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Stephen Strasburg to retire

metirish
Aug 24 2023 01:43 PM

What a talent , injures did him in



Washington Nationals starter Stephen Strasburg is set to retire, sources briefed on the decision confirmed Thursday, with a formal announcement from the team scheduled for Sept. 9. The Washington Post first reported the news. Here's what you need to know:



The much-hyped 2009 No. 1 draft pick and 2019 World Series MVP has spent his entire career in Washington.

The right-hander hasn't pitched since making one start in June 2022, his first in over a year after undergoing surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome in 2021.





Strasburg, 35, signed a seven-year, $245 million contract in December 2019 — at the time the highest average annual value for a pitcher in major-league history





The Athletics

stevejrogers
Aug 24 2023 02:24 PM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

Thinking about the “HAR-VEY'S-BET-TER” chant towards Nats fans.



Now both will be eligible for the same year HOF ballot.



But I suppose Strasburg with his WS hardware will have enough to garner a few more “what could have been sympathy” votes among the electorate.

metirish
Aug 24 2023 07:34 PM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/BNightengale/status/1694788121756635197[/TWEET]

Yikes

Frayed Knot
Aug 24 2023 07:55 PM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

This 'decision' was essentially decided a while ago but, like the Wright retirement, he couldn't say so with the contract still ongoing

so he and the team seem to have reached some sort of agreement as to how the remainder of the contract gets payed out.



A wild up and down career. Not even drafted out of HS, he shed his 'baby fat' and then not only got in good shape but had a

career at SD State that not only made him the number 1/1 draft pick but one who was considered one of the best draft picks

of the history of MLB's draft era.



He then debuted with a splash (14 Ks in 7 innings), had some bumps along the road, had his best season and post-season as

the Nats won their only WS, then signed a long-term deal coming out of that year and has essentially never pitched since.

Of all the guys the Nats let walk [Scherzer, Turner, Rendon, Schwarber, etc.] he was the one they kept and they took a total

burn on it.

Centerfield
Aug 24 2023 08:10 PM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. Fucking death sentence for pitchers.



I know he's Nat. And a rich one at that. But it's sad nonetheless.

Edgy MD
Aug 24 2023 08:20 PM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

Mets should retire his number.

A Boy Named Seo
Aug 25 2023 08:29 AM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

Edgy MD wrote:

Mets should retire his number.


Cohen heard you loud and clear and made it happen.



[FIMG=500]https://res.cloudinary.com/ybmedia/image/upload/c_crop,h_1333,w_2000,x_0,y_0/c_fill,f_auto,h_1200,q_auto,w_1600/v1/m/1/0/1047248998dfe1814be45e529857adf510a90239/stephen-strasburg-makes-stunning-decision-on-his.jpg[/FIMG]



[FIMG=500]https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1400/1*16z_iWZDGmEn3Gn6rEGVWQ.jpeg[/FIMG]

Edgy MD
Aug 25 2023 08:40 AM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

That's responsive ownership, right there.

Marshmallowmilkshake
Aug 25 2023 08:41 AM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

A Boy Named Seo wrote:

Edgy MD wrote:

Mets should retire his number.


Cohen heard you loud and clear and made it happen.



[FIMG=500]https://res.cloudinary.com/ybmedia/image/upload/c_crop,h_1333,w_2000,x_0,y_0/c_fill,f_auto,h_1200,q_auto,w_1600/v1/m/1/0/1047248998dfe1814be45e529857adf510a90239/stephen-strasburg-makes-stunning-decision-on-his.jpg[/FIMG]



[FIMG=500]https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1400/1*16z_iWZDGmEn3Gn6rEGVWQ.jpeg[/FIMG]


If we still had Bullets of Cool, this would be one!

metirish
Sep 07 2023 12:35 PM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/Britt_Ghiroli/status/1699848652884210099[/TWEET]

Nat so fast

batmagadanleadoff
Sep 07 2023 12:43 PM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire


[TWEET]https://twitter.com/Britt_Ghiroli/status/1699848652884210099[/TWEET]

Nat so fast


If the number retirement thing is the holdup, maybe the Nats, being that they inherited the Expos history, can make a trade with the Mets: the Nats'll retire Gary Carter's number and the Mets can be done with the whole stupid, moronic retire Carter's Mets number thing, and in return, the Mets'll retire #37.

nymr83
Sep 07 2023 04:20 PM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

I don't feel that Carter's number needs retirement, but you seem to have a real thing against him, what's up with that?

metirish
Sep 08 2023 04:57 PM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/JonHeyman/status/1700236413763977716[/TWEET]

Getting messy

batmagadanleadoff
Sep 23 2023 07:37 PM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

=nymr83 post_id=136961 time=1694125250 user_id=54]
I don't feel that Carter's number needs retirement, but you seem to have a real thing against him, what's up with that?



In short, because I've posted on this plenty, I think that Carter was a manipulative phony and that this idea that his Mets uni number deserve retirement is the most moronic Mets thing I've ever heard in all my years of Mets fandom, which covers almost all of the Mets history. Carter's Mets legacy is by far, the most overblown and exaggerated of any Met and this number retirement trope irks me to no end to such a degree, that I can't help myself from weighing in even though I've already done so more than plenty.



However, I have an enormous amount of respect for Carter's career as a whole. If someone could come up with a metric to rate catchers so that they'd have to excel both offensively and defensively to score highly on this metric - something like Bill James's power/speed number - I think that by that imagined metric, Carter might be one of the very best catchers of all time. Not better than Bench, but maybe better than everybody else. At his peak, he was a tremendous hitter good enough to carry his team and as good as a defensive catcher as one could possibly be. But now, I'm mainly talking about Carter as an Expo, which shouldn't matter a whit when considering whether to retire his Met uni.



He was already in decline when he arrived in Flushing, but even so, his first year as a Met, 1985 (which was his best as a Met) was also the best in all of baseball for catchers. More than that, it was MVP caliber. That was a testament to just how good Carter was at his best if he could produce a season like 1985 at 80 or 85% of who he once was. He continued to decline, rapidly and right before our eyes. By mid-1986, he seemed to get worse from week to week. His legs were going. He couldn't throw runners out anymore and without legs, he couldn't hit as well as he did when he was healthier. Without legs, a batter loses bat speed. And without bat speed, the power goes. After '86, he would never be an impact player anymore, and in fact was more liability than asset.



I thought that he should've been enshrined in Cooperstown when he was first eligible. But that may be a nebulous statement because I think that every Hall of Famer should've gotten in during their first year of eligibility. A Hall of Fame candidate doesn't get any better on their second or fifth year on the ballot.



I think that the closest Met comp for Carter is Tommie Agee. Their Mets career bWAR's are very close (Agee - 14.0; Carter - 11.4 - some of the very lowest bWARs among players in the Mets HOF). They're both five year Mets and as far as I know, the only five year Mets to have been inducted into the Mets HOF. No other Met HOFer had a shorter Mets career than Agee and Carter. Agee's Mets bWAR is slightly better because Agee had three very good Mets season; Carter -- just two. They were both key members of a World Championship Mets team and are both Mets WS heroes. Both were beloved Mets, among the very most popular Mets during their Mets stints.



And nobody's clamoring for the Mets to retire Agee's number, who seems to have a better case than Carter.

batmagadanleadoff
Sep 28 2023 01:30 AM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

Mets players ranked by career Mets bWAR all the way down to Gary Carter:



1. Tom Seaver 76.1

2. David Wright 49.2

3. Dwight Gooden 41.6

4. Jacob deGrom 41.2

5. Jerry Koosman 39.5

6. Darryl Strawberry 36.6

7. Carlos Beltran 31.1

8. Edgardo Alfonzo 29.6

9. Jose Reyes 28.2

10. Al Leiter 28.0

11. Sid Fernandez 27.6

12. Jon Matlack 26.6

12. Keith Hernandez 26.6

14. Mike Piazza 24.6

15. Howard Johnson 22.0

16. Brandon Nimmo 21.0

17. Mookie Wilson 20.8

18. John Stearns 19.6

19. David Cone 19.4

20. Jeff McNeil 19.1

21. Bud Harrelson 18.7

22. Cleon Jones 18.1

23. John Olerud 17.3

24. Pete Alonso 17.1

25. Lenny Dykstra 16.5

26. Rick Reed 16.4

27. Ron Darling 16.0

28. Kevin McReynolds 15.8

29. Jerry Grote 15.7

30. Michael Conforto 15.6

31. Tom Glavine 15.3

31. Johan Santana 15.3

33. Francisco Lindor 14.1

33. Dave Magadan 14.1

35. Tommie Agee 14.0

36. Wayne Garrett 13.9

37. Noah Syndergaard 13.7

38. Daniel Murphy 13.2

39. R.A. Dickey 12.9

39. Craig Swan 12.9

41. Tug McGraw 12.8

42. Lee Mazzilli 12.5

43. Juan Lagares 12.4

44. Jesse Orosco 12.3

45. Steve Trachsel 11.7

46. Bret Saberhagen 11.6

46. Wally Backman 11.6

48. Gary Carter 11.4

Fman99
Sep 28 2023 03:40 AM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=138123 time=1695519454 user_id=68]


I think that the closest Met comp for Carter is Tommie Agee. Their Mets career bWAR's are very close (Agee - 14.0; Carter - 11.4 - some of the very lowest bWARs among players in the Mets HOF). They're both five year Mets and as far as I know, the only five year Mets to have been inducted into the Mets HOF. No other Met HOFer had a shorter Mets career than Agee and Carter. Agee's Mets bWAR is slightly better because Agee had three very good Mets season; Carter -- just two. They were both key members of a World Championship Mets team and are both Mets WS heroes. Both were beloved Mets, among the very most popular Mets during their Mets stints.



And nobody's clamoring for the Mets to retire Agee's number, who seems to have a better case than Carter.



This is an interesting parallel that I had not considered before.

Benjamin Grimm
Sep 28 2023 06:48 AM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

Below Steve Trachsel. Ouch.

Bob Alpacadaca
Sep 28 2023 08:43 AM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

These are statistical arguments. Retiring a number is for recognition for things that go beyond statistics. Casey Stengel has the lowest winning percentage -- by far -- of any Mets manager. But his number is retired, and deservedly so. Carter's value goes beyond his statistics.

Edgy MD
Sep 28 2023 11:02 AM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

In theory, anyhow.



What's interesting to me is that eight has been seemingly mothballed since 2002, but 16 and 18 — both in wide circulation right up until last season — are now getting the historical nod, speeding past eight on the superhighway of numerical legacy.

Benjamin Grimm
Sep 28 2023 11:36 AM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

I wonder if the hold on number 8 is an edict from above, or if it's just the discretion of whoever is doing Charlie Samuels' old job?

Edgy MD
Sep 28 2023 11:39 AM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

Kevin Kierst, man! Kevin Kierst!



There's, like, this great big database devoted to these guys.

batmagadanleadoff
Sep 28 2023 12:34 PM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

Bob Alpacadaca wrote:

These are statistical arguments. Retiring a number is for recognition for things that go beyond statistics. Casey Stengel has the lowest winning percentage -- by far -- of any Mets manager. But his number is retired, and deservedly so. Carter's value goes beyond his statistics.


How so? And did Tommie Agee's value go beyond statistics?

batmagadanleadoff
Sep 28 2023 03:31 PM
Re: Stephen Strasburg to retire

Bob Alpacadaca wrote:

These are statistical arguments. Retiring a number is for recognition for things that go beyond statistics. Casey Stengel has the lowest winning percentage -- by far -- of any Mets manager. But his number is retired, and deservedly so.


Apples and oranges. Stengel's number wasn't retired for his on-the-field accomplishments. Just like Willie Mays's Mets #, some 60 years later. No. Not "just like Willie Mays". Mays's number was retired, in large overwhelming part, for accomplishments, symbolic and real, that have absolutely nothing to do with the Mets history. Carter's case should have been made on the field. But I'll indulge: What's Carter's case? What's Carter's case that three dozen other Mets don't have.