Strasburg got $15M before he ever threw a professional pitch. With the money these days of course teams are going to try to protect those investments differently than they did in the 60s when every pitcher was basically expendable.
When Nolan Ryan was in charge of the Rangers I am pretty sure he had a goal to stop all the “coddling” and get pitchers back to the old ways like how he did it. I don’t know if that was successful or not, but I think if it was a lot of teams would have copied it and I don’t see that happening today.
I seem to recall a period where the Rangers pitching staff had markedly improved compared to some amount of years prior. He was CEO from 2008 to 2013. Starting around 2010 their team ERA and WHIP dropped dramatically compared to 2008 and the years prior. I feel like I recall a pretty long stretch of Rangers baseball marked by horrendous pitching prior to Nolan's arrival and organizational leanings. I'm sure some would argue other reasons, or coincidence, whatever... but the numbers are what they are.
