Why are sports commentators and
players so upset over Stephen Strasburg? The Washington Nationals long ago decided to limit the total innings of
their prized pitcher Steven Strasburg. Strasburg, who is one year out from a Tommy John surgery, will end his first year of pitching after180
pitches. Now he has ended it even earlier after a three inning stint where the psychological costs of being the center of a firestorm finally got to his concentration.
Even locked in a pennant race, the Nationals’ GM Mike Rizzo decided to protect Strasbug’s healing and avoid arm fatigue that has derailed the career of many fine pitchers. The decision has unleashed a firestorm of criticism for “shutting down” Strasburg. The criticisms come from an old school mythical view of sports and ignores the science and economics of what the Nationals are doing. We should be proud of a team that is putting a player’s welfare before winning at all costs. In a world where coaches risk the health of players to eek out a win, we should celebrate the courage of this action, it is the right thing to do.
Even locked in a pennant race, the Nationals’ GM Mike Rizzo decided to protect Strasbug’s healing and avoid arm fatigue that has derailed the career of many fine pitchers. The decision has unleashed a firestorm of criticism for “shutting down” Strasburg. The criticisms come from an old school mythical view of sports and ignores the science and economics of what the Nationals are doing. We should be proud of a team that is putting a player’s welfare before winning at all costs. In a world where coaches risk the health of players to eek out a win, we should celebrate the courage of this action, it is the right thing to do.
Baseball pitching is one of the
most notoriously inhuman actions performed in sports. 50 percent of major
league starters will end up on the long term disabled list in the normal course of their career. We have ample
empirical evidence of the costs of over pitching. We know managers like Billy
Martin who road pitchers to championships only to have them ruined for the rest
of their careers. Jason Stark who has
been the most reasonable commentator on Strasburg from the beginning has it
pretty much right on the pros and cons of the decision to limit pitches one
year out from surgery.
The Nationals consulted with a large number of medical
personnel and have gotten almost universal respect from the medical and
training community for their brave decision. The medical community has been
trying to introduce a much stronger emphasis upon pitch count and sophisticated
accounting for years, and the Nationals’ decision represents the high water mark
of this attempt. This becomes increasingly important given the unique inhuman
nature of pitching and the size and strength of modern pitchers who easily
average 94-98 miles per hour.
In a world where athletes are treated as disposable commodities deployed to win at all costs, we should celebrate this decision, not vilify it.
I want to emphasize the players want to take this risk too. Most of the pressure to play through pain and risk comes from the internal drive of players to compete as well as the powerful almost ecstatic feeling of dominating performance when you are on. Players also feel strong obligations not to let fellow teammates down. When Manteo Mitchell finished running the first leg of the Olympic 800 meter hurdles on a broken leg, he knew the leg broke but kept running. As he put it, “You don’t want to let anyone down.”
The senior leadership of the Nationals is trying to set aside this type of pressure and romanticizing of pain. They have two strong justifications:
1. 1) The
team wants to protect the pitcher’s health. They already know that he can be
injured and oversaw a model rehab. The decision flows from the desire to
protect his long-term ability and lower the risk of career ending injury. The
team has no certainty but has done its best to think about the dangers and
stresses to a young strong power pitcher in his first year of recovery from ulnar collateral damage.
2. 2) Economically the Nationals have made one of the major investments in the history of pitching in signing Strasburg (Thank you Scott Boros). The team has built carefully for the long run as witnessed by how they carefully husbanded another injured star pitcher Jordan Zimmerman as well as picking up veteran catcher Kurt Suzuki to work with them. The Nationals have every reason to want their economic investment to pay long-term dividends.
2. 2) Economically the Nationals have made one of the major investments in the history of pitching in signing Strasburg (Thank you Scott Boros). The team has built carefully for the long run as witnessed by how they carefully husbanded another injured star pitcher Jordan Zimmerman as well as picking up veteran catcher Kurt Suzuki to work with them. The Nationals have every reason to want their economic investment to pay long-term dividends.
Strasburg is not 37 like Chris
Carpenter for St. Louis last year. Carpenter went on a roll and and gladly risked what remained of his
career to win a World Series. Nor is he Orel Hershiser in 1988 having one of
the great seasons of modern baseball who showed no signs of stress or strain on
the way to a World Series win and in the middle of 5 250 inning years. At 32 he blew out his arm
and never had the same career. Strasberg is 23 and already severely injured.
The Nationals do not have certainty but they know the heightened risk and have examples
like the almost great career of Kerry Wood.
Ethics has a principle called the precautionary principle where individuals and institutions should prefer the outcome that generally avoids the maximum amount of damage. As the probabilities of the damage rises, the imperative of the principle rises. Yes the Nationals are acting on
probabilities. The have amassed and studied good information supported by an emerging science among doctors
about how to protect and nurture the arms of modern power pitchers. They might
be overly cautious but they are not wrong; they are much more humane,
thoughtful and statistically sensitive. They are acting on the precautionary principle. This is how teams should think of
athletes, not as interchangeable parts.
Left to his own Strasberg would
make the Achilles Choice I often
write about. He is upset and angry about this decision. He would risk his long-term success to win all the glory of the
World Series. We do not know he would win, but he would risk it. The Nationals
will be competing for years, but this year looks special and he would do it. So
would the Greek Chorus of fans and commentators and self styled old school
players attacking the Nationals.
The attacks on Mike Rizzo and the Nationals are many and varied
but they all reduce to one narrative—athletes play to win. Athletes risk
physical injury and that is their job. So let him take the risk and gain the
glory.
Behind the critique lies the
facile and wrong claim by the smaller, weaker, and slower ex-veterans that
somehow this “shut down” (versus pitch control) indicts the coddled and
pampered modern athletes compared to the tough guys of old. You see the same
resentful logic among football veterans who attack efforts to minimize head
trauma in football. To them, this decision defiles virtues of courage and
overcoming adversity that gives sports narratives so much appeal in the USA.
These images evoke a bloodied Rams’
linebacker Jack Youngblood playing the Super Bowl on a broken leg. It conjures Kerri
Strug with a torn ankle vaulting the US to Olympic gold in 1996. Strasburg’s
“shut down” shatters this tale of courage and triumph.
I mean Strasburg is not even
injured yet!!! They are taking him out before he is injured, and that makes no
sense to the narrative of sport, to fans desperate for a victory or to players
invested in their own self-image of warriors and gladiators.
The reality is different. Those unique
heroic moments can occur because physiologically and psychologically athletes
and humans can muster immense physical resources and surmount pain for short
periods. High stakes, huge stress and strong loyalty amplify this power. We see
acts of superhuman bravery and physicality during accidents, disasters and
exceptional moments.
Most athletes and humans, however,
do not achieve through pain. Their performance degrades, and the longer they
stay in the worse they become and their teammates suffer for it. Injury and hurt
degrades performance, and serious injuries can destroy careers in a nanosecond.
Unless masked by painkillers or adrenaline, pain undermines performance quickly
and radically. The realities in the broken lives and foreshortened
careers-pitchers who lose their speed and delivery and end as journeyman
because they were mismanaged and overused during their early careers.
The Nationals know the reality;
they see through the myths we collectively embrace which are confirmed just
often enough to reinforce its influence.
The average fan gets the moral and
practical side of the decision to shut down Strasburg. They approved the decision
by a 4-1 majority. They understand the fairness and risk with far more clarity
about the issue than the commentators and ex-jocks. They know how teams usually
exploit and toss off players to win.
The Nationals are right; this is ethical progress, not failure.
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