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=== What's Lame About 'Im ... ? ===

The one and only (major) knock on Gausman is the idea that he doesn't have a very good curve or slider, and may not ever develop one ... and you know how a pitcher with only two pitches is doomed to failure.  

:- P

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=== Dr. D's Vibe ===

The photo above gives a sense of Gausman's strength-to-weight ratio.  He reminds of Tim Lincecum, Ichiro, and Jered Weaver in terms of body control.

He's got a whippiness to his motion, a high front side and a "born to pitch" feel to his movements.  We predict that Gausman will be gone certainly in the top 5, maybe 1-1, as scouts and talent judges intuit the fish-in-water nature of his performances.

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The pro's yell at Gausman constantly to get a slider or curve going, and Gausman himself makes noises like, yeah, I think I've got my best slider now, yada yada.

Actually my question on Gausman is whether he has the command they say he does.  If so, Gausman could threaten as a Michael Pineda redux, only with a changeup rather than a slider.  Yes, there are fastball-changeup pitchers in the tops of rotations; Curt Schilling and Bartolo Colon we've mentioned a time or twelve...

Roger Clemens in the second half of his career worked a fastball off a forkball.  Gausman's change supposedly functions as a split/fork.  Max Scherzer, when he's pitching well, whipsaws a fastball off a changeup and just shows the (lousy) slider.  

Jason Schmidt, when he was finishing in the top 5 in Cy Young voting, was using strictly a fastball-change attack.  Here's the F/X proof.  Picture a lankier Jason Schmidt, with two more feet on the fastball, and that's pretty much Kevin Gausman.  I'll take it.

Schmidt didn't physically look like Gausman, of course, but physical looks aren't a very important marker when you're pairing off comps.  Schmidt threw the ball like Gausman does.  If that be the comp, then Gausman could easily prove himself the match of the pitchers in the Cole-Bauer-Hultzen-Bundy class last year. 

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Whether you could ever talk the pro's into letting Gausman throw the pitches that he is actually good at, that is another subject entirely. But Gausman's got the arm worthy of a pick like this.

It's my pick, bearing in mind our not having full information, Gausman is probably my take.

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My $0.01,

Dr D