This is why I stopped watching baseball several years ago. The rest of us are just the glorified farm teams of the Yankees and everyone knows it.
He was reliably 98-99 when I saw him in Buffalo last week.
That would pretty much be Roger Clemens, wouldn’t it? Pedro, maybe, or Smoltz, depending on how you define “too soon”?
ETA: Halliday, I suppose. And Ankiel didn’t exactly have arm trouble.
I wouldn’t include Halladay as a power pitcher. He’s more finesse/sinker than power. But you can throw in Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson as recent power pitchers who had exceptionally long careers. Sabathia seems to also have a rubber arm.
I’m a Yankee fan just because I’ve always been one. But I admit that if I just started following baseball, I would absolutely detest the Yankees. But you can’t really blame a team that will pay up to win. What are they supposed to do? Be nice to their competitors and give them a chance? It’s really the system that’s the problem.
Can’t disagree. Nor do I blame them. But I also recognize it’s not worth investing myself in a team just to see their best players bolt for the big payday. Can’t blame them for that either but it’s still a bullshit system and as predictable as the tides.
You were there? I was just talking to a co-worker who was there.
I saw a bit of the game in Buffalo on TV. The only way I have to describe it was that it was like the high-school All-Star game that ESPN showed because some guy named LeBron James was playing in it. LBJ made the other kids–the best players his age in the country–look like toddlers stranded in an NBA game.
Lots of pitchers get strike outs with less than stellar velocity. Some even through sliders and curves. Ks do not necessarily imply great speed.
The game was blacked out on the MLB network and on Fox Sports for me. No idea why, except maybe we’re too close to Pittsburgh (a 3 hour drive–one would think it wouldn’t make a difference). So we couldn’t see it live, but the game we were watching (Cinci, which we could watch easily on Fox Sports even though it’s much closer to us than Pittsburgh) kept announcing updates on how he was doing. Watched his highlights on SportsCenter after the Reds game was over, and damn, he was throwing some sick stuff. The movement, velocity, and accuracy together was just astounding. And while I did say something to the effect of “funny how nobody’s mentioning that this is happening against the Pirates,” he sure seems like he might be the real deal. I’ll be keeping an eye on him, for sure.
He had great speed, though. About a third of his pitches were between 98 and 100 mph.
Funny, I was actually going to start a thread on this very subject. In my youth (late '70’s, early '80’s), power pitchers would strike out batters with pure heat. They’d essentially just throw the 4-seamer as hard as they could and batters would strikeout. But since then, batters have gotten so much better that most of them can now catch up and at least foul off the fastest, straight pitches. More recent strikeout pitchers, such as Clemens and Schilling, had to use the 4-seamer as a set-up pitch. Most strikeouts now come from moving pitches, such as the split-fingered fastball, 2-seamer and slider, or from changeups such as the backdoor curveball or straight change. Strasburg and Jimenez are rarities that can throw 100 and get K’s with pure speed.
To be fair, the system also lets the Nats get a historic young pitcher at way below market value for 6 years of team control just for sucking at the right time.
I was there last night. It was insane seeing that performance in real life. From my perspective (the standing room rail just past first base) you couldn’t tell the fastballs from the breaking balls too well (because the break was so close to the plate), but the difference between the heat and the change was insane – 18/20 mph. It was like that old Bugs Bunny cartoon where the pitch is so off the pace the batter swings three times before it gets there.
14 K’s on no walks. According to the speed they flashed on the scoreboard, he hit 100 regularly and 101 at least a couple times, and was still 98/99 in the seventh inning. Indeed, he got better as he went along – the last couple innings you could tell the batters were just shaking their heads. Not to mention three dingers for the home team, including the back to back off Karstens, who had been throwing a nice game to that point. I said to my wife that it was like watching the climactic game in a poorly written baseball movie – a montage of strike out after strikeout after strikeout. What a great game.
–Cliffy
His change up is 90 mph.
He appears to be living up to the designation of “phenom,” and he definitely has my interest now.
My only concern would be about what kind of toll that velocity is going to take on his shoulder. I hope he’s not going to burn out his arm by throwing so hard. He is a blast to watch, though.
Agreed.
Just don’t act like money has nothing to do with it because poor teams with the WS once in a while. It certainly makes it easier to win with cash on hand.
As for Stephen Strasburg: Too many of these over-hyped guys turn out to be, well… over-hyped. Few come in at the 1-percentile level and stay there. A few teams with talent will knock him around, walk more than others, expose his weaknesses with players on base, and before you know it he will be knocked down to great, but not legendary. That is the likely scenario, and one to expect. I don’t expect the Wayne Gretzky of baseball from this guy.
Then it’s up to him to manage his career as a pitcher who was once the greatest thing ever, and he’ll find it interesting because a great pitcher is a good pitcher some days, a bad pitcher other days and an exceptional pitcher other days. He better have staying power and the mental ability to see things over the long haul, because that’s how all the meaningful numbers break out.
Still, an amazing performance. I wish he could win 30-33 games/year, average 15 k’s per game, less than 1 walk per game and throw underhand for kicks when he is bored while hovering under a 1.0 ERA. I would love to see that. I would love to see someone make a complete mockery of the numbers and records!
Sure, the hitters are going to study him, try to learn his tells an catch up to him a little bit, but Strasburg is going to get better too. It’s not like what we saw last night is as good as he’s going to get. Every once in a blue moon, somebody actually lives up to the hype – the Lebrons, the Gretzkys, the Tiger Woods. Stephen Strasburg showed every indication that he could be in that class.
Question: if he was that dominant over a. AAAA team last night, how did he lose 2 games to AAA teams up until last night?
“Every once in a blue moon…” is on par with my comment, “…before you know it he will be knocked down to great, but not legendary. That is the likely scenario, and one to expect…”
He could be Chamberlain, Gretzky or Nicklaus. 
If your team sucks, and they commit errors and fail to score runs, you still lose the game. Great pitchers still lose games.
He made 6 AAA starts, and pitched 5-6 innings in each one. He only gave up runs in 2 of the 6 games. He had one “bad” game in which he gave up 3 ER.
In the minors, the field conditions and fielders are not very good so you’re bound to give up some more hits. The funny thing is that the most batters he ever struck out was 9. He had slightly more than 1K per inning. Last night he had 2K per inning. Maybe the pitching conditions in MLB make pitching easier if you’re that good, or…The Pirates are worse than AAA teams. He pitches against the Indians next, who actually have a worse record than the Pirates.