Shut down Stephen Strasburg, or just let him pitch? - ESPN

Shut down Stephen Strasburg, or just let him pitch? - ESPN:

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or beat a dead horse whichever you prefer.

The only sensible reaction comes from Ben Sheets, man to whom I would have given $10m to not pitch, who says whatever the decision, the team has to be 100% committed to it.

I agree.  Have a plan and stick to it.  Gather what info you can and make the choice that you believe serves the long term interest of the club.

Sure I'd like to see Stras pitch in meaningful games late in the season (avoiding the jinxing postseason verbiage) but if the Plan has been to limit innings and everyone's on board then just do it.  Don't listen to the tougher than thou might only have one chance at it crowd.  Those are the same people in the folding chairs at every Little League game who can't understand why the 12 year old ace can't pitch just one more game so their benchwarmer can play in the next playoff round.

Sure Strasburg's built like a workhorse and I'm sure its in his nature to want to pitch. But he's already broken once and he's still young, he's far from being beyond the reach of pitching injury from overuse.

And Orel and Carpenter's experience doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in the pitch em till their arms fall off crowd.  Does anyone have an example where a guy went too many innings and his team didn't win?  Then that guy was never the same and the team faded.  I'll bet that example exists but we'll never know.

No reason to believe that 2012 is some magical year that cannot be repeated.  The Phillies repeated from '08 to'11 without much problem.  Can anyone see a team with Stras, Gio and ZNN at the top of the rotation being anything other than a post season contender in 2013? With the two wild cards hell and yes.

Relax people, the Nats haven't won anything yet.  Are we really going to get all Atlanta-like complacent after one season if they don't win?  Settle in folks, we've got a few years of contention to enjoy.  We've suffered through what the Astros are now, now its time to enjoy it.