Protecting the Investment: The Stephen Strasburg Decision

When I heard that the Washington Nationals had shut down Stephen Strasburg for the season, I thought I had a nice article for Monday all sewn up. I could find pitchers who had had Tommy John surgery, plot their innings in their first full season after the injury, and compare that to their WAR or xFIP over the next five years.

But no, the Nationals insisted, this had nothing to do with his arm but rather his "mental state", so there goes that article.

By pinning the decision on Strasburg's mental state, the Nationals are short-circuiting any number of arguments with the "You-don't-know-what-we-know" card. It's a good card, with shiny foil edges, a limited-edition number on the back, and maybe a piece of a game-used uniform included. If it were an issue with his arm, you could use incomplete data to make quasi-flawed arguments about whether protecting pitchers actually did anything. But his mental state? How can you, mere mortal, possibly claim to know anything about what Strasburg is thinking or feeling? Or at least, how can you claim to know more than the people in the metaphorical trenches with him?