2012 MLB Regular Season Running Thread

With Strasburg, it's a simple formula.

Odds of being the difference in a championship this season vs. (Odds of being the difference in a champsionship in a future season with the Nats)x(Odds of losing him to injury because of overuse in season following TJS).

Reasonable people can have different opinions about what numbers to fill in for those formulas, but that's basically the decision facing them (well, it's a simplification, because he can have less than career-ending injuries).

 

Except that this isn't the season after Tommy John surgery. He had the surgery two years ago tomorrow.

 

Lost in the Strasburg debate: Jordan Zimmermann, one year removed from having his innings limited, looks completely out of gas. If he can't get it going again, Nationals suddenly have a mediocre rotation.

 

This Strasburg situation has Boras stink all over it.

I can just imagine the agent telling the Nats brass, "Shut the kid down or else you'll never sign another one of my players."

Boras, of course, is desperate to keep Strasburg healthy so he can one day sign a mega-megabuck free agent deal.

Well, Strasburg already is guaranteed $15 million from the Nats. Even if he never throws another pitch, he'll be set for life if he manages his money properly.

The Nats, by contrast, aren't guaranteed shit. All of this "the team was built for the long haul" stuff fails to take into account the reality that man's best-laid plans frequently find ways to go awry. You play to win now.

Ultimately, I think Rizzo's biggest mistake was going public with the shutdown plan. The Nats baseball and medical people could've just quietly evaluated Strasburg and tracked his velocity/command/mechanics into late summer for obvious signs that he was wearing down; instead, we've had months of this ridiculous "will he or won't he?" and now we get an arbitrary shutdown when the kid is still strong as a horse and throwing the ball beautifully.

As I've said several times, this was a total botch by Rizzo. I like the Nats a lot, but find myself hoping he takes this one in his condescending know-it-all ass.

 

Forgive me if I'm repeating someone on this thread, I have been mostly away for a week ... but has anyone else noticed that Melky Cabrera has moved ahead in the race for the batting title? Cabrera sits at .346. McCutchen is down to .341, the lowest he has been since the end of June, and looks to be running out of gas. Next closest NL pursuer is Posey at .330.

MLB is going to be sucking it long and hard on this one.

 

And the NL leader in the other two triple crown categories is Ryan Braun.

 

Cabrera won't have enough plate appearances to qualify ... by one. He has 501 PA's, and it takes 502. However, the Tony Gwynn rule (where the 502nd PA is figured in as a hitless at-bat) may apply.

 

It does, so as of right now, Cabrera would win the batting title.

 

Which begs the question, why not just make the minimum 501?

 

"These go to 502."

 

Bravo.