Can't wait for the DH. Why pay to watch someone whose value is premised on an entirely different skill make a futile effort to not embarrass himself and put himself at risk for an injury? More time to go grab a drink from the fridge? That's the only advantage for me, personally. The question of whether to pinch hit in the sixth inning isn't even all that interesting. Pretty sure I could get the decisional factors right, seven times out of ten.

This is great. Another nit: Number 25 should be Cards v. Braves. The Nationals had the best record in the majors, so no need for them to futz around with the play-in game. Given what came afterward for the Nats, we have to stick on that point of pride.

Following on the prior commenter, I'd note that Fangraphs has Desmond leading eligible SS, with 4.5 WAR to date, a half game up on Andrus. He's only at 1.6, per BP. I pasted the FG results below. Maybe I'm missing something, since the two measures are so disparate... I don't think that necessarily negates the point of the article, but it does affect how you think SS looks going forward, since by this metric, the clear leader is still very early in his career. Name WAR Ian Desmond 4.5 Elvis Andrus 4 Jimmy Rollins 3.9 Jose Reyes 3.4 Derek Jeter 3.3 Jhonny Peralta 2.8 Starlin Castro 2.7 J.J. Hardy 2.7 Hanley Ramirez 2.6 Erick Aybar 2.4 Zack Cozart 2.3 Asdrubal Cabrera 2.3 Alcides Escobar 2.2 Mike Aviles 2.2 Yunel Escobar 2 Jamey Carroll 2 Alexei Ramirez 2 Rafael Furcal 1.1

(1) As far as getting into a pitcher's head, would it be better to shut him down out of the blue after a few so-so starts? Or to announce early that it's coming, and then follow through with your plan? I'm thinking the former is more damaging. (2) More importantly, your argument about them keeping quiet assumes that Stras's recent performance was affected by the shutdown. There's no proof of that causation, and he's such a professional that I'd be surprised. The argument also implies that the team shut down Stras because it was hemmed in by its prior statements. I don't think they did this because they went public about their intentions and needed to follow through out of pride. They thought it was the right thing to do, and followed through with their plan, irrespective of the opinions of some media and unnamed agents (as opposed to the fans).

I don't think anyone has shown that the innings limits is arbitrary. It may not be precisely set, but that doesn't make it arbitrary. Also, the Nolan Ryan point seems to relate to in-game pitch counts, assuming a healthy pitcher, as opposed to innings limits on a pitcher coming back from Tommy John. The two seem different enough that the quote doesn't have much power, based on my limited knowledge of the injury issues.

Plus one. I am a big Nats fan and I am completely happy with the decision. I don't personally know anyone who isn't. At spring training, we all expected that the Nats would be second or third in their division this year. Things broke their way. All of our lives are full of decisions that could be second-guessed. Management did what they could with the information they had. Oops, their team was better than they thought. And they still know far more about Strasburg's health than I do. They have every reason to get every penny they can out of him, and yet this is the decision they think makes most sense. As for Strasburg's reaction, I respect that he wants to support the guys he spends every day with. But that wish doesn't drive this train, and it may even be counterproductive. Rather than spending more time on this (except to keep up relations between Stras and the team), I hope and expect that Rizzo and crew are prepping for a playoff run. I myself will be stretching out my rally caps and otherwise getting into form.

Well, I read the first article and thought, "this guy's lazy as a mule in summer," and I read the other and thought "wait, no, this guy's a hustler." I realize that you can only report your sources, but there should still be some editorial consistency, if only by noting that reviews are mixed. Both articles gave pretty definitive perspectives, and neither acknowledged that even this site is reporting mixed reviews. I have no clue who who Mark Anderson is - I read BP to sort through the noise. So if there are reasons to question his evaluation (for example, because another writer on this site is hearing completely opposite reports), then that should be noted. You're making statements that could affect how a young player is perceived, so they should be as accurate as possible. I'm not questioning that BP tries to do that (though Goldstein's condemnation of Bryce Harper via nameless scout still rings troubles me), I just don't think it happened here. Not a huge deal - just thought I'd point it out.

Another writer on this site noted yesterday that he's "frequently characterized as lazy." It's odd that two articles, published on consecutive days about the same player, don't speak to each other. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=18098

I think a lot of the desire (and the ammunition) to knock on Harper is sour grapes from scouts, pushed out by the media for page hits. Remember, Kevin Goldstein's infamous quote that Harper is "just a bad, bad guy" came from a "front-office official." Goldstein's claim that Harper has bad makeup seems completely contradicted by every interview his fellow players give about him, and everything he says. But I think that the inaccurate and unfair characterization has stuck, despite that Harper is working hard to disprove it. Before it was his "sense of entitlement," now he plays too hard. Underneath the sour grapes and anecdotes, you have a gifted, very hardworking athlete who is pretty grounded, given that you don't expect any 19-year old to have much perspective about the world, much less one who has been told since middle school that he's a prodigy. There's really nothing to argue with there, and the more Harper keeps his head down and keeps maturing, the fewer articles like this we'll see.

Sorry, I should have said, would you rather call up a 19-year old Bryce Harper or a 19-year old Mike Trout. Also, I should have said that both are fantastic additions to the game, and I look forward to watching them for years.

On Harper's supposed world weariness, here's a quote from him about the All Star game: “I just want to hang out and joke with the guys,” he says. “And get all the free stuff I can.” His backup plan (not that he's ever really thought he'd need one) is to be a firefighter. Yes, he wants to be the best player he can, and one for the ages. But he's also a 19-year old that is clearly living a dream. I don't see any reason to begrudge him his talent. On comparing Harper to Trout, why aren't we comparing him to a 19-year old Trout, who was, as noted,.220/.281/.390 in 123 AB last year (just under the 130 AB cutoff for ROY contention this year)? Or, to put it another way, if your offense is torn up by injuries, would you rather call up Bryce Harper or Mike Trout? And do you think Harper is headed back down for more seasoning? It's really impossible to cast better and worse here, especially when the performances aren't being evenly compared, and when you're going beyond stats to judge the personalities of highly atypical 19-year olds, mostly through the lens of press coverage.

The analysis of the call up that I have seen so far ignores some marketing issues that I think are very relevant. This team is exciting for fans for the first time. The nationals are not built to win right now, but they are built to sell tickets right now. There is potentially a big market, if they can pull the fans. So I wonder if this is not in part a move to increase ticket sales now, with the expectation that the team will then have the money to sign Harper when he is a free agent. The potential of the market makes the situation somewhat different from, for example, the Royals, which may never be serious free-agent buyers. at the very least, I can easily see the ownership of the team having that rationale. If Zimmerman is more hurt than suspected, that would make this move all the more wise, from a business perspective, since he is supposed to be the face of the franchise but seems to be consistently injured.

But that's not the ballplayers' doing – they are just taking what's been offered. If a city doesn't like the giveaways, it can throw the politicians out, as happened in Miami (but not in D.C.).

All I'm looking for is the tiers. I can't speak to steinba's needs.

Yes, please. And specifically, could someone please insert the expert tiers for NL outfielders and NL starting pitchers into PFM? I think that's a neat addition, but not very useful when the two biggests sets of players don't have tier rankings inserted. Thanks.

These have not yet been adjusted for playing time. Strasburg's projections therefore are a "what could have been." This was pointed out in a previous article and in the intro to the projections today, iirc.

Thanks to both of you for the replies. I was unclear, but my original question about time had to do with the actual hours required to keep the team functioning during the season. I have maybe an average of 20 minutes per day to put toward fantasy (a bit more to keep apprised of baseball in general), and wanted to know whether that's realistic. Once the early season work is over, of course -- I assume that takes more time. I'll take a look at the yahoo group. Thanks again.

After reading, I'm considering Scoresheet for the first time. Two questions: (1) Any sense of how much time it takes to be a contender, in comparison to what it would take to do well in a competitive roto league? (2) Also, is the knowledge level of a BP subscriber and fantasy player sufficient to not look like a fool, or is this for true experts?