2012 MLB Regular Season Running Thread

Nah. Cinemax to the rescue, chief.

 

Ryan, it isn't that young pitchers got hurt more often back in the day, it's that injuries were career-enders and now thanks to sports medicine they aren't always. In the 1950s, Strasburg would've already been out of baseball. He's HAD his career-ender. That's why the Nationals are so cautious. It's understandable, but I believe that entering the stretch run of a pennant race with the team's best pitcher shut down by management fiat is going to be very bad for the heads of the other 24 guys on said team. Not to mention the heads of paying customers and potential paying customers.

 

Are someone's career accomplishments somehow diminished if they don't start taking on major workloads until 25 or 26, then put in 15 Hall of Fame seasons? I just don't follow the argument that you and 93Devil are making. Are you saying essentially that if a guy can't put in 200 innings at age 22 or 23, he probably will never be special? Surely there are counterexamples.

 

If this enters any GM's thinking, he should be fired on the spot.

 

Not to mention the head of the player being shut down. Overly cautious, negative ju-ju is not what the doctor ordered for a 23-year-old who still thinks he's Superman.

 

The fact that Strasburg has already had Tommy John surgery, to me, pretty much renders all of the, "They're babying him!!!" arguments moot. If you tore your rotator cuff lifting weights, would you just jump right into lifting heavy again? Or do you think it would be fair to expect you to build up to your old strength and stamina over a reasonable amount of time?

The tough-guy argument is easy to toss about when it's not your money or your arm.

 

It's not a tough-guy argument. It's a "you can't prove diddly-poo" argument.

As Rick acknowledged earlier in this thread, the science of inning-increases directly causing injuries is uncertain at best.

Throwing a baseball at 97mph is an inherently risky proposition. You don't need to have discovered the Higgs Boson to know that. Strasburg's repaired UCL could go on the first pitch of his next start, or it might never go again.

But for a perennial doormat to shut down its best pitcher with the pennant in sight, based primarily on fear, makes no sense to me at all.

 

Because of the recent TJ surgery, the Nats are doing absolutely the right thing. The wrench here and the reason this has become such a polarizing issue is that the the Nats are legitimate contenders. No one -- not the fans, not the paying customers and certainly not Mike Rizzo -- expected that to happen this year.

 

This is the, "My friend's aunt got cancer and she never smoked a cigarette in her life! So I'm smoking because it doesn't matter either way!" argument.

 

I'm saying the special cases shouldn't be tossed out either. Y'all act as if he just returned from the surgery and he might start popping stitches with his next pitch.

 

No, it really isn't. Not if you actually read it.

 

I need to read up a little bit more on medical research on recovery from Tommy John surgery. Common sense tells me that it should take a couple years to get all the way back. But I'm not 100 percent certain.