Strasburg Surgery

Well, Curt Schilling was right.

Stephen Strasburg has a tear in his ulnar collateral ligament, which will probably require Tommy John surgery. This is just utterly devastating news for many recipients, Strasburg, the Washington Nationals, baseball and its fans. Strasburg had the hope of millions on his shoulders, specifically on his arm. The hype surrounding him as a pitcher was astronomical, and he surpassed that hype in his first starts. Fourteen strike-outs in his first game is just unprecedented for that type of hype-machine. He made batters look silly, throwing his 98 MPH fastball, following with a devastating curveball.

Tommy John surgery will change all of that. Plenty of pitchers come back from this surgery and win games again. Most of these pitchers though, must alter their pitching. They need to adapt from being power pitchers to finesse pitchers. Strasburg is still young, so there's no denying he could enjoy a long, productive career. He seems to have the drive and attitude needed to succeed, so this could just be a minor setback in an illustrious career.

Strasburg wasn't meant to be a Greg Maddux, or a Tom Glavine. Sure, they were great pitchers, the best of their generation. Fans pay to see the power though, both in batting and pitching. Teams were seeing their attendance skyrocket when he was scheduled to pitch. People wanted to see Strasburg just dominate, which he did in nearly every start. He was supposed to be the next great power pitcher, the likes that haven't been seen since Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson in their prime. People around the league, fans all over, wanted to see this kid succeed and live up to the hype.

The Nationals learned the hard way not to allow Scott Boras decide how much athletes should be paid. Strasburg had not faced MLB batters yet, but the Nationals had to give him the bank. Without doing that, he would have gone to some other team and the Nats would have looked incredibly stupid for not signing a "once in a generation" talent. It seems funny that for the second year in a row, the Nats signed another Scott Boras talent, Bryce Harper, who is also described as "once in a generation." The Nats now are back to square one, without their future top of the line thrower, and their next great hitter also years from being great.

This story is just sad. The Nats did everything right; Strasburg was not overworked and when injury was lurking, they sat him. This injury just shows that statistics mean nothing to the individual. Pitch counts do not matter. The Nats did everything to ensure he would be free of injury. There have been plenty of pitchers throwing for over 130 pitches this season in a start. They are not injured. Strasburg's elbow was destined for surgery, whether he pitched 10 innings, 100 innings, or 1,000 innings. While conditioning is better now than was 50 years ago, it seems more and more injuries occur. Blame is placed everywhere. The biggest is the fact that, as children, many athletes no longer play multiple sports, just focusing on perfecting one.

So, those people, who went to see Strasburg this year will probably be the only ones to see that domination. Strasburg will have a great career, but not the career we wanted. We are all losers in this, fans, MLB, and the Nats. But really Strasburg loses the most. He was already supposed to be the best pitcher, ever. Because of the surgery, that will remain to be seen.