by Joe Giglio
The debate about Stephen Strasburg’s innings limit has reached a fever pitch. Every baseball fan has an opinion on how to handle the arm of one of the most gifted 23-year-old pitchers of all-time. That’s right -- of all-time. Strasburg isn’t just great right now. Considering his age, he’s historically great.
When comparing him to other pitchers that threw enormous inning totals, it’s unfair to use examples from different age groups. The amount of innings that Curt Schilling or Jack Morris threw at ages 28-31 have no relevance to what Strasburg is doing at age 23.
While attempting to correlate workloads between former Tommy John surgery patients is a valuable exercise in this case, the idea is flawed because of age as well. A 30-year-old -- such as Adam Wainwright -- coming off Tommy John is different than Strasburg’s plight.
Why? Arms need to be built up over time. Innings must accumulate in order for a pitcher to be able to handle big increments during great seasons. The following is a list of the greatest pitcher seasons by 23-year-olds over the last 50 years sorted by Baseball-Reference.com and Fangraphs WAR, respectively.
Baseball-Reference:
Dick Ellsworth, ‘63: 9.1 WAR
Dean Chance, ‘64: 8.9 WAR
Roger Clemens, ‘86: 8.6 WAR
Rich Gossage, ‘75: 8.1 WAR
Frank Tanana, ‘77: 8.0 WAR
Mike Mussina, ‘92: 7.9 WAR
Bret Saberhagen, ‘87: 7.7 WAR
Bert Blyleven, ‘74: 7.5 WAR
Jim Abbott, ‘91: 7.4 WAR
Dontrelle Willis, ‘05: 7.0 WAR
FanGraphs:
Bert Blyleven, ‘74: 8.7 WAR
Roger Clemens, ‘86: 8.0 WAR
Greg Swindell, ‘86: 6.8 WAR
Clayton Kershaw, ‘11: 6.8 WAR
Felix Hernandez, ‘09: 6.8 WAR
Dontrelle Willis, ‘05, 6.2 WAR
Jeremy Bonderman, ‘06: 6.1 WAR
Frank Tanana, ‘77: 5.9 WAR
Dwight Gooden, ‘88: 5.9 WAR
Bret Saberhagen, ‘87: 5.8 WAR
Considering that Clemens, Tanana, Saberhagen, Willis, and Blyleven were consistent on both lists, their respective 23-year-old seasons can be used as the main example here. The following is a list of the prior season and total MLB innings pitched for each of those arms before the phenomenal year listed:
Blyleven: 325 IP in ‘73, 1000+ MLB innings prior to ‘74
Willis: 197 IP in ‘04, 350+ MLB innings prior to ‘05
Saberhagen: 156 IP in ‘86, 549 MLB innings prior to ‘87
Tanana: 288.1 IP in ‘76, 840.2 MLB innings prior to ‘77
Clemens: 98.1 IP in ‘85, 231.1 MLB innings prior to ‘86
Aside from Clemens -- who actually had a shoulder scope in ‘85 -- all of these great young pitchers were healthy enough to build up their innings in the majors prior to their “breakout” 23-year-old seasons.
 |
| Strasburg has 145.1 IP over 25 starts in 2012 Picture courtesy of US Presswire |
How does Strasburg’s situation contrast with these former stars? First, his 2012 season is as good as or better than any of the names listed above. His K/9 of 11.33 is third best ever for a starter 23 or younger, behind only a 21-year-old Kerry Wood in ‘98 and 19-year-old Dwight Gooden in ‘84. If he was allowed to complete the season -- meaning seven or eight more starts -- his projected FanGraphs WAR would be around 5.7. That would put him in the ‘87 Saberhagen range and in range of one of the ten best seasons ever for a pitcher of that age.
He belongs with these names -- except for his workload build up. Despite what your eyes are telling you, Strasburg’s arm simply isn’t built up enough to exceed 220 IP -- a number he would easily blow through if allowed to finish the regular season and the Nationals made a likely deep October run. Strasburg had a total of 92 IP under his belt on the big league level before 2012.
The Tommy John surgery cured what ailed Strasburg last time. It’s up to the Washington Nationals to help him avoid injury down the line. Asking him to go from 44.1 IP in 2011 -- rehab and MLB games combined -- to 145.1 IP right now isn’t outrageous for an athlete of his caliber. However, asking him to throw close to 100 more IP from now through October? That simply can’t be done. Look at the starters above -- research more if you are curious -- and try to find a star pitcher this young and this great that made a 200 IP leap from age 22 to 23.
Former young stars may not have been coddled by their organizations, but they had luck on their side. Their health allowed them to develop quickly through their early 20’s. That allowed their magical 23-year-old seasons to take place. Just because Strasburg looks or feels as good or better than they did then doesn’t mean he’s as strong.
Odd are that Mike Rizzo and Scott Boras have much more information on these arms -- listen to Boras’ comments on ESPN Radio last week -- and have designed a plan to get Strasburg on that 225+ IP benchmark soon and efficiently.
As devastating as it may be to baseball and the Nationals hope at a World Series title, odds are that they are right when acting with caution on Strasburg.
Joe Giglio is a sports talk host at WNST in Baltimore, co-host of the Just a Bit Outside podcast on iTUNES, former intramural coordinator at DeSales University, husband, and baseball fanatic willing to argue Jeff Bagwell's Hall of Fame candidacy at a moment's notice. Follow him on Twitter @JoeGiglioSports and check out his blog at joegiglio.blogspot.com.
Tweet
Posts
6 comments:
They are probably wise to limit his innings. Yet the wisdom of the day will change, it always does. I couple problems:
1) Why are there so many more arm problems today, pitchers of all ages, than in the past? It's like Tommy John for everyone. If we know so much more today it doesn't seem to be working too well.
2) Strasburg could have any other number of injuries, or be on crappy teams - or get cancer and be hit by a bus. A championship in the hand is worth 2 in potential. Even if he plays 15 more years this may be his only shot.
3) Why on earth didn't the Nats hold him off until June? Or why didn't they limit his innings more during the season (less innings per start, or skip a start here and there)? Either of these options would have allowed him to be available for the post season. This is not rocket science!
I am not sure how the Nats could have done much different. It is easy to say NOW that they could have held him back to start the season. While it is every teams ideas to make the playoffs, you can't assume that when the season starts. To have delayed the start of the season for Strasburg may have derailed their playoff dreams early.
So, could they have cut out some starts around the All Star break? Sure they could, but we are talking about 6-8 starts here if the Nats get to the end of the World Series. Missing that many starts mid-season would also have had dire affects on any playoff run.
As much as I hate to see it, I have to agree with the Nats in their choice to shut Strasburg down.
Naw, I'm gonna hafta disagree. If this were the Astros or Padres and wow we had no clue we would make a playoff run then I could understand. But everyboy knew the Nats were good and had a legit shot at the playoffs. Best record in Ball end of August doesnt come out of nowhere. They just played their cards wrong. I can't believe they didn't think it out.
There is no harm if they start him in June and they tank and don't make the playoffs. Let him pitch in the fall league if he needs more innings at that point. If they lose all 6 to 8 of his skipped starts in April/May they are still right in the playoff hunt now and big money/drama every game not to mention a shot at the Series. If it would have derailed them at the beginning, it surely will derail them now, he would be missing the same number of games. Maybe its just a big ploy to generate interest and publicity. Otherwise just dumb.
You can' know the future but you can plan for contingencies. Heck why could't they, at the All Star Break when it was clear they were headed toward the playoffs, cut him back to 5 or 4 innnings a start? Keep him on schedule but save him for the playoffs. Even if you say his arm strength would be down he could still give your 4 or 5 innings in the playoff games which is better than say, zero! If they started losing their playoff spot sure let him pitch deeper into games.
If before the year you predicted the Nats to be a serious title contender props to you, but I think your forgetting nobody thought they were going to be in the hunt for it. We all knew they had some pieces and looked like a up and coming team, but nobody thought they would be serious contenders. Had they held him out to start the year, maybe they threw their chances at the playoffs away then. I agree they should have started skipping a couple starts here and there around the all-star break, but holding out till June would have been a terrible move.
Just wondering if there's a precedent for this type of thing. Has any playoff-bound team ever shut down their best pitcher (while he's still healthy)? I'm honestly not sure why they didn't just skip a few of his starts early in the season...
They can shut him down all they want, but down the road that dreaded inverted W portion of his motion is going to raise more eventual havoc on that elbow. As he ages and loses elasticity in the forearm then eventually that stress will transfer up to the shoulder. He has a similar motion to injury prone pitchers like Don Drysdale (60's), Gary Nolan (60's 70's), Steve Busby (70's), and Mark Prior (90's). Elbows are one thing, it's a simple joint, shoulder injuries in pitchers will usually end a career. In reference to the first comment above, pitchers are injured more frequently these days as they tend to over throw, (might be able to blame the radar gun for that) and they don't use their legs to drive the motion and absorb the rebound shock at the end of the follow through. (watch video of Seaver, Ryan, Clemens, Blyleven all threw pretty hard late into their careers) or look at how Palmer, Jenkins, Perry, never over threw, always in control. I will give Strasburg credit, he's learned that he doesn't have to throw 98-100 when 94-97 does just fine. I hope Stasburg has a long productive career, but I'm not convinced it will happen.
Post a Comment