{"id":4435,"date":"2012-09-03T17:59:32","date_gmt":"2012-09-03T21:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=4435"},"modified":"2012-11-15T10:28:49","modified_gmt":"2012-11-15T15:28:49","slug":"ewing-theory-and-the-strasburg-shutdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=4435","title":{"rendered":"Ewing theory and the Strasburg Shutdown"},"content":{"rendered":"
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How much will Strasburg's shutdown really affect the team? Photo allansgraphics.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Here we are, September 1st, and every single columnist and blogger who covers baseball has, by law, added their 2 cents to the Stephen Strasburg<\/strong> shutdown debate. And as the imminent shutdown date approaches (I had predicted 9\/12 being his last start either in a post or the comments section, and that date still seems to hold; 9\/12 gives him 3 more starts, which seems to match what we’ve been hearing lately out of Davey Johnson<\/strong> and the front office), I’m honestly not looking forward to the coming blitz of additional opinions from the blogosphere talking about what idiots the Nationals are, blah blah.<\/p>\n

My succinct opinion on the shutdown can be expressed in this metaphor; if you had open heart surgery, and your cardiologist says to you, “take it easy next season and only pitch 160 innings,” wouldn’t you follow his advice?\u00a0\u00a0 Both the doctor who performed Strasburg’s surgery (Lewis Yocum<\/strong>) and the famed James Andrews<\/strong> (together essentially the two leading experts on the injury and the surgery) have come out in support of the National’s conservative plan.\u00a0 To every other pundit out there who says something like, “there’s no proof that shutting him down will protect him in the long run,” I’ll say this: I trust the guy with the M.D. behind his name over the internet dork sitting in his mom’s basement who thinks he knows better.<\/p>\n

Even my wife has added her 2 cents; while watching Saturday’s game (a pretty amazing back and forth offensive outburst ending with St. Louis scraping a run against Drew Storen<\/strong> to take it 10-9), one of the telecasters added his opinion on the matter and my wife asked me why the Nats didn’t just “let him pitch less” earlier on in the season.\u00a0 A common theme for Strasburg shutdown critics; to which I say this: if you think the whole shutdown thing isn’t playing will with the Veterans in the Nationals clubhouse, exactly how do you think it would have played out if the entire pitching rotation was manipulated all season on account of one guy?\u00a0 Baseball is a team game; you have 25 guys out there who contribute to each win, and I’m pretty sure the veterans on this team wouldn’t have taken well to having their routines thrown off in an effort to squeeze 5 more starts out of a 24 yr old (no matter how promising he may be).<\/p>\n

But I digress slightly from the point of this post.\u00a0 I’m of the opinion that we may see an interesting phenomenon occur when Strasburg gets shutdown for the season.\u00a0 We may see a theory that Bill Simmons<\/strong> has come to popularize called “The Ewing Theory<\/a>.”\u00a0 In essence, the theory says that teams with stars who receive an inordinate amount of media attention often perform better once that star has either left the team or gone down with injury.\u00a0 Teams rally around each other after their star player either leaves or goes down with injury partly because of the “relief” they get from media questions, partly to show that they can win without the big name, and partly (in some cases) because the star player was “holding the team back” by virtue of his presence (this happens more in sports like Basketball, where one player can really command an entire team’s attention; less so in Football or Baseball).\u00a0 It is named after Patrick Ewing<\/strong> because his 1998-99 New York Knicks ended up in the finals despite Ewing going down with injury.\u00a0 The phenomena has repeated itself in a number of notable ways over the years; off the top of my head these situations fit the theory:<\/p>\n