Thoma: The Strasburg Shutdown is long-term thinking

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August 19, 2012

Thoma: The Strasburg Shutdown is long-term thinking

By Edward Thoma Free Press Staff Writer The Mankato Free Press Sun Aug 19, 2012, 11:40 PM CDT

— Stephen Strasburg has worked 139.1 innings so far this season.

Soon, the Washington Nationals will shut him down. They will do this under the plan, laid out before the season began, to protect his post-surgical elbow.

The Nats did this last year with Jordan Zimmermann, who, like Strasburg now, was in his first full season back from Tommy John surgery. Zimmermann threw a bit more than 160 innings in 2011, but not a one after Aug. 28.

Nobody complained then about the Nats pulling the plug on their best starter. But Washington was a sub-.500 team in 2011; today, the Nationals boast the best record in baseball.

These Nats have legitimate World Series aspirations. And shutting down Strasburg — who is, with Zimmermann and Gio Gonzalez, one of three legitimate aces in their rotation — figures to make it much more difficult to reach those aspirations.

The conventional thinking is that if you have this kind of shot at winning it all, you take risks with a player’s health that you otherwise wouldn’t. You don’t know when your next chance will come, if it comes at all.

But Mike Rizzo — the Washington general manager —and Scott Boras — Strasburg’s power-broker agent — are adamant. They are in agreement against most of the rest of the world that the best thing to do for Strasburg is to keep him in the regular rotation for most of the season, then end his season.

No specific innings target has been made public. Strasburg is working less than six innings per start, and it is possible, but unlikely, that he’ll make it through the regular season without triggering the shutdown. But barring a change of heart by Rizzo, he won’t pitch in the playoffs.

The decision is made more complex by the mysteries involved. Nobody really knows what the risks are. Nobody can ever know; you can’t do a double-blind study on the effects of Tommy John surgery.

It’s educated guesswork. Critics of the decision put the emphasis on “guesswork”; I think that’s unfair. The choice to shut down Strasburg isn’t arbitrary, and it isn’t uninformed. It’s made in a universe of imperfect knowledge, but that’s the only universe available.

My gut reaction is that any decision that provokes Tim McCarver into a spluttering fit — as happened during Saturday’s Fox national telecast — is probably right.

More seriously: I’ve little doubt that a shutdown after 160 innings or so will benefit Strasburg. (Which isn’t to say that it insures Strasburg won’t suffer injury in the future.) I’m less certain that it’s good for the Nationals franchise, as their control over the pitcher’s career is limited.

On the other hand, the Nats will have demonstrated beyond any doubt their commitment to keeping their players healthy. That may play to their advantage in the long run. It may already have helped them sign last June’s first-round pick, Lucas Giolito, a highly-regarded prep fireballer who sprained his pitching elbow last spring.

Edward Thoma (344-6377; ethoma@mankatofreepress.com) maintains his Baseball Outsider blog. Follow him on Twitter @bboutsider.

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