We’re almost a full-season removed from since-fired MASN analyst Rob Dibble accusing the Nationals of coddling rookie starter Stephen Strasburg, a charge that conveniently (well, for those of us eager to see Dibble hit the bricks) came days before the the #1 pick in the 2009 amateur draft was shut down for the year with a torn ligment. While Dibble is inexplicably still employed by Sirius/XM, he’s had a bizarre change of heart where Stasburg is concerned, arguing on his Wednesday satellite program that a scheduled Class A start for the rehabbing phenom was a matter of the organization being greedy. Transcription of said oration courtesy DC Sports Bog’s Dan Steinberg, who deserves combat pay for actually listening to this bullshit on a regular basis.
“I mean, they rushed Jordan Zimmermann back. And just because these guys are younger, it doesn’t change the fact that for the most part, the majority of Tommy John guys, it takes them 18 months to 24 months to be 100 percent. Now, you may feel great, you’ve got a new tendon in there, new ligament, all that kind of stuff. You’ve gotten the injury fixed.
“But there’s absolutely no reason, other than to sell tickets and to put butts in the seats, to bring Stephen Strasburg back to make a few starts at the end of the season. He’s too valuable, he’s too talented to even think about stuff like that.
“But in their case, having worked with those people, the only thing I can say is that there’s some people there that think that they invented the game of baseball. Which they did not. And that they can do things differently than 29 other teams in the game. That’s the problem that I had when I was working there, and now, even working on this channel for the last seven years.”