Remember the Stephen Strasburg shutdown? That time in 2012 when Strasburg, not terribly removed from Tommy John surgery, was given a hard innings cap, the Nationals didn’t use him in the 2012 NLDS and then they lost the series in five games? And remember how, in 2013, the Nats underperformed and pundits continued to argue that the Strasburg shutdown not only cost the Nats the 2012 NLDS — which it probably didn’t, but never mind that — but also somehow cursed them going forward?
Yeah, that was something of a drag. A drag other teams who later dealt with fragile, recovering starters avoided because, unlike Mike Rizzo and the Nats, they didn’t make a big show of announcing a hard innings cap. Maybe that messed with Matt Harvey and the Mets last year, but since no one with the Mets made a super big show of it like Rizzo did, it’s mostly being ignored. Mostly.
Anyway, today I was reminded that the first guessers were, in some cases, just as wrong as the second guessers about all of the consequences of the Strasburg shutdown. And one of those first guessers WANTS TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!
Strasburg, of course, just signed a multi-year extension with the Nationals on relatively team-friendly terms.
Donald Trump: wrong for the Nationals baseball decisions, wrong for America.
