Stephen Strasburg

First Five Picks Explained

Nothing else prepared for a Monday morning, so why not a teeny bit of explanation on the first five picks guessed at on the latest top ten mock?

1.1 Nationals/Strasburg

A gimme, right? The seven syllable line about the money (“Twenty mil sounds about right”) is about where I stand as far as where any potential Strasburg/Boras bonus demands will lead. He’ll smash the old draft signing bonus record, sure, but it will far way short of any of the big numbers being floated between now and the draft itself. In other words, twenty mil sounds about right…

1.2 Seattle/Ackley

I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating – something good is brewing in Seattle and it begins with the huge emphasis the new regime has put on stockpiling quality defensive players. To project Ackley to Seattle is to give up the dream that he’ll ever be the centerfielder; having seen him play on multiple occasions, I’m pretty confident in claiming that, at best, he’d be nothing more than a league average defender if forced to play CF. If Seattle loves the bat as much as I do, they’d be wise to call him a LF/1B from the start and just let the man hit.

1.3 San Diego/Crow

No real indication about which way the Padres are leaning, but the front office did publicly comment on the dearth of pitching in the system as recently as a few months ago. I know that’s the not the best reason in the world to have them pass on Grant Green, a player who would fill a gigantic organizational need, but it’s all I’ve got right now. In my head, this pick came down to Crow or Tyler Matzek.

1.4 Pittsburgh/Green

Seriously, Green could be joining fellow up the middle talents like BJ Upton and Matt Wieters if anybody running this club had any common sense. Fans at PNC Park could be getting excited about adding another potential impact bat to a lineup that, in our bizarro world, would soon feature Upton/Wieters/Pedro Alvarez. I had an alternate haiku that managed to feature both Operation Shutdown (which is mentioned in Derek Bell’s wiki page, but really deserves a special entry) and Daniel Moskos, but decided to spare any Pirates fan and left it on the cutting room floor.

1.5 Baltimore/White

Who knows if Baltimore really believes that the best way to beat the big spenders and savvy front offices of the AL East is by getting as much young pitching as possible, but with Green off the board it is hard to see the O’s taking anybody but a pitcher this early. Matzek, Kyle Gibson, and Shelby Miller all make sense, but White’s blend of big game college experience and untapped potential will be enough for them to overlook his sometimes questionable mechanics.

Quick Friday Top Ten Mock

High card in the deck
Twenty mil sounds about right
More hype than Barack

1.2 Seattle Mariners – Dustin Ackley

Z’s first draft as boss
Will defense dictate the pick?
No, instead Gwynn twin

1.3 San Diego Padres – Aaron Crow

Pads secret code
Yes, “the Crow flies at midnight”
Sorry, that was lame

1.4 Pittsburgh Pirates – Grant Green

Recent failures sting
Imagine this young core group
Green, Wieters, Upton…

1.5 Baltimore Orioles – Alex White

O’s new strategy
Slay East goliaths on mound
White needs his slingshot

1.6 San Francisco Giants – Donovan Tate

First prep player popped
Same tools as Carlos Beltran
Football? Zero chance

1.7 Atlanta Braves – Tyler Matzek

Home state player gone
Choice of prep port or starboard
Can’t beat the upside

1.8 Cincinnati Reds – Kyle Gibson

A perfect marriage
Groundballs and overworked arm
Fits ballpark, Dusty

1.9 Detroit Tigers – Shelby Miller

Grab righty and pray
System as down as GM
Cars and Dombrowski

1.10 Washington Nationals – James Paxton

Signability
Target rising college guy
Hey, I’d sign for slot!

Strasburg 4/8/2009

With the holiday weekend causing a scheduling shift around college baseball, usual Friday starter Stephen Strasburg takes the hill on a Thursday to lead off San Diego State’s series at UNLV. We all know what Strasburg has done to this point, but it never hurts to throw out his season numbers so far – unless, of course, you’re a fan of the Mariners…

On the season, Strasburg has struck out 94 batters while only walking 10 in 48.1 innings pitched. Opponents are hitting a whopping .160 against him so far (27 for 169). He’s good.

He’ll be facing a decent UNLV lineup, but one built on very few interesting pro prospects. In fact, Strasburg has faced UNLV once already this year and put up the following line: 7 IP 6 H 2 ER 1 BB 14 K. Again, he’s good.

This time, however, Strasburg will be going to UNLV’s Earl E. Wilson Stadium, a hitter’s paradise with a park factor of 121. How will he fare the second time up against the Rebels? How will he adjust to pitching in an even friendlier hitting environment than his own home park? We’ll know soon enough. Until then, a look at the three best UNLV hitting prospects that Stephen Strasburg will face tonight…after the jump

Continue reading »

College Righthanded Starting Pitching Prospects – Comparing 2008 to 2009

If semi-incoherent ramblings about a very specific and unimportant topic with no readily apparent conclusion or point is what gets you going, be prepared to start your week off with something special. If not, congratulations – you’re normal. I’ve got a hunch that anybody out there willing to read some dummy’s baseball draft website probably isn’t “normal” anyway (and I say that with nothing but love), so why not just give in and see where our aimless thoughts will lead us today…

The top 15 righthanded starting pitching prospects as listed on this site, in descending order:

Jeff Inman, David Hale, Jake Cowan, Sean Black, Sam Dyson
Alex Wilson, Kyle Heckathorn, Mike Nesseth, Kendal Volz, Mike Leake
Aaron Crow, Tanner Scheppers, Kyle Gibson, Alex White
Stephen Strasburg

An updated list might look a little something like this:

Strasburg
Gibson/White/Crow
Leake/Scheppers
Dyson/Wilson/Berry
Volz
Nesseth/Heckathorn/Black/Cowan/Hale
Inman

The tiers align with the first round board tiers from last week, with the exception of Dyson rising up to join Wilson and Berry. Volz and Inman are especially difficult players to place, so they got their own private tiers – it’s the perfect solution for a lazy writer like me, really. Nesseth, Heckathorn, Black, Cowan, and Hale are all players that are personal favorites from my initial top 15, but have such mixed opinions that I’m lost on where to slot them in. I guess what I think is most important to take away from the bottom three tiers is that Volz is a clear step above the Nesseth/Heckathorn/Black/Cowan/Hale group (in the eyes of scouts) and Inman has dropped enough that he is clearly below the group (in my eyes). Further complicating the matter is Nesseth’s switch back to the Nebraska bullpen, but I’ll leave him in with this group for now because I still think his stuff works as a starter professionally.

Players considered for the list, but left off for now include Blake Smith (Cal), Scott Bittle (Mississippi), Jorge Reyes (Oregon State), AJ Griffin (San Diego), and Brad Stillings (Kent State). Smith’s status as a two-way player vexes me, Bittle’s stuff may actually work better as a starter/swingman in the long run, and Griffin is a gigantic personal favorite that will see his stock fly up my own personal rankings when I do my next revisions.

Notable players still missing from the list are the righty college relievers – Ben Tootle (Jacksonville State), Jason Stoffel (Arizona), Brad Boxberger (Southern Cal), and Brian Pearl (Washington) all profile best as relievers. Perhaps I can be convinced otherwise (Boxberger and Pearl might have stuff that would translate; Tootle and Stoffel are much better fits in the pen), but for now all four would strictly be drafted as relievers if I was running the show.

*****

For my money, the 2009 college righthanded pitching class absolutely trounces the 2008 class in terms of both quality and depth. However, the comparison between the two years is a tricky one to make because, and I really believe it’s as simple as this, the 2008 pitching class was an extremely weird one. The proponderence of college relievers made it an unusual draft at the time, but it’s gotten even weirder as we begin to see the long-term plans some of the big league teams have for their drafted relievers. Andrew Cashner, Joshua Fields, Ryan Perry, and Carlos Gutierrez were all college closers drafted in the first round. Of the four, it appears that only Fields and Perry are totally locked into their roles as professional relievers; Cashner and Gutierrez both may have the stuff to work better as pro starters. How do we then judge this class of pitching prospects? Are all four labeled as relievers? Does their eventual professional position carry more weight than their college position? How do we reconcile the fact that we don’t actually know the eventual landing spot of players like Cashner, Gutierrez, or Brad Holt? They may be given every shot imaginable to start, yet may work best as relievers in the long run. To simplify my life, I’m only going to evaluate players that were clearly scouted and drafted as starting pitchers.

The 2008 class was also a weird one because of the huge numbers of very talented players who slid down the board into the mid-rounds. These players were all almost cut from the exact same cloth – gigantic frames, big fastballs, questionable control and collegiate performance, and an inability to stay healthy. For this reason, it is my belief that this comparison would have been more enlightening if done with a pre-draft ranking of the available talent. Players like Chris Carpenter, Scott Green, Brett Hunter, Erik Davis, and Luke Burnett, to name a few, may have ranked higher on such a list. Kyle Heckathorn and Mike Nesseth, be forewarned.

2008 Top 15 College Righthanded Pitchers (7 college relievers, denoted with *)

Aaron Crow, Andrew Cashner*, Joshua Fields*, Ryan Perry*, Carlos Gutierrez*, Shooter Hunt, Brad Holt, Lance Lynn, Bryan Price*, Tanner Scheppers, Tyson Ross, Josh Lindblom*, Cody Adams, Aaron Shafer, Cody Satterwhite*

To this point, Cashner, Lindblom, and Price have all been tried as starters; Gutierrez and Satterwhite have so far only pitched out of the pen. I should also note that I was inconsistent in the way I included unsigned players (by memory, I think I only left out Scott Bittle), but I felt that excluding Crow and Scheppers would only create an unfair representation of the 2008 draft’s true talent level.

2008 Top 15 College Righthanded Starting Pitchers

Aaron Crow, Shooter Hunt, Brad Holt, Lance Lynn, Tanner Scheppers, Tyson Ross, Cody Adams, Aaron Shafer, Stephen Fife, Bobby Lanigan, Drew Liebel, Chris Carpenter, Aaron Pribanic, Scott Green, Vance Worley

Of that group, Holt, Fife, and Green may be future relievers, but all three were drafted as starters. College relievers excluded from this list, in addition to the names in the previous group, were Bryan Shaw, Zach Stewart, and Craig Kimbrel.

After all that, we’re left with comparing the following two pools of players. In one corner, we have the 2008′s:

Aaron Crow
Shooter Hunt
Brad Holt
Lance Lynn
Tanner Scheppers
Tyson Ross
Cody Adams
Aaron Shafer
Stephen Fife
Bobby Lanigan
Drew Liebel
Chris Carpenter
Aaron Pribanic
Scott Green
Vance Worley

Strasburg/Gibson/White/Crow/Leake/Scheppers/Dyson/Hunt/Wilson/Berry/Holt/Volz…and then things get especially murky. From that point on, however, the list would be more about trying to figure out where exactly to squeeze in the 09′s (namely Heckathorn, Hale, and Nesseth) than finding spots for the 08′s (as much as I like guys like Ross and Worley, I’m not sure I could put them over a Black or a Cowan with confidence). There are plenty of slightly later round picks from 2008 (Ethan Hollingsworth, Dan Hudson, Colby Shreve, DJ Mitchell, Michael Stutes) that would also muddle up the picture of what my pre-draft top 15 would look like, but I’ll stubbornly stick with judging the top ranked players from past years based on draft order for now. A comparison between the 2009′s and 2010′s will be better next season because I can compare and contrast my own pre-draft rankings, lists that hopefully give a better idea of talent-level than draft order (which is often skewed by signability and simple team preference).

If you were to include the college relievers from the 2008 class, the overall talent gap would close. Lindblom and Cashner were both players viewed as strong candidates to be switched to the rotation, so if we pretended they were drafted as such, they would compare favorably with Dyson and Wilson as starting pitching prospects. Come to think of it, I wonder if there is a comp to be made between Lindblom and Dyson. That might be worth looking into…but now I’m merely thinking out loud, a sure sign it’s time to wrap this up.

In conclusion…wait, I have no real conclusion. Hmm. In conclusion, 2009 looks like a better year for top end college righthanded starting pitching, but when the 09′s are headed up by Stephen Strasburg and three other potential top ten picks, that’s hardly much of a conclusion at all. I’m willing to concede that the depth between the two classes is pretty close in talent-level, but I’d still give the edge to 2009…though there is still plenty of time left between now and June to sort out who constitutes the “depth” of which we speak of in the 2009 Draft. My real conclusion is actually 100% unrelated to college righthanded pitching prospects. I thought of a pretty good comp for a potential top ten pick the other day, but I’m not all the way there with it just yet, if you know what I mean. It’s not quite a fully developed idea, but I’ll just throw it out there here so I can have it on the record…Grant Green (Southern Cal, SS) and Jason Donald (Arizona, Phillies, SS/3B/2B). Am I crazy in thinking they have similar enough profiles to compare the two?

2009 MLB Draft – First Round Tiers

It’s April now. The weather is slowly getting warmer here in the northeast (finally), Major League Baseball’s Opening Day is just days away (finally), and the Rule 4 Draft’s first round is slowly beginning to take shape. I’ve been lax in publishing any of my macro draft projections, but it seems like as good a time as any to put this first look at the first round out there for all the world to see. And for those of you that only visit these parts for the mocks — something I do for plenty of NFL and NBA sites, so believe me when I say I’m passing no judgment — consider this a precursor to the eventual April mock draft (coming soon!) and, who knows, maybe a helpful resource to aid in putting together a mock of your own.

There are 32 picks in this year’s first round. How many of those spots are currently accounted for? How many are still up for grabs? Which players are most likely to land the last few spots in the round and which players are such stone cold mortal locks that they can feel safe putting down payments on a whole bunch of fancy new toys? Any player with a chance of going in the first round in June has been broken down into a distinct tier. The tiers are far from perfect (maybe a player is in Tier 4, but should be in Tier 5), but they serve as realistic classifications of where players are currently valued by big league clubs.

• Tier 1 —> 1 player

RHSP Stephen Strasburg

This guy is so far and away the best prospect in this draft that he gets his own tier…but you knew that already.

Confidence Level —> Couldn’t be higher

• Tier 2 —> 10 players

College: OF/1B Dustin Ackley, RHSP Kyle Gibson, RHSP Aaron Crow, RHSP Alex White, SS Grant Green
Prep: RHSP Shelby Miller, LHSP Tyler Matzek, LHSP Matt Purke, LHSP Tyler Skaggs, OF Donovan Tate

The only tier split up into distinct college and prep sides, Tier 2 includes 10 players that are “write it down in that super never disappearing pen that S. Epatha Merkerson advertises for” kind of locks for the first round. Seattle has to be hoping against hope that one of these players will separate himself from the group because, at this point anyway, you could make a legitimate argument for literally any of the players on the list going to the Mariners at pick number two. I’d love to hear the arguments in favor of any of the prep pitchers going that high (none of the four players are quite talented enough to warrant taking a chance on that high, I think), but the other 6 players all could conceivably wind up in the Pacific Northwest.

Confidence Level —> Bet more than you have on any odds that these players will be first rounders

• Tier 3 —> 5 players

RHSP Mike Leake, RHSP Tanner Scheppers, C Luke Bailey, C Austin Maddox, 1B Rich Poythress

These players just barely missed the previous tier, so know that if I was a bolder prognosticator I would have had them in that group without reservation. Of course, there are reasons why each player doesn’t get the Uniball pen Youtube video of approval. Leake may be my favorite prospect in all the draft, but I’m not sure how much my opinion matters to teams drafting in the first round…yes, he’s a very good prospect and an almost sure-fire first rounder, but I don’t want my inflated opinion of him getting in the way of properly assessing his relative value. Same story for Scheppers, another personal favorite.

Bailey and Maddox are hard to place on a draft board because, well, they are high school catchers. In a typical year it’s hard to figure out how early teams are willing to take a chance on a prep backstop, but it’s even wilder this year because of the excess of quality high school catchers expected to be taken early. Poythress is another player tricky to place, but for the opposite reasons. He is an established college first baseman, a position with an absurdly high success rate when taken early in the draft. However, this year’s draft is so devoid of quality bats (especially advanced bats) that it is hard to narrow down exactly what range he’ll go in – will teams overdraft a hitter knowing they are less likely to find a good one later? Or will teams instead focus on the strength of the draft — pitching, pitching, and more pitching — and go best player available, thus pushing hitters down the board?

Concerns aside, these players are still top-level prospects who should feel confident enough in their draft stock to begin daydreaming about their big first round pay days ahead.

Confidence Level —> As high as it gets without being a stone cold lock

• Tier 4 —> 8 players

LHSP James Paxton, LHSP Mike Minor, SS DJ LeMahieu, OF Jared Mitchell, OF Kentrail Davis, RHSP Trent Stevenson, RHSP Zack Wheeler, RHSP Jacob Turner

Much like the group prior, these latest 8 prospects should feel really good about getting the chance to hear their names called on draft day. We’re up to 24 overall players through 4 tiers with definite consensus first round grades at this point in the process. The biggest reaches on this group are the two fastest risers of the bunch – Paxton and Stevenson.

Confidence Level —> Beginning to waver slightly, but still feeling good about 7 of the 8 players listed winding up as first rounders…which player or two (or three) doesn’t make the cut is anybody’s guess

• Tier 5 —> 6 players

RHSP Alex Wilson, RHSP Ryan Berry, LHSP Andy Oliver, OF Brett Jackson, RHRP Jason Stoffel, RHSP Matt Hobgood

With the inclusion of Tier 5, our grand total of potential first rounders is now up to a nice, round 30. There are 32 first round spots up for grabs this year. Of note, Wilson and Berry are both Texas-based college guys that have risen in tandem up the boards this spring, Oliver has seen a dip in his stock but could still easily be a tier or two higher (I’m doing my best to be conservative here), and Stoffel is another hard to judge player based on the position he plays.

Confidence Level —> Nobody predicts who will go in the first round over two months ahead of time, so confidence is low that these are the right names. However, and remember this is me going out on a limb (something I’m too big a pun to normally do), at least three of the five college guys will be first rounders. Bold, right?

• The Rest…

3B/OF Matt Davidson, 3B Bobby Borchering, C Max Stassi, SS Jiovanni Mier, OF/2B AJ Pollock, OF Brian Goodwin, RHSP Kendal Volz, RHSP Sam Dyson, LHSP Brooks Raley, SS Robbie Shields, SS Ryan Jackson, RHSP Mychal Givens, RHRP Brad Boxberger, C Josh Phegley, C Tony Sanchez, RHSP Keyvius Sampson

16 other names in the mix as potential first rounders bringing our final tally to 46 players duking it out for 32 spots. If I had to bet, I’d say Borchering and Mier wind up as first rounders based little more on the fact that a) the first round needs more high schoolers, and b) the first round needs more hitters, especially if said hitters can defend at important infield positions.

Who am I missing? Who do I have that won’t wind up a first rounder come June?

Strasburg’s Latest – March 27th, 2009

Strasburg’s latest start against TCU went pretty well:

• 8 IP 3 H 2 ER 1 BB 14 K (5 GO/5 AO)

• Carpenter, Curry, and Vern went a combined 0-8 (BB, 4 K) against him

Not to pat myself on the back too hard, but I think it’s fair to say the predictions from yesterday held up pretty well, no?

• Strasburg’s final line prediction: 7 IP 4 H 1 ER 1 BB 14 K

• Carpenter, Curry, and Vern: 2-8, 2B, BB, 5 K

Off the grid for the weekend ahead, but expect an in-depth look at the nation’s finest catching prospects starting Monday…

Strasburg Day

Stephen Strasburg takes the hill tonight against nationally ranked TCU. Here’s what he’s up against:

• Matt Curry (’09) – relatively slow start shouldn’t obscure the fact that the junior college transfer has a big lefty bat that will play; compared to current Phillie Matt Stairs (aka Jon Broxton kryptonite)
• Matt Carpenter (’09) – better college player than prospect, but can’t argue with his production so far (.371/.525/.600 with a 23/11 walk to strikeout ratio); if he can stick at third in the long-term, could get a look as a mid-round senior sign
• Matt Vern (’09) – another player who profiles better as a very good college bat rather than a legit pro prospect, but still capable of hitting the ball a long way when he gets a piece (team leading 6 HRs); Vern’s defensive limitations could keep him from being drafted altogether, but he’s no less of a threat to take Strasburg deep because of it

TCU has a senior-heavy lineup, but no singular hitter that can realistically be expected to do much damage against San Diego State’s ace. My totally baseless prediction for Strasburg’s final line:

7 IP 4 H 1 ER 1 BB 14 K

In addition, I’ll predict a cumulative 2-8 night (including a double, a walk, and five strikeouts) for the three players named Matt listed above.

I’m most curious to see how Curry does against Strasburg. One game is too small a sample to base anything important on, but, as a lefty bat with a powerful, all-or-nothing style swing, he actually matches up pretty well. Curry’s future as a pro could be as a pinch-hitter capable of hitting the ball out every time up, so his at bats against Strasburg correlate pretty well with the kinds of matchups he may see coming off the bench to face fireballing relief aces.

Anyway, any other guesses about how Strasburg will perform on Friday night?

Stephen Strasburg: Five Starts and Fifty Million

At what point do we just give up and rename the site The Strasburg Draft Report?

His latest start: 7 IP 2 H 0 ER 2 BB 15 K

Season numbers: 34.1 IP 21 H 6 ER 7 BB 74 K (3 WP, 1 HBP, 5 extra-base hits allowed)

His K/9 actually fell from 19.43 to 19.40…

His K/BB also dipped from 11.80 to 1 to a pedestrian 10.57 to 1…

Of his 74 total strikeouts, 54 have been swinging and 20 have been looking…

Batters so rarely get a ball off of him in play, so his ground out/air out/line out data is based on too small a sample to really draw any conclusion. Even so, his GO/AO/LO numbers break down as follows: 13/11/2…

There have been only two innings this year that Strasburg hasn’t struck out at least one batter, including the two partial innings he has thrown through five starts (each partial inning was two-thirds of an inning). He has struck out at least three batters in 14 out of his 33 completed innings.

He’s good.

So good, in fact, it’ll cost you. An arm, a leg, another arm, half your torso, and, yes, maybe even a part of your unmentionables. Signing this guy won’t be cheap (or so goes the rumor).

I’ve got my own take on the latest “Strasburg’s bonus demands likely to include signing over a small island to him just to show you are negotiating in good faith” story, but the current plan is to hold off on these kind of shenanigans unless explicitly asked. Instead, I’ll open things up to the loyal readers of this site (fine, even the disloyal ones, too) – what do you think of the latest report stating Strasburg’s asking price could shatter the previous draft bonus record? Believe it, don’t believe it, don’t care about it, think he’ll get whatever he wants, think he’ll settle for substantially less, will he make more than Mark Prior, more than Daisuke Matsuzaka? Will Strasburg end up a National when it’s all said and done? Any validity to the wonderful threat to go play in Japan for a year?

In other words, fill in the blanks: Stephen Strasburg will be picked number ____ overall by the _________ and sign for ____ years and _____ million dollars.

March 20th College Pitching Retrospective (Strasburg Free!)

A quick buzz over, around, and through college baseball’s Friday night pitching landscape (whatever that means) as I continue to tirelessly input the many weeks worth of statistical data recently lost because somebody has a weird mental block about saving his work…

Continue reading »

Stephen Strasburg Through Four Starts

27.1 IP 19 H 6 ER 5 BB 59 K (3 WP, 1 HBP, 5 extra-base hits allowed)

His K/9 fell to a mere 19.43…

His K/BB improved to 11.80/1…

Of his 59 total strikeouts, 45 have been swinging and 14 have been looking…

Batters so rarely get a ball off of him in play, so his ground out/air out/line out data is based on too small a sample to really draw any conclusion. Even so, his GO/AO/LO numbers break down as follows: 10/8/2…

There have been only two innings this year that Strasburg hasn’t struck out at least one batter, including the two partial innings he has thrown through four starts (each partial inning was two-thirds of an inning). He has struck out at least three batters in 11 out of his 26 completed innings. He’s good.