Busting the Stephen Strasburg Myth

Posted by Mike Henderson on Mar. 27, 2009 at 1:50 PM
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The consensus of demands in the Natmosphere is very simple: use the first pick in the 2009 First-Year Player Draft to sign San Diego State pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg to whatever he and his advisor Scott Boras ask for.

To those who are not fans of the Nationals, this must look like the first degree of panic. Those who are a bit closer to the Nats, though -- such as Post baseball columnist Thomas Boswell -- would make bold to disagree.

One is tempted to rehash, or to dispute, Boz' arguments that first-pick pitchers are not automatically booked to be the long-term stars of a franchise. Our own take is that any lack of success with pitcher picks has more to do with poor scouting or signability issues than with the inherent values of the players involved.

And we are intrigued by the perspective offered by SI's Lee Jenkins, who sees Strasburg going for something north of $10 million -- but nothing like the numbers bandied about by Boras recently.  (By the way, Tim Dierkes at MLB Trade Rumors has just kicked off what looks to be an interesting series about Boras' past sorties.)

Nats president Stan Kasten is right to defer the discussion until after the draft. If nothing else, we can enjoy Strasburg's swan-song season with San Diego State in the meantime.

UPDATE 9:20 pm Friday: That's Jenkins, not Jensen as stated earlier; our apologies to Lee. Also, Brian Oliver offers an interesting analysis at NFA.

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Tags: Stan Kasten, MLB Trade Rumors, Tim Dierkes, Wall Street Journal, Scott Boras, Washington Post, San Diego State University, First-Year Player Draft, Stephen Strasburg, Thomas Boswell, Sports Illustrated, Lee Jenkins, Brian Oliver, Nationals Farm Authority



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Bring Hondo Home!

Mike Henderson is a medical informatics consultant based in Silver Spring, Maryland. He grew up in Wheeling, West Virginia, rooting for the great Pirates teams of the 1970s that he's really never got over. (And he still misses Pirates announcer Bob Prince.)

Upon moving to the DC area in 1984, he duly began rooting for the Orioles but found it was never quite the same. Especially after the 1994 strike and the Angelos teardown.

Mike's inner fanboy came back to life the minute the Nats hit RFK in 2005. He shares his random observations with the discerning readers of Nationals Pride and eagerly awaits the day when he'll be complaining about having to pay entirely too much for playoff tickets at Nats Park.


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