Tag Archives: Stephen Strasburg

“If a major-league team or minor-league team has a hard pitch count across their whole organization, they can do better than that”

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That’s Glenn Fleisig talking to Baseball Prospectus on pitch counts, innings limits, and how organizations maximize the health of their pitchers. The interview is republished on Deadspin. 

The relevant question-and-answer:

BL: So without commenting on any specific team or pitcher, would you say that a team that puts hard innings limits in place is just sort of going overboard with risk aversion or covering their own ass? I mean, I’m sure they must base it on some sort of research, but maybe they’re not looking at the right research.

GF: Yeah. I do say that. If a major-league team or minor-league team has a hard pitch count across their whole organization, they can do better than that. They should be using—because they have professional coaches throughout their major and minor leagues, and a professional medical staff—they should be using pitch counts as a feel, as a guideline for who has pitched a lot, who hasn’t pitched a lot, and then they should individualize it and know each of their pitchers, each of their athletes, and know who is a quick responder, who’s doing well on the physical assessments with the trainers and medical staff, who has good mechanics according to the pitching coach, things like that. And they should individualize it and they should say, ‘Oh, Rodriguez, he recovers quickly, but Johnson, he’s always in pain, so let’s keep Johnson lower than Rodriguez,’ and individualize it.

Plus, even within a person—even if they say, ‘Rodriguez, he seems to be healthy and doing well and good mechanics and very fluid and in good shape, all those things,’ they shouldn’t set a pitch count number for him; they should set a soft pitch count number—‘He can go to this level, 100 pitches or whatever”—but then game by game, they should monitor and take him out when he’s giving signs of being fatigued or if there’s a history of he’s been pitching a lot recently, or he’s stinking tonight, other things where you individualize it. But a hard pitch count is really for youth baseball and perhaps high school baseball, when you can’t assume the coaches are all experts.”

This is really a question about the Nationals and Strasburg (and Jordan Zimmermann). This isn’t just any yahoo they’re talking to, either–this is Glenn Fleisig, the leading scientific authority on pitching mechanics. And I don’t mean “scientific” in the 19th-century quack medical sense–I mean peer-reviewed. I have quoted his work debunking “inverted W” scaremongering before. So at first glance this looks like an indictment of the Strasburg limit. In 2012, the Nats had Strasburg on a hard innings limit, just as they had Jordan Zimmermann on a hard innings limit in 2011.

But before you grab your pitchfork and light your torch to storm Mike Rizzo’s office, stop and think for a minute. Rizzo refused to commit to a hard innings limit until Strasburg was finally shut down. At all times, Rizzo said that he was going to monitor Strasburg for signs of fatigue.

Here’s what Strasburg was doing in his last few starts of 2012:

  • August 21, 2012, vs. Brewers: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 10 SO, 0 HR; 94 pitches.
  • August 28, 2012, at Marlins: 5 IP, 9 H, 7 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 3 SO, 1 HR; 84 pitches
  • September 2, 2012 vs. Cubs: 6 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 9 SO; 97 pitches.
  • September 7, 2012 (“Shutdown Day”) vs. Marlins: 3 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 SO; 81 pitches.

What do we make of this?

I’m not really sure. Strasburg himself insisted and continued to insist that he was ready and able to pitch after Shutdown Day. On the other hand, his final appearance showed him laboring against the lowly Marlins.

What you make of this as a Nats fan is really a reflection of what you think of the Nationals and their management. If you tend to trust GM Mike Rizzo, then you will have to assume that the organization had been observing Strasburg’s rest and recovery cycles all season, and decided that those observations, plus the disastrous outing against the Marlins, led them to believe that the time was right to shut down Strasburg.

If you are disinclined to trust the organization, then you’re going to have to assume that there was a hard innings limit from the outset, and that the club refused to deviate from that limit even to the last. One disaster against the Marlins probably shouldn’t have been enough to convince the organization to shut Stras down.

Honestly, I don’t know what else to say about this.

About Strasburg’s Innings Today

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I wasn’t at the park at Opening Day today. I had to tune in and listen to it on the radio.

I missed a hell of a time to be there. The Nats beat the hated Marlins 2-0 behind two Bryce Harper homers and seven shutout innings from Stephen Strasburg.

Indeed, Strasburg was out of the game after only throwing 80 pitches. The sound of fans griping about yet more “kid gloves” treatment for Strasburg could be heard all over Twitter. Strasburg was dealing–why limit him now?

Even Barry Svrluga, veteran Post-ie, seemed to take issue with the sudden, unwelcome appearance of Captain Hook:

Here’s why Strasburg was out of the game with 80 pitches: the Nats have the day off tomorrow (Tuesday), and the bullpen is currently hurting for work.

In the last week of Grapefruit League play (including the exhibition game against the Yankees), going back to last Sunday,  the Nationals relievers that are on the actual big-league staff right now have pitched only 16.2 innings.

Would I love to see a complete game shutout from Strasburg? You bet. But there’s no reason to leave Strasburg hanging out there on a cool, misty afternoon to get a complete game just for the sake of getting a complete game. I would prefer to see Strasburg–or any starting pitcher, really–get a complete game any day but Opening Day.

Later this year, there will be periods during which the bullpen will be taxed. There will be long extra-inning night games that last into the wee hours of the morning, followed by brutal afternoon games, followed by travel. There will be times where a starting pitcher doesn’t get through a lot of innings. There will be doubleheaders. There will be stretches where relievers will appear on three consecutive nights–like Storen did when he entered the game in NLDS Game Five.

I would much rather that a Strasburg complete game happen during one of those periods, where it does the most good. An opening day win against the Marlins (who are expected to be the worst team in the division) is nice. A complete game, saving a tired bullpen in the middle of a tense series with the Braves would be much, much better.

Needless Beanball Drama

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It’s March 7 as I write this, and already I’m having to write about beanball wars.

In a spring training game at the Phillies facility in Clearwater, Stephen Strasburg hit Chase Utley in the back leg. I wasn’t at the park, but on TV, it sure as heck looked like Strasburg was out of control and hit Utley accidentally.

The Phillies, apparently, weren’t going to take this “insult” lying down. Next half-inning, Doc Halladay threw one behind Tyler Moore’s back. A beanball war in spring training? I’ll let the beat writers tell you all about the rest of it. 

This blog is no stranger to Philadelphia/Washington beanball wars, alas. As far as anybody can tell, this all began on on July 26, 2007 in Philadelphia, where John Lannan hit both Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, earning himself an ejection in his major-league debut. Last year, during the Cole Hamels/Bryce Harper affair, I examined it from the pitcher’s point of view:

Let’s set aside the fact that Hamels freely admitted that he beaned Bryce Harper on purpose–supposedly in the service of “old-school” prestige.  Even without Hamels’ boasting, we could have easily surmised that Hamels beaned Harper intentionally. Lannan was not suspended because, in all probablity, he had no idea where those balls were going when they left his hand.

***

And what about the other protagonist in Sunday’s beanbag war–Jordan Zimmermann? He hit Hamels in the shin, but has continued to maintain his innocence. The stat sheet should make us doubt that claim, as well. He has a career BB/9 that rivals Hamels at 2.15, and only 3 wild pitches in 323 innings of work. I don’t think anybody can doubt that he knew where he put that fastball.

[Parenthetically, I must not be the only one amused that John Lannan has gone from Public Enemy Number One in to Starting Pitcher Number Five in Philadelphia.]

So, what to make of the Crisis in Clearwater?

First in the dock is Stephen Strasburg. In his brief career, Strasburg posts a 2.40 BB/9, 7 wild pitches, and 4 hit batsmen. That’s tremendous control–especially compared to Lannan.

But in mitigation, it was Spring Training. Strasburg is manifestly in “working on stuff” mode–and it’s possible that at least for one pitch, stuff did not work for Strasburg today. It happens.

And, speaking of stuff happening, here’s something interesting: Since his debut in 2003, nobody in baseball has been hit by more pitches than Chase Utley. Chase Utley has been hit by pitches a staggering 151 times in his career. Since 2003, the next-nearest MLB player is Jason Kendall, plunked 121 times. Trailing Utley on the National League leaderboard for HBP since 2003 is Rickie Weeks, a distant second at 108 HBP. 

Utley’s staggering ability to be hit by pitches is even more remarkable when we consider that Jason Giambi leads active MLB players in this category, with 175 HBP. But Giambi’s been playing since 1995, which makes Utley’s 151 HBP since 2003 a staggering achievement in being hit by pitches.

Indeed, if we take Utley’s career average, we would expect him, in any 162-game stretch, to be hit by pitch 21 times. To put that in perspective, in 2012, any given team in the major leagues could have expected to be hit by a pitch around 50 times. Utley’s career average HBP would, by themselves, account for nearly half of an average team’s HBP.

That’s astonishing. Could it be that there’s just something about Chase Utley that makes him that much more likely to be hit by pitches? Is it his batting stance? Is it a habit of crowding the plate? Is it a failure to make a reasonable effort to avoid being hit by the pitch? (To be fair, Utley DID make quite an effort to avoid Strasburg’s wayward pitch yesterday).

But if the Phillies want to react to this by bristling and hurling beanballs willy-nilly, I guess there really isn’t anything we can do about it.

Projecting the 2013 Nationals: Extra Innings

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When I projected that the 2013 Nats were going to win 94 games, I did so with a bit of trepidation. Not only did this mean that I was projecting a performance so good that it would have been literally unbelievable only a few years before, but because I have certain doubts about the construction of my model.

As you might have gathered from the title of this post, I think my model has been systematically under-counting playing time for pitchers and hitters. In the spirit of Top of the Inning/Bottom of the Inning nature of the Natstradamus projections, I’ll deal with the pitching issues first, and then the batting problems in the bottom of the inning.

EDIT: Astute readers noted that I should have reduced relief pitcher innings by as much as I increased starting pitching innings. I have amended the relevant analysis. This results in a 98-win total. 

Executive Summary for the TL;DR Crowd: Our earlier projection wasn’t as accurate as it should have been in counting playing time: A slight adjustment in innings pitched for starters–with a corresponding reduction in relief pitching innings– yielded a decrease in runs scored by 2—but a better/more nuanced look at plate appearances by the starting line-up yielded an astonishing increase in runs scored, from 692 to 725. This revises our win projection for the 2013 Nats to 98 wins.

Innings, Limits, and Other Stuff to Tear Your Hair Out With

First, pitching. If you look back at the projected innings pitched column in my pitching runs allowed projections, you will notice that I assume that pitchers in the starting rotation will pitch about 190 innings each, with Strasburg pitching only 180. How does that stack up with reality?

  • Gio Gonzalez (199.1 IP);
  • Jordan Zimmermann (195.2 IP)
  • Edwin Jackson (189.2 IP).

Looking at things like this, it’s starting to look like our 180-inning starting rotation baseline is off by a little bit. Is it really, though? None of the top three for the Braves (Minor, Hudson, Hanson) pitched over 180 innings last year. The Phillies had Hamels (215.1) and Lee (211.0), then a sharp drop-off (injuries). The Mets had Dickey (232.2) and Niese (190.1), and then a precipitous dropoff to Santana (117.0).

Things get a bit better when we look at the Reds, whose top five were remarkably consistent as far as innings, with Cueto (217), Latos (209.1), Bailey (208), Arroyo (202) , and Leake (179).  Likewise, the Giants got a lot of innings out of their starters, with Cain (219.1), Bumgarner (208.1), Vogelsong (189.2), Lincecum (186), and Zito (184.1).

In fact, it’s the rare National League team that gets more than 180 innings from all of its top five starters–only the Giants managed this in 2012, and we all know how that worked out for them, right?

Anyway, returning to our projections: is there a better way we can match the innings expectations for Nationals starting pitchers? Maybe we can. During the height of the Strasburg Shutdown hysteria last year, I wrote that the organization has a general innings-limiting principle:

The Nats have a policy–and a remarkably enlightened one, at that–of limiting starting-pitcher workloads to 120% of the innings a pitcher had pitched the previous year, wherever those innings happened (whether as an amateur, the minor leagues, or the majors). For pitchers returning from major injuries, the innings limit seems to be about 120% of the pitcher’s previous single-season career high total innings pitched.

The conventional wisdom is that this limit may not apply to pitchers like Gio Gonzalez (age 27) and Dan Haren (age 32). Jordan Zimmermann (age 26) might have arguably “aged out” of this system, too, since he pitched 195.2 innings last year. Detwiler (age 26) might have aged out, as well, but last year’s 164.1 IP represented his professional maximum, so let’s assume we’re stretching him out more carefully and put him on the limit. Strasburg (age 24), it should go without saying, is probably under this silent limit as well.

Applying those limits, and looking at last year’s performances, we get the following:

  • Stephen Strasburg. 120% of last year’s innings for Strasburg works out to 190.2 innings for Strasburg. Plugging that into our model, that works out to 54.23 runs allowed, an increase of 3.03 runs.
  • Jordan Zimmermann. JZ pitched 195.2 innings. It would be foolish to assume he would pitch any more. Let’s assume he pitches 195 innings, then. That works out to 80.38 runs allowed, an increase of 2.06 runs.
  • Gio Gonzalez. 199 innings is a lot, but he pitched over 200 innings in the two preceding years, so I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to give Gio 200 innings in 2013. Ten more innings of Gio than in our initial model yields 84.67 runs, an increase of 4.24 runs.
  • Ross Detwiler. Detwiler’s 151 innings in 2012 was a career high for him. Increasing that by 120% yields 181 innings. Fortunately, the old model pegged him at 180 innings to begin with. We’ll leave well enough alone, then.
  • Dan Haren. Haren’s a little harder to judge. He only pitched 176.2 innings in 2012, but before his back got balky, he pitched well in excess of 200 innings for seven consecutive seasons. Various projections have him pitching as many as 218 innings and as few as 170. Let’s say he recovers form and pitches 190 innings–which is what we had in the original model. Great.

After adjusting for an increase in innings pitched, we see that the Nats give up a few more runs– 9.33 runs. That’s enough to cost them one full game in the Natstradamus projection–so that leaves them with 93 wins, instead.

Not so fast. You will notice that we’ve increased Gio’s innings by 10, Strasburg’s innings by 10, and Zimmermann’s innings by 5. That means we need to reduce relief pitcher innings accordingly. If we reduce Craig Stammen’s 110 innings to 95 innings (-6.6 runs allowed) and Zach Duke’s innings from 90 to 80 (-4.8 runs allowed), we actually end up saving about 2 runs. That keeps us steady at 94 wins for now. But how about the hitting?

Batters: Up.

The crude assumption built into the model was that every one of the starting position players got 600 plate appearances each. This is, of course, false. The ever-astute David Huzzard reminded me that the number of plate appearances varies with position in the batting order. Fortunately, Baseball Reference lets us look at exactly how many plate appearances, on average, each batting order position got in the National League in 2012. As you can see, the lead-off batter gets, on average 750 plate appearances–125% more than our model assumed! What does it look like?

Split Pa
Batting 1st 750
Batting 2nd 732
Batting 3rd 716
Batting 4th 699
Batting 5th 684
Batting 6th 666
Batting 7th 647
Batting 8th 625
Batting 9th 606
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 2/18/2013.

In fact, we see that in the NL, the only batting average position that gets even close to 600 plate appearances is the number 9 batter–which is usually the pitcher’s spot! Safe to say, then, that the model is broken as far as runs scored. To fix it, we need to figure out what the batting order is going to be and award plate appearances in proportion to that player’s spot in the batting order. To keep things consistent with our defensive statistics, we’ll assume that each “every day” position player appears in 150 games. With that in mind, let’s assign some plate appearances to a hypothetical order:

Player PA
Denard Span 695
Jayson Werth 678
Bryce Harper 663
Adam LaRoche 647
Ryan Zimmerman 633
Ian Desmond 617
Danny Espinosa 599
Wilson Ramos/Kurt Suzuki 579
Pitchers 561

That leaves us with some 453 plate appearances to distribute among the other bench players. Let’s assume, crudely, that we distribute them evenly among Tracy, Moore, Lombardozzi, and Bernadina, giving them 113 plate appearances each. Let’s also further assume that the “Pitchers” spots are evenly distributed among all the starting pitchers, giving each of the starting five 112 plate appearances each.

The results are shocking:

Player Name 4-year total PA 4-year total wRC 4-yr moving avg wRC/PA Projected PA Projected wRC Team Total wRC
Jayson Werth 2803 425 0.151623260792009 678 102.80
Ryan Zimmerman 2844 426 0.149789029535865 633 94.82
Tyler Moore 171 26 0.152046783625731 113 17.18
Bryce Harper 597 86 0.144053601340034 663 95.51
Adam LaRoche 2622 361 0.13768115942029 647 89.08
Denard Span 2671 334 0.125046798951703 695 86.91
Wilson Ramos 613 76 0.123980424143556 290 35.95
Ian Desmond 1849 214 0.115738236884803 617 71.41
Danny Espinosa 1428 164 0.11484593837535 599 68.79
Roger Bernadina 1150 121 0.105217391304348 113 11.89
Chad Tracy 845 85 0.100591715976331 113 11.37
Kurt Suzuki 2703 274 0.101368849426563 290 29.40
Steve Lombardozzi 448 42 0.09375 113 10.59
Stephen Strasburg 83 3 0.036144578313253 112 4.05
Drew Storen 2 0 0 0 0.00
Dan Haren 240 19 0.079166666666667 112 8.87
Craig Stammen 90 3 0.033333333333333 30 1.00
Jordan Zimmermann 166 4 0.024096385542169 112 2.70
Zach Duke 226 1 0.004424778761062 0.00
Tyler Clippard 14 0 0 0 0.00
Gio Gonzalez 84 -5 -0.05952380952381 112 -6.67
Ross Detwiler 97 -9 -0.092783505154639 112 -10.39
Ryan Mattheus 1 0 0 0 0.00
Rafael Soriano 0 0 0 0 0.00
Bill Bray 0 0 0 0 0.00
725.252999244993

That’s a huge jump in runs scored, from 692 up to 725!

Putting it Together

Having adjusted our playing-time expectations somewhat, our revised projection has the 2013 Nats allowing 600 runs, while scoring 725 runs. Running that through the Pythagorean Win Expectation Formula gives us a revised win projection for the 2013 season of 98 wins, or four more than we had initially projected. The vast undercount of offensive plate appearances made a huge difference in terms of runs scored, and added two whole wins. The increase in starting pitching at the expense of middle relief yields two more wins.

There are a few caveats, of course. Naturally, this all assumes that every player involved will stay healthy all year, and that they all perform according to their four-year trailing average performances. A realignment of the batting order will affect runs scored in very real ways: this is particularly true in the case of Bryce Harper. The current line up puts two left-handed power hitters, Harper and LaRoche, back-to-back, which may be suboptimal in matchup situations. But moving Harper down in the order will deprive him of plate appearances and run-creating chances.

I have goosebumps just thinking about this.

Milestones on K Street?

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A friend of mine remarked recently:

So the Rays’ pitchers just set the record for most K’s in a season by an AL team with 1,246. The 2003 Cubs hold the MLB record with 1,404. The Nats currently have 1,237 K’s on the season. What are the odds that the Nats’ pitchers break the Cubs’ mark in the next 3 years? I say even money.

This is one of those things that sneaks up on you. As much as I follow the Nats’ pitching staff, I had not really been keeping track of their cumulative strikeout figures. Currently, the Nats are third in the league, behind the Phillies (1290) and the Brewers (1299), although I have to believe the Brewers’ strikeout totals are somewhat inflated from having to face the Astros and the Pirates (who are, respectively first and second in strike-outs while batting) so often.

Let’s get one obvious thing out of the way. The Nats pitching staff posts a collective 8.18 K/9. There are about 90 innings left in the year. Assuming nothing changes radically, we’d expect around 82 more strikeouts through the end of this year, bringing the total to something like 1,328 or so. So, no way the 2012 Nats come close to the 2003 Cubs’ unbelievable strikeout totals.

Could the Nats equal such a mark?

We can try to make an extremely crude projection. Let’s assume an unlimited, 200-inning Stephen Strasburg. Let’s further assume that Edwin Jackson re-signs with the organization, and that Ross Detwiler remains in the rotation. That gives us a five-man rotation of Strasburg, Gio, Jordan Zimmermann, Edwin Jackson, and Ross Detwiler. So let’s start by looking at how they’d do.

Looking at totals since 2008, here’s what the K/9 rates look like:

Strasburg: 11.21
Gonzalez: 8.79
Zimmermmann: 7.41
Jackson: 6.92
Detwiler: 5.48

Assuming all of them pitch 190 innings (I know, very very crude here), this is what it looks like:

Strasburg: 236 strikeouts
Gonzalez: 186 strikeouts
Zimmermann: 156 strikeouts
Jackson: 146 strikeouts
Detwiler: 116 strikeouts.

That gives us a starting pitching rotation total of 840 strikeouts. So far, in 2012, those same five have recorded 800 strikeouts. This seems plausible. So the 840 strikeouts from the starting rotation would need an additional 564 strikeouts from relievers to equal the 2003 Cubs. 2012 Nats relievers put up 433 strikeouts, all together.

What if we don’t bother with all this tiresome averaging over the past several years, and assume the Nats pitch at the same level they’ve done in 2012? Well, assuming 190 innings for everybody:

Strasburg: 11.13 K/9; 235 K’s
Gonzalez: 9.36 K/9; 198 K
Zimmermann: 6.95 K/9; 147 K
Jackson: 8.03 K/9; 170 K
Detwiler: 5.68 K/9; 120 K

For a staff total of 870 strikeouts.

But let’s look back at those 2003 Cubs K/9 rates:

Kerry Wood: 11.35 K/9; 211 IP; 266 K
Mark Prior: 10.43 K/9; 211.1 IP; 245 K
Matt Clement: 7.63 K/9; 201.2 IP; 171 K
Carlos Zambrano 7.07 K/9: 214 IP; 168 K
Shawn Estes: 6.11 K/9; 151.2 IP; 103 K

Wow. Strasburg today has nothing on Wood and Prior in 2003. They got more strikeouts, more often, over far more innings than we now think prudent. The forgotten man here was Shawn Estes, who racked up 103 strikeouts in 28 starts for the 2003 Cubs.

If the Nats are going to challenge the 2003 Cubs for the most strikeouts by a pitching staff in a single season, they’re going to have to hope that several of the following happen in the same year:

  • Stephen Strasburg pitches over 200 innings
  • Jordan Zimmermann pitches over 200 innings
  • Gio Gonzalez pitches over 200 innings
  • Ross Detwiler discovers some way to get 2 more strikeouts per 9 innings
  • The bullpen gets more strikeouts

A New Era

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Yesterday, the 2012 Washington Nationals defeated the St. Louis Cardinals by a score of 4 to 3. Stephen Strasburg pitched well, but got a no-decision–the vagaries of the rule-book having awarded the win to Ryan Mattheus. Tyler Clippard recorded a save. Later, the national media would focus on the news that Strasburg’s season would end on September 12.

As the rest of the baseball world considered this, something more amazing happened: The 2012 Nationals won their 81st game. That exceeds the 2011 Nationals’ 80 wins. It ties the 2005 Nationals, whose improbable, roller-coaster, flip-a-coin debut in the Capital was a delirious first love affair for this generation of baseball fans.

There are still 29 games remaining.

That’s right, Nats town. If the Nationals win so much as one out of the next 29 games, they will have completed their best season ever since they arrived in DC.

We knew this was coming, of course. As soon as Gio Gonzalez recorded his 16th win of the season on August 19, beating Livan Hernandez’s 15-win 2005, we knew. But somehow it hasn’t been real until now: the 2012 Nationals have begun to outrun the long shadow of futility. They cannot be compared to the Natinals of years past. They are tied with the Texas Rangers for the highest run differential in all baseball–a feat they achieve with only an average offense, because they allow the fewest runs per game (3.6) in the National League. And, although I complain constantly, the Nats have scored 269 runs in the months of July and August–second only to the Milwaukee Brewers in runs scored during that period.

These Nats are pretty good, you guys. So don’t sweat the Strasburg Shutdown drama. Whatever happens, we Nats fans already have the team we dreamed about since the last out was recorded in 2005: a team that can beat any other team in the league on any given day. In the words of Ryan Zimmerman–a man who knows a thing or two about these things–the Nats have finally given DC baseball fans a team to cheer for.

Today, as you get ready to watch those Nats face the Cubs, remember that. Today, you have a team to cheer for, one that is the equal of any other in baseball–and perhaps better than most.

Today, savor how awesome that is.

Today, root, root, root for the home team.

One Hundred and Twenty Percent

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Strasburg left tonight’s game in Miami having pitched a total of 150 innings on the year. That is 2 innings more than 120% of his single-season maximum innings pitched, as I outlined here. Again, Jordan Zimmermann was shut down after an increase of 120% of his workload–161.1 innings.

If Strasburg getting the Jordan Zimmermann treatment, he should be shut down now.

Read These Things

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In Rizzo We Trust

In Rizzo We Trust: the motto of the day in Nats Town.

I hope you all enjoyed the off day as much as I did.

No, that’s a lie. I hope you enjoyed it better than I did. I felt like I had nothing to do. I watched a Hong Kong gangster flick that was pretty good, but not nearly as fun as watching the Nats these days.

Anyway, you need to read the following things:

The Final Countdown

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Remember how I said almost a month ago that I was done talking about the Strasburg Limit?

That tweet from the inimitable Bill Ladson settled it. Now we know: the Strasburg Limit will be no greater than 180 innings. For most of the baseball commentariat outside the Beltway, this carries far more significance than the possible detection of the Higgs boson.

But what does this mean?

As I write this, Strasburg has pitched 127.1 innings. That means he has 52.2 innings left to pitch. So far, Strasburg has averaged just about 5.2 innings per start. At that rate, Strasburg will have 9 more starts. That means he will be permitted to pitch out the entire regular season, and shut down for any post-season play. Like Moses atop Mount Nebo, Strasburg will be permitted to see the Promised Land, but he will not be allowed to enter into it himself. At least not this year.

There is still work to be done, though. By my count of the rotation, Strasburg will face the Braves once (on August 21 at Nats Park), the Marlins twice (August 28 at Miami and Sept. 7 at home), and the Mets once (at home on Sept. 12)

Additionally, he’ll face the Giants on August 15, the Cardinals twice (Sept. 2 and Sept. 29), and the Dodgers once (Sept. 19).

That’s a lot of games against divisional opponents and winning baseball teams. The Nats need Strasburg to do well in each of these last several starts to keep their lead over the Braves in the National League East.

After the Limit is reached, I remain confident that a rotation of Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Jackson and Detwiler will be enough to get the Nats through a 5 or 7 game series. But until that day, I will be watching nervously.

Taking Strasburg to the Limit

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This is all I am going to say about the Strasburg innings limit.

The Nats have a policy–and a remarkably enlightened one, at that–of limiting starting-pitcher workloads to 120% of the innings a pitcher had pitched the previous year, wherever those innings happened (whether as an amateur, the minor leagues, or the majors). For pitchers returning from major injuries, the innings limit seems to be about 120% of the pitcher’s previous single-season career high total innings pitched.

The entire baseball commentariat outside the Beltway seems to think that this policy of limiting innings amounts to nothing more than a bluff on the part of the Nationals. But the Nationals’ recent misfortunes with pitcher injuries offer us a number of opportunities to see the organization’s pitch-limiting policy in action.

Take, for instance, Jordan Zimmermann. He underwent Tommy John surgery to repair his ulnar collateral ligament in August 2009. He spent 2010 in rehabilitation, pitching 5.0 innings in low-A Hagerstown, 13.0 innings in High-A Potomac, 4.2 innings in AA Harrisburg, 17.0 innings in AAA Syracuse, as well as 31.0 innings for the big league club, for a total of 70.2 innings on the year. In 2011, he returned to the starting rotation, and everybody in Nats town knew his innings would be limited. He ended up pitching 161.1 innings.

How did they reach that number? Well, Zimmermann’s previous single-season high for innings pitched was 2008. He hadn’t cracked the major leagues yet, but he pitched 27.1 innings for high-A Potomac and 106.2 innings for AA Harrisburg, for a career-high 134 innings pitched in a single season. Increasing his workload by an additional 20% in accordance with the organization’s inning-limit policy would have meant limiting him to…yes, 161 innings pitched, which is only one out less than what he actually pitched in 2011.

Zimmermann isn’t the only other Bionic Man in the Nats pitching staff, either. Reliever Ryan Mattheus also underwent Tommy John surgery to repair his ulnar collateral ligament in 2009. He spent 2010 in the minors, rehabilitating, pitching a total of 36 innings. He joined the Nats bullpen in 2011 and pitched only 32 innings. His previous career high single-season innings pitched? 2007, when he pitched 158.2 innings for the Rockies’ AA affiliate. In Mattheus’ case, it appears that the move from starter to reliever was enough of an innings limit in itself. But in 2012, three years removed from surgery, Mattheus has already pitched a total of 32.2 innings (29.2 with the big-league club, the balance on minor-league rehab assignments). The limit, it would appear, is gone.

What does this mean for Strasburg? Well, before his surgery, his previous single-season maximum innings pitched was 123.1 innings in 2010: 68.0 IP with the big league club, 33.1 at AAA Syracuse, and 22.0 at AA Harrisburg. If the Nationals apply their stated policy (no increases greater than 20%), Strasburg’s innings limit would be set at 148 innings.

The number generally bandied about, however, is the 160-inning limit that we saw from Jordan Zimmermann. Will the Nats shut down Strasburg sooner than they shut down Zimmermann? Tough to say. Increasing Strasburg’s workload to 125% of his previous single-season innings maximum leaves us at 154 innings. 160 innings would represent still another increase, to 130% of Strasburg’s previous single-season career maximum. For an organization that values its starting pitchers’ health as highly as the Nationals must, a 160-pitch limit must already represent the outer limits of the organization’s risk tolerance.

Think, also, that Jordan Zimmermann in his “rehabilitation” year of 2010 pitched 70.2 innings at all levels in the organization, so his 161.1 inning 2011 represented a year-on-year increase of 228% in workload–that’s a staggering increase in the amount of stress to put on a joint from one year to the next! Strasburg, on the other hand, pitched only 44.1 innings at all levels of the organization during his “rehabilitation” year of 2011. A 228% increase from that workload would leave us with 101 innings–merely two innings more than the total number of innings Strasburg has pitched to date in 2012. To get Strasburg to the 160-inning mark this season would represent an increase in workload of 361% over 2011!

If the organization opts not to try to “rip the ball out of [Strasburg's] hands,” what would an “unlimited” Strasburg look like? Let’s say the Nats win the pennant. Strasburg’s workload might look a lot like the Rangers’ Derek Holland, who pitched 198 innings in the regular season, and an additional 24.0 innings in the post-season, for a total of 222 innings pitched in 2011. For Strasburg, that would represent an unbelievable increase of 180% from his career single-season maximum innings and an increase of 500% over his workload from last year.

Strasburg is one of the fiercest competitors in baseball today. But even if his will is made of steel, his arm is made of muscle and sinew and surgically-repaired ligaments. Not limiting Strasburg’s innings in 2012 means asking that arm of mortal flesh to bear a load nearly twice as large as the largest it has ever borne, and potentially five times greater than it was expected to bear only a short year ago. I am not an orthopaedic surgeon–but it seems to me that not limiting Strasburg is to ask a very talented, very game young man to risk the total destruction of his only means of winning a livelihood to chase a goal that is, at best, uncertain.

If you’ve read this far and you’re still calling for the Nats to let Strasburg pitch past his “limit,” then you deserve to be called the nincompoop that you are.