I really, really, really hope this doesn’t become a recurring feature here, but I’m just about positive that it will be. It’s time to look back through the archives and have a good laugh at something stupid stuff I’ve said. The only hard part is narrowing down which dumb thing to choose…

This particular rambling thought was from March 1, 2009. It’s not necessarily the dumbest thing ever put in print (notice my wonderful use of qualifiers and hypotheticals), but it’s certainly looks silly in hindsight. Behold my genius after the jump…

Comparing any college pitcher to Stephen Strasburg is unfair and irresponsible, so let’s do it anyway. Strasburg will be the first overall pick of the 2009 Rule 4 Draft. Matt Harvey is the early favorite to go first overall in 2010. Below is a fair and responsible look at how their numbers stack up so far:

Harvey’s line: 9 IP 3 H 3 ER 2 BB 18 K (1 WP, 1 HBP)

Strasburg’s line: 12.1 IP 8 H 2 ER 3 BB 27 K (1 WP, 1 HBP)

Harvey

K/9: 18
K/BB: 9/1
GO/AO/LO: 3/3/2

Strasburg

K/9: 19.7
K/BB: 9/1
GO/AO/LO: 4/4/1

In the weird and wonderful world of amateur baseball, performance doesn’t always necessarily tell the whole story, what with park factors, levels of competition, strength of schedules, and relatively small samples and all. It’s hard to line up two statistical profiles and draw any kind of grand conclusion. But the raw numbers comparing Strasburg and Harvey do suggest similar performances thus far, something I think is pretty interesting.

There are reasons every move Strasburg makes is newsworthy and I’m not not not trying to say that anybody here or elsewhere is sleeping on Matt Harvey (he’s a big deal and has been for a good long while), I’m just throwing this out there as a lead-in to my question – what is the likelihood, if it exists at all, that Matt Harvey reaches the same level of hype other elite college pitchers (Strasburg, Price, and Prior, to name a few) had heading into his draft year?

Harvey’s numbers to date: 5.86 ERA in 43 IP with 54 K and 25 BB. He’s still in the mix to go very, very high in 2010, but his 2009 performance has left many a scout puzzled about his lack of progress as the Tar Heels Saturday starter. At this point in his development, I think it’s pretty safe to say that he is in an entirely different area code as a prospect than Strasburg or Prior. I mean, we’re talking the difference between a 212 and a 631 here. As if the first ever joked based on area codes wasn’t enough, the continuation of the college catching tournament should come tomorrow…assuming I can look down at a keyboard for longer than two minutes at a time by then. You see, nose bleeds are not as conducive to getting work done as one might think. Matt Harvey, area codes, and nose bleeds. What a day!