chances of him getting hurt? Is there any non-anecdotal evidence that he’s more likely to be injured in that block of 20 innings than any other that he pitches? I’d send him out there if he’s still pitching effectively and feeling good.
Seriously, I would love to see a breakout of starting pitcher DL incidence by blocks of innings pitched on the season. Somebody make that happen. Maybe broken into age groups and prior year innings as well.
Responding to cowdisciple here, but it wouldn’t let me reply to his post, so…
If such a chart was made, it also might be interesting to see one where the pitcher was injured the previous year for a decent amount of time or something, and how long they were pitched the next year and so on and how it affected their DL time. Are pitchers who are coming off of TJ more likely to get injured in the same amount of innings as a pitcher coming off a lesser injury or just a normal pitcher and if so, how many innings do they usually break down at?
It’s not that simple though.
As cowdisciple also sorta recognized, at what point will Stras become ineffective enough for it to be not worthwhile taking the risk and playing him.
There’s probably not a whole lot of useful data on actual re-injuries following successful TJ recovery (at least the kind relevant to this topic) because people have by and large played it safe.
There’s probably more available data to help approximate when the TJ-recovered pitcher starts to lose effectiveness though during the year following recovery. And that’s probably what you’d care about more anyway, given pitchers typically start losing effectiveness (and/or need to compensate) before an actual/serious (re)injury occurs, if you’re trying to figure out whether to keep using Stras as the season (and penant race) progresses…
Also, a lot of this seems to go back to how they typically want to ramp up workload from year to year for young pitchers anyway as they transition from amateur ball up through the various levels of pro ball.
Remember, a TJ-recovering pitcher hasn’t thrown a single pro inning for roughly a year before getting some work that 1st year back. And then, he’d need to ramp up from there, which is where Stras is now. Even w/out the TJ-recovery aspect, they wouldn’t really want him to go from a mere ~45 innings of work one year all the way to a full, normal season’s 200-plus-IP workload, especially since he’s never actually gotten that much pro work before now either.
It’s not between a full 200 IP+ season and 180 IPs.
It’s between 180 IPs and somewhere in the range of 181-189 IP, because it comes down to if you should use Strasburg in tight situations during the playoff or not, and how big of a risk that is. Do you take a risk of, at most, 9 more IP to possibly win an elmination game(Say, 2-1 or 3-2), or to try and ensure an opponent is knocked out(Say, being up 2-1 or being up 3-1/3-2).
The fact he’s unlikely to reinjure himself over a single extra game and the possibility of revenue gain from winning a playoff game or, even better, getting to the World Series, makes it a very reasonable risk to take, in my opinion. Ignoring the obvious wanting to win a WS part. You’re not going to start Stras early in a series or if you’re in a really bad elimination situation(2-0, 3-0, for example). But in my opinion, it’s definitely worth it to start Stras in higher leverage situations, even at the risk fo reinjury.
Actually, we don’t really know what’s the best IP number. We’re all just speculating really.
So your argument about tacking on an extra game or so can only go so far.
At the end of the day, we actually don’t know that 180IP (or 160 or 189 or whatever) is all that ideal of an IP limit for Strasburg. If anything, 180IP is probably already on the high side based on what has been done so far as well as what some of us are seeing in Strasburg’s (reduced) effectiveness at this point, so your insistence on adding to that is not a great idea.
Remember, the whole point of limiting Strasburg’s workload is to protect him for the long run. Any desire to exceed what may be considered the ideal max (for his long term health and effectiveness) should be seriously tempered and require very substantial justification for the risks involved. I don’t think an unsubstantiated opinion that adding just another game to his workload is low risk is just that… unsubstantiated.
Holy made up stat – 80% of people who have a second TJ never return do they? Pretty sure you made that up, didn’t you? Not that the Nats should be taking risks or anything, but what you said just isn’t true.
Anyone who isn’t convinced that the Nationals are serious about inning limits needs to consider how the Nationals have treated Jordan Zimmermann. Coming off TJ, Zimmermann was stopped at 160 last year (Nats weren’t in the wild card chase), but more interestingly (and having watched a number of Zimmermann’s starts this year) it is pretty clear that he is still on a tight leash in his second year after TJ. Zimmermann has gone 6 innings in all but one of his starts, but has NEVER gone more than 7 innings. This, despite dominating in certain starts— he has been stopped at 7 innings and less than 85 pitches on 4 different occasions.
This suggests to me that the Nationals have been serious all along, and continue to be serious, about having a SP rotation devoid of Strasburg in the playoffs. I think Rizzo realizes that Zimmermann could be asked to make as many as 3 or 4 starts in the playoffs, and has asked Davey Johnson to keep Zimmermann below 190 innings or so by the end of the season.
This. Also, why has no one questioned what screwing with a piche’s routine that much does to his performance? Look at JZ last year, extra day rest he was clearly worse and multiple extra days he was awful both times. And as someone said, Stras has become unpredictable, which makes intuitive sense.
Unpredictable? I don’t see any support for that in the data.
Monthly xFIP:
Apr 2.90
May 2.66
June 2.27
July 3.22
Aug 2.07
I would call that incredible consistency.
I don’t think you can be sure about short term consistency just by tallying (essentially arbitrary) monthly data. Also, xFIP is not the be-all-that-ends-all for something like this either, if it even is in general.
Probably need to dig deeper to get a clearer picture. Certainly, he’s giving up more *actual* runs of late even if that may or may not be related to his TJ recovery or be truly indicative of what to expect for the rest of the year.
The Nats also weren’t contending last year and had the luxury to set a hard limit on Zimmerman because it didn’t matter if he was available after September.
Also, setting an IP limit on Zimmerman and Strasburg does not firmly prove that they are willing to go without Strasburg in the playoffs. The two decisions are quite different.
If they really insist on a 180 inning limit, I don’t see why they wouldn’t just have him pitch 3-4 inning starts the rest of the way.
I think that would be easy with 40 man rosters, but hard until then.
That’s what long relievers are for.
Because he still has to warm up fully each time, which is effectively wasted effort.
So? He’d still be pitching fewer pitches overall. Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Warmup pitches and the like.
What would make more sense is having him on a college SP’s schedule, where he pitches once a week instead of every five days. You keep him on a schedule, just with an extra rest day between starts. If he had such a schedule the entire year, he’d make about 27 starts.
This reminds me, how did Fangraphs not have Zimmermann in the top 50 at all. #2 in the NL right now in ERA and he is still young and cheap. I dont see how you take Cain over him when Zimmermann is a younger version of Cain but significantly cheaper.
I can’t imagine them keeping up Stras’ inning limit up if they have any serious shot at the playoffs. If it’s the difference between 187 innings and a potentially important playoff win and 180 innings and a playoff loss, I think you’ve gotta take that small chance.
But you see, they AREN’T serious about the playoffs this year. They’re serious about going there, but their thought is that they have a better chance at 2013-15 than 2012. This is the practice run.
I mean, I’m a Nats fan, and the most I’m actually expecting from this year is Game 7 in the NLCS. With or without Strasburg.
If they aren’t serious, they should be (inasmuch as their level of seriousity will affect the team they put on the field, anyway). The Braves have had 11 good to great teams in the playoffs since 1995 and never won… It’d be foolish to squander a perfectly good shot at it by not playing your best players.
When your upper limit is one game from the World Series, your team is a World Series contender. It’s just too close to say they’re not and there’s not really any reason that this playoff should not be taken seriously: They’re 1st in runs allowed, have the best record in the league, their offense is at the least average, unless they have a total implosion their statistics are plenty good enough to make at least a run for it.
There’s also the fact that, all things considered, throwing Strasberg out for a game is highly unlikely to seriously impact him. If you are worried about his time, play him only in potential key games, such as clinching games or, if the series is close, elimination games. Pitch Strasberg once in the NLCS, if we assume they do not end up needing him in the WC, and even if he goes seven innings, what are the serious odds of him getting a leigitmate injury from that, moreso than any previous games? The risk isn’t high enough to be slotted in against the reward of increased revenue from a possible World Series birth or win. The possible difference between a WC loss and a WC win, especially given the new WC rules, means there is plenty of financial reason to throw him out there if the series gets to 2-1/2-2. This also assumes Strasberg even goes for seven: They could impose a pitch count limit, possibly take him out in the 5th/6th, or he might not even be effective and pulled out early.
The risk simply is not great enough, in my opinion, when compared to the reward, to sit him. The only exception being if Strasberg complains of arm troubles or he noticably slows down or something, if the Nationals over the second half fade into a less contentious team or they are down by, say, 2-0 or 3-1 or 3-0 or something and thus the odds of winning are low enough the risk becomes too great. If he can’t handle an extra seven innings, not seven plus seven plus seven more, just seven, then he might be too fragile even in 2013 and beyond and other options should maybe be considered.
That’s just my opinion though and it might partially be because I have the Nationals in the WS at the moment. But still, it’d be nice to see what anyone else thinks.
There’s no such thing as getting to the playoffs and not being serious about the World Series.
The windows are just too narrow and subject to change to figure otherwise.
“But you see, they AREN’T serious about the playoffs this year.”
Citation(s) needed.
One week ago, the Nats did the worst job at the deadline because they didn’t trade for someone. Today, they have lots of room to drop some performance… What happened… oh a 6g winning streak
I don’t think the Nats needed to do anything at the deadline. They have a bullpen that just about any team in baseball would want, a scary top of the rotation, and a solid lineup. With Mike Morse rounding into form and Jayson Werth returning from a long DL stint, I think the Nats felt that they were already adding talent from within and did not need to go outside to get anything else.
If Ian Desmond returns and keeps scorching the ball, look out. These guys have a real shot.
rizzo shuts down stras for playoffs —> nats lose playoffs because stras doesnt pitch –> fans outrage –> team loses money –> someone loses job
Actually, most Nats fans I know think this is a good idea and can’t understand why everyone else is getting so worked up about it.
Actually, most Nats fans I know think the opposite.
So who wins?
Yeah, but you think they shouldn’t try to win the WS this year, because it’s not their time or some nonsense like that. Maybe you should go to St. Louis and tell the Cardinals what they did wrong last year or something.
Simon, the Cardinals are a great example of why Strasburg isn’t needed. The playoffs are a crapshoot. You can still win the World Series without him.
I’m honestly a little disappointed that no one at fangraphs has been making this particular point. Yes, Strasburg is talented. But in one-game anyone can be great (recent examples Humber, Braden, Galarraga). Strasburg does give you a better chance of having a great performace, however, virtually NO ONE is factoring in the SSS crapshoot quality of playoffs.
The Nats will try their hardest without Strasburg. They won’t actively try to not win – which is kind of what you’re absurdly (even by internet comment section standards) implying.
Would you similarly claim, for example, that if CC Sabathia went down the Yankees no longer had a chance to win? And before you point out they’re not the same thing (duh), I’ll acknowledge the difference. Choosing to sit a player and losing him are quite different. However, in both cases the team is not doomed sans one player. Especially, in baseball. Especially in the crapshoot-playoffs.
Madison Bumgarner 2010– seasonal age 20/21, minor league innings 82.2, MLB innings 111.0, postseason innings 20.2 = 214.1 innings (p[revious year 141.1 innings). Result: world championship ring, no apparent ill effects.
Did you miss the part where Strasburg had TJ surgery in late 2010? As a result he threw about 120 minor+major league inn. in 2010 and 45 in 2011-vs. Bumgarner’s 140 each in 2008-09.
Quite a difference in the ramp up.
They should have had 6 man rotation all year. That why they could have reduced the innings for all their starters. Could have potentially shaved 5 starts each which is about 30-40 innings per pitcher. They were paying jon lannan big bucks to play AAA all year.
6-man rotation all year requires a short bench. Not worth it if youre a team with top flight starters and good bench options like the Nationals. There’s a reason that 6 man rotations tend to occur only in the american league, where the bench is less important to a team’s success.
But in September, it’s an option. See above.
lol. You’re saying shorting one fucking player on the bench isn’t worth having Strasburg start in the playoffs? Did you even think about that comment>?
Shorting one player on the bench for an entire season is a hard thing to do. No telling how many games that costs you.
So yes, I’m saying it’s not worth it.
Also, for about a month this season the Nats played with an 8-man bullpen. They couldn’t have done that had they employed a 6 man rotation. They would have had to cut a valuable reliever like Henry Rodriguez.
Not really… just a smaller bullpen. Maybe use that 6th starter out of the pen during weeks with days off. You don’t need 7 relievers with a 6 man rotation.
I love the types of responses that display little understanding of what goes on in real baseball world.
With a short bench, using a diluted rotation (by the very fact of have a guy worse than your 5th starter pitcher throw 20+ games) – you are very unlikely to be in the position that the team is in right now.
And forget not understanding baseball…it is epically fallacious to assume two vastly different strategies would land the team in the exact same spot.
So many of the Strasburg needs to pitch in the playoff people are only able to see the situation from right now.
But seriously, imagine reading this headline in early March: “Nats to use 6-man rotation: So Straburg can pitch in the playoffs.” The very idea – Nats in the playoffs – would have been the second most mocked thing in spring training (because making fun of that thing in Miami’s CF was pretty popular.)
But if we’re going to play the hindsight game…a 6 man rotation takes away about 5 starts from Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmermann. This is like having your teams 3 best starters all go on the DL once during the course of the season. How many playoff teams have that occur? Not a lot.
Also, injuries HAVE taken huge toll on the lineup. But no need for bench players, right?
The Nationals won’t do anything out of the ordinary until roster expansion in September.
At that point I expect they will evaluate where they’re at. are they in a dogfight with Atlanta, or have they pulled away? How important is the #1 seed? With off days and the potential 6th (John Lannan) and 7th (Zach Duke) and 8th (Yunesky Maya) starters on the roster, they could rearrange the rotation.
If they’re in a dogfight with Atlanta, I wouldn’t be surprised if they go to a 6 man rotation with Lannan at the beginning of September so as to extend Strasburg to the end of the season if need be. 6 man rotation for one month saves a little over one start per starting pitcher. Could save 2 starts for Strasburg if they orient the rotation appropriately.
If they have a comfortable lead, they will probably just burn Strasburg mid-month and get Lannan and/or some of the other guys some spot starts at that point.
Strasburg will make three starts in the rest of August. He’s currently scheduled to pitch Aug 15 @ SF, Aug 21 vs ATL, and Aug 28 @ MIA. Say 17 innings total. That puts him at 150.1 going into the month of September. A hair under 30 innings under the 180 number.
If they implement a 6 man rotation on September 1, he will be able to finish the season without being shut down if he averages between 5-6 innings a start as he has so far this season. He would make 5 starts in September with a 6 man rotation: Sept 3 vs CHC, Sept 9 vs MIA, Sept 16 @ ATL, Sept 23 vs MIL, and Sept 29 @ STL. (This is compared to the 6-7 starts he would make in a five man rotation).
This is what Rizzo has in mind, I think. It will be far more palatable to shut Strasburg down after the season is over (but before the playoffs begin) than it would be to shut Strasburg down with 10 games left. A nightmare scenario will occur if the Nationals are in a dogfight with the Braves with 10 games left, they shut Stras down, and then lose the division by a small margin. If they can extend him to the end of September, his shutdown will not dampen the euphoria of making the playoffs. This is new territory for the team and its fanbase, after all.
Wonder if in the future, if teams have these sorts of innings limits on a pitcher, if it would work to have him delay his season debut so that he’d be eligible to pitch an entire season and playoff run if that should come to pass. It seems like it’d be much easier to manage innings and media expectations in spring training and/or extended spring training than during a pennant race and post-season run.
If the Nats had been favoured to make the playoffs at the start of the season, I think they would have strongly considered this.
However they were 4th favs for the NL East, so going all-in on making the playoffs made more sense than all-in on winning them.
But I think they could have been equally all-in on making the playoffs by starting Strasburg a month late rather than shutting him down a month early. Either way, they go a month or so without Strasburg.
I think in the future teams would be smart to do as I’m suggesting — unless somebody sees a downside that I don’t see. Whereas the downside to having your innings-limited pitcher start the year is clear — if you get into a pennant race, as with the Nats this year, there will be pressure and temptation to push the limit.
I think it depends on what your team’s situation is.
For a team like the win-now Tigers this makes more sense.
For a team like the Nats, who have been eyeing up 2013 as the opening of a peak couple of years for a while. I think, in March before the season starts and you know you’re going to be 25+ over .500 in August, it probably makes more sense to get those innings in early and ‘cheat’ a little bit and give your guy and extra long off-season as you enter the “go” years of your plan.
I’m a Nats fan who’s been following the team since ’06, and I’m actually very supportive of the innings limit on Strasburg. When he’s on, he’s probably the best starting pitcher alive. However, he’s still learning how to pitch at the big league level, and good teams have and will take advantage of his youth and inexperience. It still looks like he tries too hard to make perfect pitches, and lets mistakes affect him going forward in a start.
It may go without saying, but he’s not the most durable guy, either. He’s had issues with the heat, hangnails, blisters, a stiff back and misplaced Icy Hot supposedly contribute to sub-par outings this season, which doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence that he can pitch well into October on a newly reconstructed elbow against the best of the best.
People forget that the Nats were never supposed to win the division this year. They have a predominantly young roster with little to no playoff experience. Their pitching was going to be good, but no one knew how good. Rizzo has said all along that he isn’t trying to build a championship team; he’s trying to build a dynasty. It seems to be working pretty well, so I give him the benefit of the doubt.
To the people willing to sacrifice this years playoffs by sitting Strasburg, I would like to remind you all that since the Mariners won 116 games in 2001 they haven’t been back to the playoffs. Never take a playoff opportunity for granted, things can go south way to easily.
Yeah, but those M’s are quite different from these Nats in a whole lot of ways, so that would be a rather poor comp anyway. Besides, the 116-win M’s of 2001 = tiny sample size.
If you check, the A’s also won over 100 that year and then beat the M’s for the division title for the next couple years and was regularly in or near contention form for that division. And they did it w/ a smaller budget than the M’s.
The current Nats probably benefit from most of the best traits between those M’s and A’s although Rizzo’s front office may or may not be as good as Beane’s — I can’t imagine it’ll be as bad as Bavasi’s anyhow…
Also, those A’s were a bit more on the pitching-centric side of things…sound like any team you know?
Dave,
Was hoping you and the rest of Fangraphs would be smart enough to let this go. He’s going to be shut down. It’s in both his and the team’s best interest (long term). Done deal. Please don’t let this site devolve into SportCenter.
Whether it is in the team’s best long term interest is debatable. What makes it such a done deal to you that it is worth being dismissed?
Yes, Strasburg is going to be shut down, this does not mean that discussion on if Strasburg should be shut down cannot be potentially interesting or enlightening.
It’s a medical issue. The Nats are taking the advice of the experts as to how to manage the recovery from this injury/surgery.
The merits of a defensive shift or lineup order are worth a discussion. This is not.
Having read this comment, I’ve now changed my mind and decided that Fangraphs and all other sites should now uncritically accept all decisions made by all front offices from now on.
Seriously, this must be one of the weakest comments that’s been posted here for a while. It translates as:
You shouldn’t talk about this, because the club is right. And they’ve made a decision. If you talk about it, you are awful.
I have never seen as much militant lynch-mob-like butthurt in a debate as I’ve seen from Nats fans about people questioning the team’s handling of Strasburg’s IP limit.
Maybe there is a better way to handle it than the way the team is handling it. What is so wrong about discussing that possibility?
This IS a horrible argument for/defense of the innings limit. But let’s not pretend illogic and mob-ish responses are the sole area of those defending the limit.
I mean more than a few anti-limit arguments are based on on the idea that Rizzo should have assumed in Feb/Mar his team would have the best record in baseball in August – among other crazy ideas.
And as exhibited by the characterization of National fans…it doesn’t really seem you want to debate the merits either. It sounds like you want them to type into their computers how right you are, and that they never should have thought differently. You don’t use words like mob, etc. when you think…yeah, maybe that other side DOES have a point.
“If you talk about it, you are awful.”
No, not at all awful. Silly, maybe.
Guess I just don’t understand the point of the wasted time spent discussing this situation.
Mike Rizzo made a decision [at the beginning of the season before there was any real expectation that the Nats would be in this position (not that, from what he says, that would have influenced this decision)] based solely on what he believes is in the best long term interest of both Strasburg’s physical health AND the teams’s investment in him as an asset. Is he erring on the side of caution? Possibly. We’ll never know, will we?
It seems to me that there are really only two intelligent conversations to be had on the topic:
1) Is the CHANCE at a World Series victory worth the risk of the long term health of a tremendously valuable asset on a team that seems to be built to contend for years to come?
2) What is the best Tommy John-surgery-recovery-plan for a young pitcher with Stephen Strasburg’s profile. Is there any reason to listen to anyone but a medical expert in this particular field discuss this question?
“It’s in both his and the team’s best interest (long term).”
A) I would agrue that it’s in the team’s best interests to try and win the world series when they have a legitimate shot too. Windows for winning are small and unpredictable unless you have near-unlimited resources. B) His “best interests” aren’t so black-and-white either. It’s not like if he throws 175 innings that we can be certain that he will have a long, uninterrupted, and distinguished career, whereas if he throws 185 then he will henceforth be a brittle, broken shell of a man. And, finally, C) even if we accept that they should limit him to 180 then they should have begun planning accordingly LONG ago to push some of his starts/innings into the highest-leverage spot of all: the postseason. The fact that they didn’t or haven’t is just shitty planning or sheer laziness/incompetence.
A) At the potential risk of a young superstar’s health. Oh, right, how ’bout those Kerry Woods/Mark Prior Cubs!–remember their great Series victory? Not criticizing the Cubs but it’s a good example of what could happen.
B) Yep. So what’s your point? Push until he might break? Sure, that’s an option, so is erring on the side of caution. That’s what the Nats have decided to do.
C) Because they knew that they’d have the best record in baseball on August 21???????
Who’s to say that they’d be in position for “the highest-leverage spot of all” without his earlier starts?
Glad you can see into the future! Your last sentence is inane.
The thing is, the odds are pretty good that they’ll be in the playoffs with four very good starters set up, and a ready replacement in Lannan for September.They won’t be as talented in October, but they will have the same team they expected to have when the year began. It’s probably better to stay confident in the plan that is working, than let events dictate changing it at the detriment of possible future benefit. Granted, if Rizzo lets him go over 180, the next argument can be answered by “you’re not Strasburg”, but that’s part of the issue. I think a lot of people think they’re playing with house money now, and they should go all in with their aces, but the river gives the other guy a flush sometimes, and maybe you want to stay in the tournament every year.They will want a great rotation going forward, we don’t have the information the Nats do about his particular recovery, and we DO know about the mechanics issues with his delievery. I think it’s impressive that Rizzo’s stuck to this in the face of the new possibilities the Nats position have created.
” If they want to get even more creative, they could limit his workload in several of those starts and perhaps even manage to get two shorter playoff starts, all while staying below this 180 inning limit. ”
This is an excellent idea! And I’m living proof that it works beautifully.
Yeah, there’s something to be said for not treating the real thing like a pinball machine or fantasy baseball. :-)
Hope you recover well and finally make it back for the long haul, Joba…
Certainly, a sample size of one does definitively prove that this plan holds absolutely no merit and should thus never be broached again. Well said.
if they make the playoffs and he’s around 180 innings, I just can’t see them shutting him down. like perhaps he pitches the first round then they shut him down for the second round because he’s at 180? somehow I see this not happening.
And what if Rizzo’s thinking is actually to shut him down around 160IP, but will only go to 180 max IF it matters to their playoff chances (and/or subsequent success)?
Most everyone here seems to assume Rizzo’s saying 180 max regardless of the playoff picture (whether that’s to get into the postseason or to do well in the postseason).
If the Nats win the division, everything else is gravy. That’s why Rizzo can do this. Nobody will criticize him because everyone in this town is entralled by the success of the team, and frankly with Rizzo himself. He’s built a remarkable organization that is deep in talent. Going to the playoffs and losing won’t result in any criticism.
“Going to the playoffs and losing won’t result in any criticism.”
Totally, totally false. If they shut him down after the regular season and then Ross Detwiler or someone gets shelled in the postseason, it is and should be open to much rebuke and criticism. “Gee, folks, we could have had Stras starting that game, but going from 180 innings to 186 would totally destroy him as a human being forever and we were too lazy to plan ahead, so enjoy Ross Detwiler!”
I love that Rizzo’s plan is being mocked for “not planning ahead”. Isn’t planning ahead the main reason for protecting Strasburg?
There’s stuff to complain about…but not planning ahead…that’s rich.
“not planning ahead” is EXACTLY what’s wrong with his plan, if Stras’s last start happens to be in mid-to-late September and then he’s made unavailable for the postseason, when they’ve been sitting in first place alllllllll damn season.
Might be nice to, you know…have your best pitcher available for postseason starts? But I know that’s a fairly ludicrous idea.
The only reason this discussion is dumb is because if the Nats are in the playoffs it seems crazy to me that they’d leave their best pitcher on the shelf due to an innings limit, despite the fact that he had not encountered and physical issues.
The other thing that nobody has considered yet is that, if the definite limit is 180IP, actually ensuring that the Nats win their division could be pretty valuable. The article doesn’t really seem to deal with the fact that a wild-card slot is only half as good as a division win, due to the one game playoff.
If more exercise is dangerous, why do we preach in every sport that hard work will make you better?