Jack Morris takes a swipe at the Strasburg shutdown

Jack Morris was asked about the exploits of aces Justin Verlander and CC Sabathia. And he used the opportunity to take a swipe at the Nationals:

“I think everybody in the Washington Nationals’ front office should pay attention that guys should go deep into games … when I see CC complete a game two days after Justin did, and I see guys doing it, it reminds me that there’s still hope because — I can say this, Phyllis, and you can’t tell me I can’t say this ‑‑ I believe the pitch count is overrated. I think the whole thing will come to fruition, the cycle, the experiment, and they will see that there is value in starting pitching to go deep in the games, to help save the bullpen.”

At the outset I gotta say that Jack Morris going after the Strasburg shutdown is the very definition of mixed feelings for me. Can’t we just say they’re both wrong and be done with it? Short of that, can we ask Morris what it was like to pitch year-in-year-out with his innings eating peers Dave Rozema and Mark Fydrich?

OK, that’s too simple. How about this: pointing to the accomplishments of perhaps the two most reliable workhorses in baseball and saying “look, everyone should do that” is silly. There have always been amazing pitchers who can do that sort of thing — Morris was one of them, by the way — but that doesn’t mean everyone can or should.

It also doesn’t mean, by the way, that shutting down Strasburg early is somehow justified either. Because even if you advocated keeping him going like I did, I don’t think anyone suggested that he should do things like throw 132 pitches like Justin Verlander or go on three days rest all the damn time like CC Sabathia did back in 2008.  You can extend his season and have him available without him being used like tried-and-true beasts such as Verlander and Sabathia.

How about this: some pitchers can do that kind of thing. Some pitchers can’t. All pitchers should be watched and monitored by their teams so as to maximize their effectiveness. For some that means low pitch or innings counts. For others it doesn’t. All pitchers should be used in such a way so as to balance concerns about their health and concerns about the team winning.

But sure, if you want to reduce it all to “pitching counts are an atrocity” or “no one should throw more than XXX innings or pitches,” go ahead and live in your simple little world.