Nationals Arm Race

When the Nationals signed Cuban defector Yunesky Maya in July, we thought we were getting a seasoned international competitor, a professional pitcher who would be the next in a good line of comrades who have made an impact in the majors.

After watching and commenting on  his MLB debut, I was impressed.  Maya wasn’t overpowering but showed a great variety of pitches and a fearlessness on the mound.

However, his fourth start yesterday (box/gamer) demonstrated the same issue that plagued him in his first three starts; the big inning.  In each start now, he’s had one bad inning amongst several good ones.  Yesterday he was unlucky to give up an unearned run in the 3rd, but then gave up 4 runs in the 6th and was yanked.  The crushing blow was a no-doubter homer from Atlanta’s shortstop Alex Gonzalez on a first pitch hanging curveball.  Suddenly the Nats are down 5-0 and have given up 4 runs in an inning, a relatively insurmountable score because of the “big bang” theory of baseball scores (see this Boswell chat for more details, but analysis of box scores over the years shows that in more than half of baseball games, the winning team scores more runs in ONE inning than the losers score the entire game).

This is why these big innings are troubling.  You give up 3 or 4 runs in an inning with an offensively challenged team like the Nats (playing yesterday without Espinosa, Zimmerman, and without original #5 hitter Willingham) are almost always going to lose.  Sure enough, Derek Lowe shut them down for 6 relatively innocuous innings and the Nats never scored at all.

I was at the game yesterday, which makes analysis of Maya’s stuff rather difficult.  All we can see is the mph on the pitch to guess whether it was a fastball, curve or change.  Maya didn’t seem to be throwing hard (averaging 88-89, maxing out 91 or so per yesterday’s pitch f/x data), and certainly wasn’t getting strikeouts (1 K in 25 batters faced, not even getting his counterpart on strikes).  His pitching coach was interviewed though and commented that Maya has found MLB hitters to be far more patient than in Cuba or International competitions, and that MLB umpires are not giving him pitches on the corners.  He seems to be nibbling, not throwing strikes or trusting his stuff.  It also goes without saying that he is still in early season/spring training mode, having only made his professional debut for us on August 13th.  Still, it is hard not to be concerned about his performance thus far.  Did we waste $6M on him?

Side note about the unearned run in the 3rd: Gonzalez made a fantastic diving stop with guys on 1st and 2nd and 2 outs, only to see Kennedy failing to cover 2nd base for the easy force out.  Possibly a mental error but more likely a result of the exaggerated pull shift the Nats employed on Atlanta’s catcher McCann.  So he forced a throw to first from his knees that short-hopped Dunn.  Dunn ineptly missed the throw, it got by him and a run scored. This error was then attributed to Gonzalez, who gets penalized AFTER making a great play and to try to make up for his teammate’s mental error.  A better first baseman makes that play easily.  This is just another example of how unfair our basic fielding stats are these days and how you just can’t measure some things in a box score.

On the same play, as the ball was getting past Dunn, the Atlanta runner running from first (Heyward) blew through the stop sign and was thrown out by 20 feet …. so he did what came naturally to major leaguer,s recently; he tried to bowl over our catcher (Ramos) instead of sliding or giving himself up.  Ramos pulled an “ole” move, kinda dodging the collision attempt and getting the tag in.  I realize that in some cases a catcher blocking the plate gives the runner little choice but to try to dislodge the ball by barreling into the opposing player.  But on a play like this I think the choice to try to deliberately harm the catcher needs some league retribution.  Heyward, to his credit immediately apologized to Ramos for his decision, which probably prevented further retribution.

Lastly, read this nugget in Nats News Network, where Riggleman has said that Olsen takes too long to warm up and thus can’t really be used out of the bullpen.  In other words, be prepared for a non-tender on December 1st.

Though not nearly as heralded as Strasburg or Zimmermann‘s debuts this season, Cuban FA signing Yunesky Maya had his MLB debut last night against the Mets at the stadium.  He took the loss 4-1 (gamer/box), with the Nats struggling against fellow MLB Debutante Dillon Gee.  Maya’s insertion into the September rotation spells the probable end of Scott Olsen‘s Washington career and represents the possible 5th of 5 starters the Nats are looking at for their 2011 rotation.

Unfortunately, nerves and overthrowing seem to have gotten the better of Maya, as the Mets tagged him early and hard in the first.  Maya was visibly nervous, breathing heavy and breathing hard before his first pitch.  It is probably hard to overestimate what we were witnessing here; a player who risked his livelihood and his family’s well being back in Cuba to defect to chase his dream.  Perhaps the culmination of the situation over came him.  Whatever the cause, the first four Mets hitters all got solid wood on the ball, with Ike Davis absolutely tattooing a ball to dead center for a quick three runs.

From my viewpoint, Maya was struggling early with his “height” on his fastballs (certainly the gopher ball to Davis was belt high and went a long way).  He also couldn’t get “on top” of his curve, which looked closer to an euphus pitch than a sharp breaker.  Masn showed his velocity as maxing out at 94, but Pitch f/x showed a max of 91.5 (further proof that stadium guns are “juiced”).

After giving up a run-scoring single to the opposing pitcher in the top of the 2nd however, Maya looked like a different guy.  He has an abbreviated motion that has a similiar (but less exaggerated) leg kick to Cuban compatriot Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez, and seems to have the same arsenal of pitches.  Per the MASN broadcasters he has 5 pitches (fast, curve, change, sinker, and a slider), but he demonstrated several others.  He changed speeds on all his pitches, moving his 4-seam fastball in and out.  He had good movement on the fastball (after the 1st anyway) and worked inside on hitters fearlessly. In the 3rd-5th innings he was on top of his curve and it demonstrated pretty significant 12-6 movement.  On a couple of occasions the hitter patently gave up on a curve that started at or above their head, only to watch it break into the strike zone.  He showed a sharp slider that he struggled to control most of the night.  He had a conventional changeup but also showed what had to be a split-fingered changeup that would dive down with great movement.  Finally he showed some variety by throwing both his slider and fastball from a near sidearm arm angle.

So, if you’re counting pitch varieties I saw: 4-seam fastball, sidearm fastball,  2-seam fastball, conventional changeup, split-fingered changeup, 12-6 curve, conventional slider and a sidearm slider.

Maya started out the game by working fastballs to hitters, but by the end was throwing an array of offspeed stuff to then setup a sneaky fast 4-seamer.  It makes you wonder if he was being told by the dugout to work that way.  Clearly he was more effective throwing more junk (ala Livan Hernandez) and you have to wonder if he changed tactics on the fly.  In this regard, I was very surprised to see the rookie Wilson Ramos behind the plate; why wouldn’t you start the future hall of famer with a new guy making his debut?  You’d get a better game called and have quicker adjustments on the pitch calling once it became apparent what the guys’ strengths were that night.  Curious.  In any case, after the first four guys hit the ball hard, he didn’t give up a well hit ball the rest of the night.  Lots of popups, lots of groundballs.  He’s not a strikeout pitcher; just a guy who throws a bunch of pitches well and keeps you off balance at the plate.

Verdict; I like what this guy brings to the table.  The scouting reports say that he “knows how to pitch” and that became pretty apparent as he mowed through the mets lineup the 2nd and 3rd time through.  He retired 11 of the last 12 batters he faced (only blemish being a walk to the guy who mashed a ball out, obviously pitching him carefully).  He looked fearless, threw his pitches well and I can’t wait to see his next start.

Coincidentally, Maya represents the 14th pitcher to start a game for us this year.  That “leads” the majors in a rather dubious categoryand goes a long way towards explaining how the Nats season has gone.

In other pitcher news, Detwiler pitched 2 innings with little fanfare; he threw easily and loosely, gave up some hits but worked through 2 innings decently enough.  He’s got his hands full though next spring when it comes time to displace one of the 5 current starters.  Lastly Balester pitched 2 strong with 3 Ks; he makes perfect sense as a long man out of the bullpen and I think his days of starting are over.

Well, Adam Kilgore beat me to the punch on this post earlier today, but I’ll still post my sentiments.

Scott Olsen put in yet another forgettable performance last night (gamer/box), lasting only 5 outs while giving up NINE earned runs in an ugly outing.  His era rose from 4.91 to 5.88, his whip rose from 1.43 to 1.53 and his ERA+ dropped from an already mediocre 84 to 70.  He drops to 3-8 on the season and the team is 5-10 in his starts.

The problem with Olsen is that his “highs” are not balancing out the lows.   In 15 starts he’s pitched into the 7th inning twice (including one gem against Atlanta where he gave up 2 hits in 7 1/3 inning) but he’s had “meltdown” games no less than five times.  (“meltdown” being defined as a game where the pitcher gives up at least as many runs as innings pitched).

Olsen arrived to the team with a history and a less-than-stellar fitness routine (he was a half-a-pack a day smoker).  We havn’t heard a single peep about any attitude or smoking issues this year and I was impressed that he accepted last year’s non-tender and subsequently signed on for less than what he would have earned in arbitration to start the  season.  I’m less impressed with the results for this team.

Thankfully for Olsen, he won’t earn an outright release in the next few weeks, probably just getting sent to the bullpen or just shelved as Yunesky Maya gets called up to naturally make the 9/7 start on a normal 4 days rest.  But, with an expected crowded race for next year’s rotation, he’s quickly earning himself a non-tender after the season is over.

Chapman is amazing. Photo via wiki/flickr SD Dirk

(Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on 9/2/2010, edited several times since, including links to the 105.1 pitch later in 2010 and him hitting 105.1 again in 2016, plus 2020 and 2022 readings and addition of additional links).

If you believe twitter and these published reports, Cincinnati’s Cuban prospect Aroldis Chapman “sat” at 103 and hit 105mph in his final AAA appearance before getting called up for the 9/1/2010 roster expansion.  I had a hard time believing it; the picture in the Yahoo looks doctored frankly, and stadium guns are notoriously “jacked up” to get the crowds excited and to spark interest in hard throwers.

There are two kinds of radar guns used by stadiums and scouts today.  A “fast” gun measures the speed of the pitch as it leaves the hand of the hurler while a “slow” gun measures its speed by the time the pitch crosses the plate.  For obvious reasons you’ll take the “fast” reading if you’re trying to hype the player, and you take the “slow” reading if you’re trying to evaluate the pitcher.  Oh, and you take readings over and again, compare first inning to last inning, etc.  My thoughts were that Chapman was on a fast gun that was over-exaggerated to add a couple MPHs (case in point; Jordan Zimmermann‘s radar readings on the telecast two nights ago put him at 96mph when his pitch f/x maximum was 94).  Click here for an excellent overview of the way we’ve measured velocity has changed over the years.

Now, that being said, check out the Pitch F/X data from Chapman’s first appearance in the majors on 8/31/2010, and his second appearance on 9/1/10. In his major league debut he threw 6 fastballs with an average of 100.65 and a max of 102.7mph.  This in and among itself would have been amazing and would have tied the fastest ever recorded pitch f/x data (that of Joel Zumaya hitting 102.7 in a game in June 2009)

However, look at the data from 9/1/10. He threw 7 fastballs that AVERAGED 102.11 mph with a peak of 103.9mph.  103.9!!

Before talking about new records, lets talk about history.

Now, I know there’s a ton of links out there talking about what the fastest ever reported pitch is on record (see links here or here at HardBalltimes or this google cache’d document as well as wikipedia or Guinness Book of World records links).

• Walter Johnson was known for his power in the early part of the century; his fastball was estimated to be in the upper 90s by lore, and 91mph by testing.  Its a shame that modern technology didn’t exist back then.
• Bob Feller being “recorded” using primitive measures in the 107mph range.
• Steve Dalkowski’s legendary velocity being claimed at 110mph.
• Nolan Ryan‘s “record” of 100.9mph has stood as some sort of altar to the speed ratings for years and years.

Lets discuss some of these points.

Bob Feller: So, what is the “proof” that Feller threw 107.6 in 1946?  Well, its complicated.  This ESPN article covers it: basically Feller threw a ball through a Lumiline Chronograph device, which hyper-accurately measured speed at the time.  His best measure was 98.6mph … but modern pitches are measured at the point of release, not where it crosses the plate.  So, you have to estimate how much velocity was lost from the point Feller tossed the ball to the device.  If you look at the photo (in the ESPN article), Feller was not throwing from the mound, but somewhere well forward of it.  So, to standardize speeds to some point closer to the release point of the pitch, we have to estimate the percentage loss of Feller’s pitch from an estimated delivery point based on a photo, then back into a number.  Some estimate this to be in the 103 range, others claim 107.6, which would imply he was throwing off the mound and experiencing the full expected velocity loss (which is clearly not true from the photo).  So I’d believe Feller was throwing roughly 103-104 based on where he released the ball … but its an estimate.  Add back 1mph for every 7 feet, and Feller seems to be standing at about 35 feet, so add perhaps 5mph to his 98.6 and you get the 103-104 rough estimate.

Coincidentally; the new standard is speed of the pitch measured at 50 feet from home plate.  This standardizes to allow for different release points by pitchers of different heights.

Steve Dalkowski: rumors of 110mph were mostly lore, but attempts were made to measure Dalkowski’s velocity.  Famously, he was measured at 98.6 at a military base in the 1960s, but there were some interesting caveats to that test.  According to this NYtimes article, the day Dalkowski attempted this test, he had thrown a 150-pitch start the DAY BEFORE, then had such a hard time throwing a baseball through the measuring device (he was notoriously wild) that it took him “dozens” of attempts before finally registering one pitch at the 98.6mph level.  It was the only known measurement of his arm ever done, and one has to think that (similarly to Ryan’s 100.9 speed below) he’d gain several mph just to standardize the speed to today’s 50-foot guidelines, and, frankly,  his arm was probably toast during the test.

(Side Note: if you’ve never heard of Dalkowski … his wikipedia page is a pretty good read).

Nolan Ryan: How about proof that Ryan threw 108.1, as is throw around the internet?  Well, It comes from the famous 100.9 reading he put up in a start in 1974.  However, that was reading was made using technology that, again, measured the speed closer to the plate than we currently do.  Per this article (which summarizes findings from a documentary called Fastball), the radar technology measured 100.9 ten feet from home plate, meaning we have to back up to the 50 feet estimate.  So, if the speed was measured at 10 feet, and we normally measure at 50 feet, we should add back “40 feet” of velocity loss, at around 1mph per every 7 feet, so call it somewhere between 5-6 mph … and we’re somewhere in the range of 106-107mph.  Not 108.1 as everyone claims; that’s adding back too much velocity and/or giving Ryan 10 feet more of credit (the measurement at the plate versus 10 feet in front).  These are still estimates of course; these speeds are also affected by the weather at the time (it was in Sept of 1974 in Anaheim … was that a humid day, an arid day?  Anaheim’s typical September weather is humid, hot; was it really humid that night?  Was it relatively dry?  That makes a huge difference in aerodynamics of a baseball and potential velocity loss.  So … we’ll never know.

Coincidentally, these velocity loss estimates are best documented by a physicist at the University of Illinois named Dr. Alan Nathan.  He estimates that baseball pitches lose 9-10% of their velocity from the point of release to the plate.  Example; if you release a ball at 100mph, it will generally measure at 90-91 by the time it crosses home plate.  Or, to put it easier … a pitch loses about 1MPH every 7 feet.

Other rumors and records for fast pitches suffer from perhaps hype and estimates, not science.  Zumaya reportedly hit 104.8 in the first game of the 2006 ALCS, but it was on the stadium gun, not Pitch F/X.  Ryan and Goose Gossage both reportedly hit 103mph in the 1978 All-Star game.  Stephen Strasburg reportedly could hit 102 as an amateur but rarely goes about 97 post-arm injury.  Justin Verlander may not have the triple-digit records but amazingly maintains his upper-90s throughout games, often hitting 100mph in his last inning of work.

I think Chapman’s speed last night is the new standard.  And a pretty amazing accomplishment.

—

Post publishing Editors notes: Chapman set a new MLB record on 9/24/10, after this article’s initial posting, throwing a documented 105.1mph.  He also threw a ball at 104.6 on 7/28/14.  Not quite as fast as his best ever … which I’m guessing even Chapman doesn’t think he’ll ever beat, since he got the reading tattooed on his wrist.  Then on 7/19/16,  years after his first record, he tied it again, throwing another ball 105.1.  Here’s the StatCast link for this pitch.  Coincidentally, this 105.1 pitch is now officially registered at 105.8 by MLB, because the technology we use now standardizes the pitch speeds at a specific distance, and Chapman’s 105.1 was measured further down from where we now standardize.

As of this writing, the Guinness Book of World records recognizes Chapman and 105.8 as the world records.

Post-posting related link: BA’s J.J. Cooper posted this Q&A session on 4/28/15 talking about Chapman and 101+ MPH pitches.

Jan 2017: Boston pitching prospect Michael Kopech, who is renowned his velocity, hit 110 MPH during a “max velocity” workout early in spring training by crow hopping.  Impressive, but not the same as throwing off a mound.  Holy mackerel!  How long before this kid gets to the majors and has a gun on him??

May 2018: we may have a new gold standard; Jordan Hicks threw a reported 105.1 MPH fastball, but Pitch FX shows it at 106.1.  (Unfortunately the PitchFX data at BrooksBaseball site now does not work, so my “evidence” is gone).  However, subsequent reporting on this pitch have lowered it to the mid 104s, so it remains unclear what its real velocity was to this day.

May 2022: University of Tennessee’s Ben  Joyce threw a pitch recorded at 105.5 in a college game.  Does Tennessee have Pitchfx?  Was this a juiced gun?  We’ll have to see.

At the risk of sounding TOO optimistic (like perhaps the ever rosy Thomas Boswell in today’s WP column), Jordan Zimmermann looked awfully good last night in his 2nd start back (gamer and box score from nationals.com).  He went 6 complete innings, gave up 1 hit (a double by Sanchez that was erased on a great outfield assist from Bernadina), struck out 9 and finished on 86 pitches before being lifted.  He could have gone more, but why would you at this point in the season with a guy coming back from injury?

Zimmermann’s effort is probably the 2nd best/2nd most dominant pitching performance of the year (behind Strasburg‘s 14k debut 6/8/10) from any Nats starter.  Per the pitch f/x data he hit 94 once, touched 93 a few times and averaged 91.79 on his 65 fastballs on the night.

(side note; just goes to show you can NOT trust the stadium Guns, ever, as they had Zimmermann on 96 in the first inning several times, which means that the stadium gun was at least 3mph faster than reality).

It is hard to gauge the breakdown of pitches though; per the f/x data he only threw one changeup, yet was quoted in the gamer as saying that his changeup felt great.  I’m guessing that some of the pitches classified as “sliders” were in reality changeups, and that the variation of speeds between his slider and curve screwed up the pitch classification.  Either way, his curve was definitely faster and less loopy than his previous start.  By pounding so many fastballs he showed that he has dominant enough stuff to challenge a pretty decent hitting Marlins team.  Zero walks and 86 pitches to finish 6 innings means he had pretty good control.

Unless the Nats are specifically NOT calling changeups after what happened to Strasburg?  That’d be a bad precedent.

On the season, Zimmermann now has 13ks and 1 walk in 10 innings.  That’s something to build on.  I’ve always thought that best-case Zimmermann had the capabilities to be a great #2 starter on a good team, and performances like last night are indicitave of that and much more.

Over the weekend, the Nationals took the first post-Strasburg step towards shoring up the 2011 rotation by extending FA-to-be Livan Hernandez through 2011.  No published financial figures but various tweets and rumors put it at $1M base plus a ton of incentives.  If this is indeed the case then his deal is an absolute steal considering his performances this year.  He’s pitching at a 2.7 WAR, which is valued at $10.8M per season per fangraphs.

(Small tangent; click on the fangraphs.com link to see who our 3rd most valuable starter by WAR is; yes indeed its Craig Stammen, demoted to the bullpen despite having the 3rd best advanced stats of any of our starters.  Unfair to the poor guy.  Perhaps he’ll get his chance again in 2011).

Livan has been an integral reason why the Nats are not clamoring towards another 59-loss season, having come out of nowhere (i.e., a minor league contract in spring training) to lead the staff.  He’s given us 18 quality starts in 27 outings, pitched into the 7th inning 12 times, and is averaging6.5 innings a start.  the team is 14-13 in his starts (42-62 in everyone else’s starts).

Here’s how 2011 is now shaping up, with no FA pickups (and not considering any of our AA prospects)

• Locks: Zimmermann, Marquis, LHernandez

• Considered (in order): Maya, Lannan, Olsen, Detwiler, Wang

• DL for 2011: Strasburg

• Minors/relievers/Left out: Atilano, Martin, Chico, Mock, Martis, Thompson, Stammen

By now, we’ve all heard the news: Steven Strasburg is headed towards Tommy John surgery and won’t be back for 12-18 months, which probably puts him out for the entirety of the 2011 season.  Analysis and observation seem to show that the acute injury was the result of a singular injury, namely his 5th inning change up thrown to Domonic Brown which left him visibly shaking his right arm.

So, what really caused the issue?  Here’s some possibilities:

1. Over-protection by the team.  I have an awful hard time believing this.  Strasburg never went more than 100 pitches or 7 innings in any major or minor league start this season.  Does that mean he was more susceptible to a major arm injury?  I seriously doubt it.  There are those pundits who blame the Nats for NOT gaining an MRI of his shoulder during his 15-day DL stint, which is similarly ridiculous.  He had a shoulder injury not an elbow injury.  If he had blown out a groin would those same pundits be saying the team should have MRI’d his legs too?

2. A mechanical change: Some analysis that i’ve read (this post by Foxsport’s Jon Paul Morosi) has quotes from unnamed scouts that say his mechanics had changed slightly, which (Morosi intimated) may have resulted in stress on the elbow that had not been there before.  To test this, compare his Pitch F/X report from his MLB debut on June 8th to that fateful day in Philadelphia  last week. Comparing the release points in these two plots shows something interesting; his release point is indeed several inches higher on average in his last game versus his first.  Comparing The 6/8 video versus the 8/21 video isn’t really helpful; the former just shows every strikeout while the latter replays the fateful pitch where the injury occurred.  One would have to see the isolated feeds side by side to really see a difference.  However, a slight mechanical change could certainly be factor.

3. The “Inverted W” Effect: There some pundits out there on the net who believe that the “Inverted W” effect (where a pitcher’s pre-release arm positions resembles an upside-down W) indicates a proclivity of arm injuries.  The name most often associated with this (the poster boy, so to speak), is Mark Prior, who had supposedly clean mechanics, threw hard and was basically out of baseball by the time he was 25.  Writer Chris O’Leary has several examples plus an entire section on Strasburg, who does exhibit the behavior.

The problem I have with the inverted W theory is that you can cherry pick from the thousands of major league pitchers out there to prove or disprove this theory.  O’Leary himself uses John Smoltz as an example of someone who had the Inverted W, saying that Smoltz “… retired due to shoulder problems.”  Uh, Smoltz made over 700 HUNDRED starts, plus had 4 years as a closer, and made 32 starts the year he turned 40.  Thats about as BAD of an example as you can find to prove your theory.

Yes Strasburg exhibits the inverted W behavior, but not nearly as definitively as poster boys such as Prior or Reyes.  But he’s never had shoulder problems, and damage to the elbow seems to be indicative of something besides the W effect.

4. Scapular Loading: some googling about his injury turned up this interesing article at Drivelinebaseball.com.  In essence, Strasburg puts undue stress on his elbow based on “scapular loading” during his windup.  The article concludes that this behavior possibly contributed but isn’t necessarily the cause.  It is worth a read though.  I don’t know nearly enough about the subject to agree or disagree to heavily.

5. Strasburg was throwing FAR more change-ups than he’s used to.  In college, he was so dominant that he could be a 2-pitch pitcher (4-seamer and curve) and pitch his way to the player of the year award.  However, in the pros 3 pitches are required and 4 good pitches are desired.  Luckily, Strasburg possessed a 91-mph circle change that moved 10-12 inches on the horizontal plane, an absolutely ridiculous pitch.  Well, his catchers noticed this too, knowing that a screw-ball like 91 mph pitch had a better chance of getting hit by lightening than being hit hard, and started calling for it more and more.  For the season he threw that pitch 16.7% of the time (according to Fangraphs.com) but by the time the fateful Philadelphia game rolled around he was throwing it more like 20-21% of the time.

The circle change is a rather difficult pitch to master.  You essentially make a “circle” with your thumb and forefinger around the ball, then throw the ball with a fastball arm-action but letting it “tumble” off your remaining three fingers.  This causes the screw-ball like reverse movement on the ball when thrown with enough velocity.  It is a great pitch; not only does it come out of the hand slower (hence the changeup) but it moves unlike any of your other pitches.  The bad part of the pitch; it causes a ton of stress on the arm.  Your wrist and fingers are very strong and contribute to the natural fastball motion; by taking them out of play with the circle-change you use a lot more of your forearm and elbow to “throw” the pitch.

Conclusions: in the end, it is difficult to  know exactly what happened.  I personally believe the over-reliance on the circle change was his downfall, but the other points (mechanical changes, inverted-W tendencies and scapular loading) are difficult to discount.

In any case, Tommy John surgery is so common now amongst power pitchers that you start to hear rumblings about pitchers getting it done as a preventative measure (!!).  Jonah Keri had a great q&a session with the originator of the procedure and it makes for a great read.  So we’ll cross our fingers, hope that around this time next august Strasburg is pitching rehab sessions in the minors and is ready to go full strength in 2012.

Strasburg‘s injury will change the way the Nats approach the offseason and the 2011 rotation.  Instead of having Strasburg leading the rotation, I believe this injury will result in the exploration of the FA market, the resigning of Livan Hernandez sooner than later, and the end of the “injury test cases” for Rizzo and Lerner.

Here’s what I’ve got for 2011 right now:

• Locks: Zimmermann, Marquis

• Considered: Maya, Lannan, Olsen, Detwiler, Wang

• FAs to be: Livan Hernandez

• DL for 2011: Strasburg

• Minors/relievers/Left out: Atilano, Martin, Chico, Mock, Martis, Thompson, Stammen

I think the rotation might be filled out exactly in the “considered” order, unless we resign Livan.  Right now I give Lannan the slight edge over Olsen and Detwiler based on past performances and pay.  I think Olsen is pitching his way off the team, and until Detwiler puts together 3 healthy starts he can’t be counted on.  I’m curious to see what Maya does during his call up and I think he’s a lock for the rotation next year.  Wang?  If he doesn’t show some progress why would we pay his freight next year?  IF we can get him in arbitration for a veteran minimum then he may be worth it.  $2M?  no way.

Atilano, Martin, Chico, Mock and Martis seem to be as close to your AAA rotation next year as can be.  Martin and Chico might be done; too old, too little production at the major league level, and in the way of AA promotion candidates like Peacock, Milone and the guys we got in the Guzman trade (Roark and Tatusko).

So, what does a rotation of Zimmermann, Marquis, Livan, Maya and Lannan get you in 2011?  70 wins?  more?  less?  Do we need to look into free agency?

Unbelievable.

I’m listening (well, I was until I heard the words “significant tear” and “ulnar ligament” in the same sentence) to csnwashington.com live stream of the Strasburg news conference.

How ironic is it that Strasburg needs this surgery the exact day that our previous high-end power pitching prospect Jordan Zimmermann returns from the same surgery?  He made it back in 13 months; Strasburg probably won’t feature for us until 2012 based on the timing of the injury (why bring him back to make one september start next year?)

Huge blow.  You have to think this pushes back the realistic “season that we’ll really be competitive” a whole year.  Do you think this event changes the Lerner’s minds about giving out huge bonuses to unproven talent?

An interesting day in the Nationals short franchise lifetime.  Lots of stuff went down yesterday: wunderkid Bryce Harper‘s introduction and BP show, Strasburg‘s career affecting arthrogram, the results of which (as we just have found out) probably means Tommy John surgery, and Jordan Zimmermann‘s first major league start since Tommy John surgery 13 months ago.

Lets talk about Zimmermann’s start.  A tough opposing team in the Cardinals didn’t help matters.  His final line wasn’t great.  4ip, 7 hits, 1 walk (the first batter he faced), one towering homer given up to this generation’s greatest hitter in Albert Pujols, and 5 earned runs.  70 pitches, 42 for strikes.  A bonanza of 9th inning scoring and 13th inning heroics earned the win for the team.

Zimmermann’s fastball was there for sure.  92-93 on the gun consistently, peaking at 94 a couple times per the Pitch f/x data.  Despite not giving up walks, he didn’t really have control of the fastball though.  His curve seemed waaaay too slow, floating in at 76mph for a delta from the fastball that I think is so distinct that hitters can adjust and swing strongly.  His strike zone map was all over the place.  Perhaps its rust, perhaps its more indicative that the AAA league (where he was absolutely dominant) is just not a good indicator of major league success.

Summary; its good to have him back, especially considering that he’s now just taken the reigns as next year’s rotational power pitcher for our team, and we hope that this is something he can build on.