Wire Taps: Sirius/XM And MASN's Rob Dibble On His Stephen Strasburg Rant And The Response It Received.

I’m sure that he doesn’t like them too much because they make some of his minor mistakes look major. I will agree that taking them out of context did hurt him a little bit. He was advising Strasburg to pitch through some pain like he did in his career and like other pitchers like Stammen and Lannan have pitched through pain at times this year. What makes that foolish to me is that he actually showed visible signs of pain and he’s a much more significant investment than those two back of the rotation guys.

When you’re Rob Dibble, reliever whose job is to pitch one inning at a time and who is not so expensive, you pitch through pain. I believe most relievers do. Does it shorten their careers or weaken their stuff in the long run? I don’t know, but may relievers fall off of a cliff.

When you’re Stephen Strasburg and you’ve got the highest bonus in history, you don’t pitch through pain. And when you’re the color guy for the Nationals it would be better if whatever you said didn’t panic the fan base or attack one of the core group of fans. If you attack the bloggers and the constituency they represent, you’re ticking off the type of people who are likely to watch MASN consistently and go to games. Doesn’t seem to be the smartest move unless you just like to stir up controversy.

But hey, it’s not like I’m going to start watching MASN anyways. What will be very intriguing is if Goessling or Zuckerman or some of the more established beat guys respond to Dibble in the objective and journalistic ways that he might accept. Steinberg isn’t really a reporter or beat guy so his comments and reporting shouldn’t carry as much weight.

Maybe I should edit my post. I don’t think I will as my points still are true, but Dibble just burries himself deeper. With the popularity of the internet do people really think the nerdy little blogger stereotype plays anymore. To me Dibble is just background noise. I learned stuff from Sutton, but man was he boring. Maybe a three man booth with the PBP guy, a color guy, and an analyst isn’t a bad idea.

bq.They can try and twist it any way they want, and if a guy’s hurt, he’s hurt, he’s going to go on the disabled list, it’s a moot point, but if he’s not hurt, get your butt out there and play….they’re two totally different scenarios.

But that’s not what he was talking about. He was talking about playing hurt, using examples of players playing with broken feet, etc. Strasburg was apparently willing to pitch through the pain, but that choice was taken out of his hands. To ask any more of him is to ask him to put his desire to play above what it best for the team, and Dibble can try to twist that however he wants, but it’s just wrong in this instance.

I didn’t comment much on the initial rant, as it had already been beaten to death by the time I tuned into the conversation, but these comments are almost worse. It’s okay to have an opinion, but to call a rather large faction of your viewership clueless and “little” is just stupid. And this is after he insulted most of the women watching the game just last week.

Seriously, MASN needs to get rid of the guy.

I actually agreed with Dibble’s original rant against the pampered modern-day player, but his follow-up comment about “your little blogs” was incredibly ignorant and assholic. He’s already established his douchebaggotry through the tirade about women and baseball. As far as local sportscasters go, the Nats have some of the worst.

…Steinberg’s added a link and a quote from your article to the original Bog post.

Yes, it would have been better if he hadn’t made the comments about “little blogs” and so on, but it’s clear that those words came out of frustration and that they came out spontaneously. I think most people have used words that weren’t the most appropriate in an emotional situation. Dibble certainly wouldn’t be a good politician, but that’s not his job. He is part-commentator, part-entertainer.

If I had to work with him on a daily basis, I guess he could start to wear on me. But as a TV commentator, I don’t have any major problems with him. I agree that Don Sutton was informative but a bit dull. Dibble is more interesting to listen to, even if he gets a little abrasive sometimes.

Fortunately, I don’t think Rizzo, Riggleman or anyone else on the Nats is going to make a decision about Strasburg based on what Dibble says. So it doesn’t matter that much.

I’ll close by saying that Federal Baseball is awesome!