It's been an interesting career so far for Stephen Strasburg. He came into the league with so much hype that the expectation was basically that he would have multiple Cy Young awards by now. This was an unfair expectation but so far you could argue the results have simply been good not great. The problem with Strasburg has been staying on the field. Since returning from Tommy John surgery his games started by year have gone 28, 30, 34, 23, and 24. Not terrible. But again, not great. His best season came in 2014 when he went 14-11 with a 3.14 ERA and a league leading 242 strikeouts. He finished ninth in the Cy Young voting that year, which is surprisingly the highest he has ever finished.
In 2016 he got off to a terrific start and by mid July was 13-0 with 138 strikeouts in 114.2 innings and a career low 2.51 ERA. However, in his final seven games he went 2-4 with a 7.36 ERA and the highest walk rate of his career. He missed time due to an elbow injury and ultimately did not appear in the playoffs with Washington. He will enter 2017 fully recovered and in the first year of a seven year, $175 million contract he shockingly (as a Scott Boras client) signed this past summer. Early on it looks like that was the right move by him if he isn't going to consistently start 30 games per season. The Nationals, meanwhile, will be hoping for a lot more performances like the one from the video above.
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