Why Washington Fans Shouldn’t Worry About Shutting Down Strasburg



(Alex Brandon / AP)        

By Carlos Collazo | @CarlosCollazo__

How’s it going guys? Man it’s been a while since I have managed to write anything about baseball and let me tell you; it’s good to be back. For those of you who don’t know (probably a large number of you), I have just recently moved into college. I have been getting my dorm set up, getting accustomed to classes, eating a lot of food, and getting my internet set up. That last little part turned out to be extremely cumbersome, but I have some great tech guys around here to help me out.

Regardless of all of my issues, I’m back and, more importantly, ready to talk some baseball.

Today’s column—which is actually my first column for the Daily Site—is going to cover one of the best teams and one of the best pitchers in baseball. If you haven’t already deduced from the title, it is Stephen Strasburg and the Nationals of Washington.

The Nationals are 77-47 so far during the season, helped out significantly by Strasburg and his 15-5 record in 25 starts. So, clearly he is a good pitcher right? He’s got a lot of wins and not a lot of losses, so he must be. If you know me then you know that I don’t put too much stock in Wins and Losses for pitchers (say hello, Felix). I like to look a little bit deeper.

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that most of you know about Stephen Strasburg and are aware that he is an elite pitcher. We won’t need to analyze all of his advanced stats because there is no real need. He is good, we know he is good, and we know why he is good. He throws ridiculously hard, has a ridiculous curve ball, and a ridiculously cool beard to top it off (the high socks he normally wears can’t hurt either).

So, should we really go over things like his 11.33 K/9, 2.66 BB/9, 2.85 ERA, 2.62 FIP, 2.74 xFIP, and 1.11 WHIP? No, of course we shouldn’t. The point of this article isn’t to tell you how good Stephen Strasburg is. The point is to talk about what shutting down Stephen Strasburg means for the Nationals right now*.

*Ari Berkowitz wrote an article in the first edition of Big Leagues Monthly Magazine that talks more about elbow injuries and prevention as well as the long term thoughts on shutting down Strasburg.

Well, if the Nationals are going to be honest with themselves, the fans, Strasburg, and really anyone who keeps up with or follows baseball, Stephen Strasburg has about 2 more starts left in him. He is scheduled to pitch this Sunday and then again either next Friday or Saturday. That means the Nationals are going to have to last about a month without any starts by the ace.

In the extreme short term, this is not too big of a deal. People like to make a bigger story out of things because he is such a huge name and talent, and there is probably some justification for that. But, as far as the team’s performance without Strasburg anchoring the rotation, you shouldn’t worry too much. As a team, the Nationals are ranked first (according to Fangraphs) in starting pitching WAR. Clearly Strasburg has a lot to do with that, but since baseball is a bigger team sport than any other (yeah I’m calling you out football), we might all be overstating Strasburg’s value to the team. After all, there are a bunch of other really good arms in this rotation.

Let’s have a look.

Player                          GS     K/9      BB/9       ERA     FIP       xFIP    WAR

Gio Gonzalez              25     9.45     3.40      3.23     2.80     3.31     4.2

Jordan Zimmerman  25     6.69     1.67      2.54     3.34     3.36     3.2

Edwin Jackson           23     7.56     2.81      3.69     4.09     3.91     1.6

Ross Detwiler            20     5.45     2.29      3.47     3.55     4.12     2.0

This is pretty incredible for a starting rotation. Putting Strasburg in with them just isn’t even fair. Not all of the guys up here strike everyone out like Stephen and Gio, but when they don’t, they are limiting the walks. Although Jordan Zimmerman and Ross Detwiler have low(ish) strikeout numbers, they both walk very few batters per game to make up for it.

Personally, the most amazing thing about all of these pitchers is the fact that out of the four of them there are only two numbers in the ERA/FIP/xFIP slash that top four. Edwin Jackson’s FIP is barely over at 4.09 and Detwiler’s xFIP is also a bit over at 4.12. That is really pretty incredible for so many pitchers on one team to throw so many quality innings.

This brings me to another point, look at how many innings each of these guys have thrown so far this season:

·         Gio Gonzalez- 153.1

·         Jordan Zimmerman- 156

·         Edwin Jackson- 144

·         Ross Detwiler- 114

Most of them are going fairly deep into ballgames as well, as you can see by their average innings pitched per start:

·         Gio Gonzalez- 6.12

·         Jordan Zimmerman- 6.24

·         Edwin Jackson- 6.26

·         Ross Detwiler- 5.7

With the exception of Detwiler, each pitcher is averaging into the seventh inning of the ballgame per start. This is obviously a good thing, especially when the starters are so good and the bullpen is so… not good (ranked 17th in MLB by fWAR).

So do the Nationals need Strasburg? No, not really. With the exception of an abysmal Braves collapse, there is really no way for the team to not win the division. Washington has a 6.5 game lead over the Braves with just over a month of baseball left to play. The team will make the playoffs, and once they do, they will probably be a favorite to go all the way to the World Series and win it.

Pitching is kind of important in the playoffs. Fortunately for Washington fans, you probably still have one of the best rotations in the game without Strasburg. You’re probably not even going to use John Lannan that much during October. So, don’t freak out or get worried. Shutting Strasburg down is really just making the games fair for everyone else.


Carlos Collazo writes for Tomahawk Take on FanSided, Big Leagues Monthly and studies Journalism at the University of North Carolina.