On Steven Strasburg

Talk to any baseball fan, and they'll have an opinion on the Tommy John surgery that's ahead for Washington Nationals phenom, Steven Strasburg.  Some say he was rushed to the big leagues.  Some will say that this injury simply proves that the pitch count is useless.  Others are gleefully rubbing their hands together with an I-told-you-so look in their eye.  I believe the correct term for those in the last group is schadenfruede.

Through a completely different forum, that of wargaming, I have had the honor of corresponding with Curt Schilling, he of the bloody sock, unvarnished opinion, and killer split-finger fastball.  Back when Curt was still toiling for the Phils, I decided to break away from the usual wargaming conversation and ask him about arm injuries (in part, his own, but in general, about today's pitcher).

For those of you who don't know, Curt is an amateur historian, and knows his baseball history as well as a player can.  He's read tons of stuff about the past, and it's helped shape him as a pitcher.  So it came as somewhat of a surprise to this baseball fan (who knows the statistical history of the game, as well as its general history) when Curt's response about today's pitchers sometimes being oft-injured came through.

Paraphrasing, he said:  "Back then, it was survival of the fittest.  Teams didn't have a lot of money invested in a pitcher, so if he blew out his elbow after one start, they released him and found someone else.  By sheer force of numbers, the durable guys stayed and made up the staff for years.  Everyone else came and went.  You stayed in the Show because you were healthy."

Back in 1884, Old Hoss Radbourn pitched 678-2/3 innings, winning 59 and losing 12 for the Providence Grays of the National League.  And this, just the year after he'd pitched 632-1/3 innings!  Radbourn, who had been trying to get out of his contract, approached manager Frank Bancroft in May, and made a stunning proposal:  Let me pitch the remainder of the games, and if I do that for you, you'll let me out of my contract. 

Surprisingly, Bancroft agreed, in part because he didn't believe that Old Hoss could do it.  But do it Old Hoss did, pitching the Grays to the National League pennant, starting and completing 73 consectutive games.  On his career, Radbourn would start 502 games, and complete 488 of them.

In 1884, however, at the age of 29, pitching almost 700 innings took its toll.  His arm hurt so badly that his own wife had to accompany him on road trips to help him get dressed, especially to get his shirt on.  He couldn't raise his arm high enough to comb his hair.  And in the end?  Radbourn signed on for one more year in Providence before moving on to the Boston Beaneaters.

Old Hoss was one of those guys Schilling talked about: the survivor.  Look up the pitching register in the Baseball Encyclopedia, and see how many guys had one-year careers, or even one-game careers.  Some of the one-game guys pitched complete-game shutouts.  Surely, there was talent there to be mined.  Why didn't a young kid, who just shutout a big league ball club, get a second chance anywhere?

We'll never know, because injuries aren't recorded in those days of old.  Maybe the pitcher got home sick.  Maybe his arm stiffened after the game and the manager simply moved on to someone else.  Maybe, like Strasburg, he tore something, and was never the same pitcher again.  In the days before sports medicine, a blown MCL or ACL or rotator cuff simply meant the end of the line, no matter the age or experience level.

Back to Strasburg, it's impossible to fault the Nationals for trying to win for their fans.  Teams have been doing that since 1869 when the first pro team came into existence.  But unlike the teams of old, who would have discarded Strasburg immediately upon learning of his injury, today's teams will do whatever they can to repair and rebuild their investments.  And with procedures such as the Tommy John surgery, pitchers also know that their careers aren't over if and when a serious elbow or shoulder injury happens. 

Although you'd be hard-pressed to find many who would say this, today's medical techniques in sports medicine are win-win for everyone: the team gets to try and get as much as possible from their investment, and the pitcher isn't facing a life without baseball.

Questions, of course, will abound.  Did Strasburg hurt himself by not staying another year in college to develop his arm strength?  Did the Nationals advance him too far, too fast?  Did everyone do enough to make sure this injury was less likely to happen?

All good questions; all unanswerable.  No one knows why this happened.  Perhaps Strasburg's physiology is such that he's prone to this type of injury.  Maybe it's his delivery and arm slot.  Maybe it the way he throws or the types of pitches he throws.  Maybe it's his mechanics.  Maybe his physique, despite his desire, simply won't allow him to throw a baseball like he should to be injury-free.

[NOTE: Thanks to Todd for pointing out the issues raised about Strasburg's mechanics as a cause for concern and potential injury.  Try as I might, it's hard to read everything there is out there on baseball.  I thank Todd for his comments and links on the topic.  --  Brien]

Take a guy like Cliff Lee.  Weren't you surprised to find out that Lee does not ice down his arm after a game?  Doesn't that go against everything we've been told about how you keep an arm from developing arm troubles?

And how about Nolan Ryan's recent revelation that he doesn't believe in pitch counts.  And that he discovered, by pitching so much, his own shoulder wore down in all the right places that his own body "adjusted" to the toil on his arm and actually protected him from injury.  Could that be why a guy like Radbourn could do what he did?  That he'd pitched so much, for so long, that his whole shoulder simply got "worn" into shape?

So, what's the answer?  More pitching?  Less?  Perhaps the truth lies somewhere between Hoss Radbourn and a strict pitch count, especially in the minor leagues.  Maybe lessons could be learned from the so-called Ironmen and applied to today's pitchers.  Perhaps a combination of advanced, medical monitoring of pitchers, along with more liberal pitch counts, is the key.  There must be a happy medium, an optimum performance level that strengthens an arm/shoulder/elbow for the rigors of the big leagues, yet protects the pitcher from over-use.  It seems to me that if baseball wants to invest in the development of its players, it should look into finding the right mix that helps pitchers avoid career-threatening injuries. 

After 141 years, baseball is still finding the Nolan Ryans and Hoss Radbourns by chance.  Perhaps its time to start developing them on purpose.

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