How the Astros are trying not to get Strasburged

David Barron has a good article on how the Astros are treating their pitchers so as not to get Strasburged.

Doug Brocail:
"We joke about it all the time. As soon as you sign a kid, sit him out for a year, have Tommy John surgery, fix it before it breaks and go from there...

..."We try to limit our young kids. If you have a kid who you think is going to pitch in the majors, if he throws a nine-inning shutout, the next outing should be five innings. Get his work in, and give him a rest."

Tal Smith:
"Even with the emphasis on training, we have more injuries, which doesn't make sense. We used to take kids who were 17 and 18 and have them pitch on four-day rotations. The workload is not as severe. With that, and with training methods, you'd think injuries would be reduced, but they're not."

Mark Melancon, who had TJ surgery in 2006:
"I got to work on my delivery - just some mechanics I cleaned up. For me, it was a great thing, and I didn't have any setbacks going through the process. A lot of that is mental and just kind of preparing yourself not to have setbacks.."

On his mechanics, post-Tommy John:
"I don't feel like a whole lot is different there. Maybe mechanically there are a couple things different. It's just caused most of the time by the amount of use put on our arms and the unnatural motion. It's bound to happen."