Caring for Arms

Tom Boswell compares and contrasts how the Mets and Nationals care for young arms:

The Mets, doing it Alderson’s way, have an NL pennant to show for their 2015 forced march. The price they will pay is TBD, in baseball parlance. Toughness can be expensive. The Nats, with Rizzo, have the second-most wins in MLB in the past five years. But they have never won a postseason series and have been accused, publicly by Tim Hudson in 2014, of not being tough enough to win it all.

Yet this past week, the Nats had so many healthy top-level starters that, to find room, young Joe Ross was put on the 15-day DL with a minor “injury” so that he would be fresh for September and October — without surpassing wise innings limits.

Note that the Nats have not prevented injuries per se. What they have done is allow complete recovery from injuries. They don’t rush pitchers back from the disabled list, and they don’t over use them after major surgery. And they are not perfect. When Stephen Strasburg struggled in early 2015, they allowed him to pitch for a while, although it’s not clear that either party understood the injury. Now that they know, Strasburg goes on the DL for a any sign of it recurring.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/29vJOW5