Well, OK, the Grantland article is actually titled “A National Mistake” and the beginning and end discusses how the Nats were wrong to shut down Stephen Strasburg this month.
Personally, I found the middle more interesting, as Rany Jazayerli, who invented Pitcher Abuse Points for Baseball Prospectus back in 1998, presents a lengthy rundown of how pitcher usage has changed the last 20 years and makes his case that the reduction in the workloads of young pitchers has reduced injuries by a third.
There’s a lot of good stuff in there. My favorite: “Mark Prior threw as many games with 130-plus pitches in September and October of 2003 as every pitcher in the major leagues combined in 2012.”
As for his Strasburg take, I’m not sure I agree. I think the Nationals went about it wrong -- they could have worked things out differently and not had to shut Strasburg down in advance of the postseason -- but I believe the idea of limiting to about 160 innings was the right call.
