You have to wonder if the brought the kid up too fast. That’s a shame for the Nats and baseball…

Clearly, I don’t have Al’s speed on the keyboard.

What a huge gut punch to that organization.

I never wish injuries on players, so all the best in his recovery. And, at least, it is something that is now fairly commonly fixed. No guarantees, of course, but TJ surgery is now fairly standard.

I hope it’s not a Mark Prior-like slide to the bottom for this kid.

Now I know why I thought his breaking ball looked like Kerry Wood in 1998.

Just yesterday I was telling a friend the whole setup was eerily reminscent of Kerry in 1998/1999.

Sad to see it is.

such a promising start to his career, in hindsight the Nats probably should have shut him down after he went on the DL for the first time. He’s still young and has plenty of time to recover, but not all guys come back from this surgery and are as good as they were before. The Nats franchise gotta feel like they’re cursed (at least they signed Harper though), the curse of Jim Riggleman and using young phenom pitchers.

Wow. Poor Mark Prior.

It reminds me of Fransisco Liriano of the Twins. Big power pitcher who came up and dominated in his freshman year only to have to require Tommy John surgery. I’ve been thinking, since Strasburg was injured, that this might be the path he’d inevitably have to go down.

For the Nationals, this just sucks.

When his debut was televised by MLB I was excited to watch him pitch, but I kept thinking, “this is too much.” It was way overhyped. By the 2nd or 3rd inning, Bob Costas was talking about Strasburg being enshrined at Cooperstown one day. I’m not overly superstitious, but it seemed like bad karma or something. I hope he recovers and has a good career.

The other thing that comes to mind is that I’m becoming more and more convinced that the pitchers who have sustained, successful careers are just freaks of nature. I think most pitchers have a very small window to be great or even really good. For most of these guys, regardless of how many innings they pitch or how many pitches they throw, the are either going to break down or not. The freaks of nature are the guys who don’t break down. I’m not saying that these things shouldn’t be monitored because limiting them could help sustain the pitchers a little longer, but I still think one day they will break down.

Extra thought: No pitcher should ever be given more than a 4-year contract. It’s just too risky.

Twas expected.

I agree.

You can pitch too, right?

…not because of how many innings he pitched, but because of what he threw in those innings? Is there such a thing as trying to throw too hard? Maybe too many breaking pitches?

Did he allow Strasburg to throw more breaking balls than what he should have?

like Prior. Prior’s shoulder injury from the base running collision was worse than they revealed at the time, and they went on to ride him hard the remainder of the season.

Pitchers nowadays seem to have better luck coming back strong from TJ surgery.

I wasn’t buying into the hype and I was expecting him to go the way of Kerry Wood or Mark Prior.

stuff at an early age appears to be a curse.
 I have to agree from above comments, seeing his breaking pitch reminded me of Woods when Woody came up. A ridiculous break and tremendous wear on the elbow.
 Hope he can comeback.
 I wonder if that “Dick” Dibble will have a job. He got on Strasburg hard about coming out of the game, and not being tougher. The Nats made Dibble take two nights off, the last two Cub games if I am not mistaken. He also made comments about some women sitting behind home plate talking to each other and on a phone. Dick Dibble said " This is the reason why women don’t belong at baseball games" . He is not that great of an announcer to begin with, maybe they will let him go after the year is over. I hope he apologizes anyways.

what a surprise

I will duck for the Dusty comments and jokes to begin.

It is too bad about Strasburg, though. Hopefully, he will be back in 2012 to pick up where he left off.

…phenom pitchers. Nowadays it almost seems like, for whatever reason, more tend to break down than not.

I have no idea why this is but, clearly, somebody has to start paying closer attention to the way these guys are brought along and resist the temptation to showcase these guys too quickly-it’s clearly a recipe for disaster.

on why these young pitchers break down these days more often than not: kids’ sports. A baseball league for youngsters these days is a ridiculous, all-consuming affair; a 12 year old with elite talent is playing 80 games plus a year nowadays. I wonder if these young bodies can handle that. By the time a guy like Strasburg is 20, he’s got alot of miles on that arm, more than we realize. Maybe strasburg’s mechanics are bad…but 30 years ago there was no such thing as analyzing a pitcher’s mechanics the way we do today. There is something that we are doing to our kids that makes this happen. I am convinced of this.

Less monies flooding in from Strasberg mania, and the team sure isn’t gonna be good until 2012 at the minimum now.