Stephen Strasburg: Great or the Greatest?

Stephen Strasburg is the Michael Crabtree of pitching prospects. His scouting report discourages opponents to the point that during the Olympics, Jim Lefebvre, coach of the Chinese team, told the New York Times if his team knew about Strasburg, "They might not have shown up."

That's only slightly left of the truth.

Here's what I gathered about Strasburg's arsenal from watching him pitch on T.V. in the Olympics: The 6-foot-5 righthander touches the high-90's with his fastball painting the corners with Madduxian precision. His breaking ball is a plus-plus slider with two plane break that's virtually unhittable. His changeup lags behind his other offerings, but has shown enough that it projects to at least average.

While his velocity, stuff, intellegence -- he drew "interest from Harvard, Yale, and Stanford," according to the New York Times -- and clutchiness may make the old baseball guard drool, his stats continue to make us salivate. Strasburg struck out just over 37% of the batters he faced last year, while walking just 4%. He surrendered just one long ball, sported a 1.22 FIP, and held hitters to an anemic .181 wOBA* -- park-adusted wOBA. He accomplished these Playstation-level stats despite facing the nations 20th most difficult schedule and playing in a hitter's park 113 PF (source: Boyd's World). 

All this has led to many a writer -- including myself -- lauding Strasburg and proclaiming him the "best college pitcher since...". Never one to just take random claims at face value, I wanted to actually see where Strasburg ranks among his peers. Unfortunately, college stats are pretty spotty before 2000, so I can't really compare him to Kris Benson, Paul Wilson, Burt Hooten, or Floyd Bannister. With The Baseball Cube as my guide and using K/9, BB/9, HR/9, and WHIP as my metrics -- for simplicity and because comparing college pitchers by W-L record or ERA would be slightly less informative than Sarah Palin. I'll list pitchers by draft class, but the numbers are from their sophomore years.

2001: Prior was an excellent pitcher as sophomore in the year 2000 but it wasn't until his junior season that he vaulted himself to best college pitcher of all time status. Prior is the pitcher most often compared to Strasburg, I like that comp.  Both are tall, west coast pitchers with similar stuff, great production, and scary mechanics (more on that below). Strasburg -- who needs a nickname! Any thoughts? Feel free to share in our Forums -- will need to improve to match what Prior did as a junior (13.17 K/9, 1.17 BB/9). But as a sophomore Strasburg was better. 

2002: Bryan Bullington went No. 1 overall out of Ball State, but I cannot find his sophomore year stats. Anyone out there keep old Ball State stats? David Letterman? 

2003: With all due respect to Kyle Sleeth and Tim Stauffer, I think we can move on -- though Stauffer was definitely an impressive ACC talent and has pitched in the majors.

2004: The 2004 Draft class was deep in elite college pitchers. Three of the top four and seven of the first 12 picks were college arms -- Justin Verlander, Philip Humber, Jeff Niemann, Wade Townsend, and Jered Weaver were the most elite arms of this group. What makes Strasburg so unique is that anyone who can miss as many bats doesn't have the control. And those who have the control can't miss as many bats. Justin Verlander is a good comp in terms of stuff, but his production has never quite matched up to his abilities the way Strasburg's has. Strasburg has the advantage over all of these guys -- including the entire student population of Rice University. 

2005: The 2005 class will go down for the hitters hit produced. The college pitching cupboard was bare. Niether Ricky Romero nor Mike Pelfrey really belong in this converstation.

2006: As a sophomore, Strasburg out produced the No. 1 pick (Luke Hochevar), the No. 1 prospect (Andrew Miller) and a future Cy Young winner (Tim Lincecum).

2007: Price proves to be the Sean Connery -- though younger and with less hatred of Alex Trebek -- to Strasburg's Daniel Craig. While Strasburg has a slight edge in control Price makes up for it with K's and playing in the toughest conference in the country. Being 98% of David Price is not a bad thing. 

2008: While Aaron Crow may have snuck ahead of Brian Matusz on some draft boards, the San Diego product was clearly superior as an underclassman. Matusz is a polished southpaw with good stuff who figures prominately in the Orioles' rebuilding efforts and had a sophomore season that ranks right up there with just about anyone not named David Price or Stephen Strasburg. 

  

 

  

 

I can say with confidence that Stephen Strasburg is the most productive pitching prospect in two whole years! More impressively, the second best as far back as I can research. Unfortunately, there is more to evaluating pitching than just radar gun readings and stats. Mechanics are arguably the most important aspect in determining a pitchers development, it really matters how you do it instead of just what you do. 

There are a few videos of Strasburg on youtube. After breaking them down like the Zapruder film I've made a few assements. Here's what worries me:

• He brings his elbow too far back during the scap load phase of his delivery. 
• While hard to tell from the video, given his arm angle upon release and his follow through he seems to have a supinated release.
• His follow through is really bad. There's significant arm recoil and he finishes basically standing up. 

Obviously he does some things well, I mean he throws 99 mph with great control. However, there are enough red flags that I believe he's a major injury risk. That does not mean he will absolutely get hurt, just that he's more likely to other people.  Without taking him to ASMI (American Sports Medicine Institute) labs and getting specific joint load data, no one can say for sure. 

 

Conclusion:

While I think it's likely Strasburg will eventually be scarred by a surgeon's blade, right now I would advise the Nats to still take him first next June. He's so good, historically good, that his level of talent is very rare. There isn't a Joe Mauer or Mark Teixeira in this draft to compete for the No. 1 spot. So I'd grab Strasburg, hand him a giant sack with a money sign on it -- after I lose a fiddle contest with Scott Boras -- let him dominate for a couple years then turn him into my Herschal Walker. Despite being "injury-prone", Mark Prior has managed 650+ innings, Kerry Wood over 1,200, A.J. Burnett 1,300+, and Ben Sheets over 1,400. Can you imagine the haul if Chicago would have traded Prior in 2004? Besides, maybe Strasburg really is a once-in-a-generation freak who can handle extra stress.

 

Lincoln Hamilton can be reached at lhamilton@projectprospect.com.