1
what Strasburg's age 18 MySpace page looked like? And if it said "I am the Biggest Boss Evah", would it be narcissism, or just accuracy or honesty?
:)
Strasburg's Debut Game - 1
== An Era Begins ===
Some corners warned not to weight one game too heavily ... that whatever happened in the Pirates' game, it wouldn't matter much. "Good game or bad game, you'll need a while to figure out whether Strasburg is good...."
We'll take exactly the opposite view. This one game showed you everything you needed to know (presuming that you didn't yet know it in 2009!).
The 2-D logic: the Pirates aren't very good ... other pitchers have had high debut scores or low ones and gone on to careers X, Y, Z ... etc.
The 3-D logic: the pitcher holds the ball, and there is a Pedro-esque point of critical-mass at which human beings just can't deal. Strasburg has always been past that point. All he needed to do was to come out and show he wasn't going to Steve Blass it. He did that. He's now confirmed as the best pitcher in baseball.
.............
There are great prospects -- David Price, Max Scherzer, whoever -- but that's not we're talking about. There are "great prospects" and then there are just flat pitchers who are overwhelming. Lincecum. Strasburg. Randy Johnson. Verlander.
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=== Kerry Wood 1998 ===
In the 20-K game of 1998, Wood used a 98-100 fastball and a plus-plus-plus power slider to two-pitch the Astros into a Bugs Bunny swingfest. It wasn't an exceptional game. Wood fanned 12.6 men per game that year.
In the Pirates game tonight, Strasburg did the same. He (very wisely) abandoned his 3rd and 4th pitches and used the ace-and-deuce to immolate the Pirates.
It was just the Pirates? Better catch a game sometime, dude. Did it matter whether the 1995 Randy Johnson was facing the worst team in the league or the best?
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=== Why Not More Advance Warning, Then? ===
Why so much "don't jump the gun" shtick on TV this year? ... he hasn't even pitched a game yet... give him a chance to face real MLB(TM) hitters ... nobody deserves this kind of hype... yada yada yada?
MLB(TM) veterans, and ex-veterans, are jealous of guys like Strasburg. We 'net rats aren't. That's all.
................
Japan or college, Cuba or the Appalachian mountains, the pitcher holds the ball. There's no timing necessary, no reaction. He just stands there and throws a ball, under no game-action pressure whatsoever. You could watch a guy throw a bullpen, much less a college ballgame, and observe the pitches that he executes.
Pitching is weird. It's like dart-throwing. If the darts guy in your local pub, or the bowler at the alley in Tacoma is better than the World Champ, then he's better, before or after he joins the pro circuit. That was the case with Strasburg.
It's fingernails on chalkboard for MLB(TM) vets to hear that, of course. Ordinary mortals work hard and pay their dues. Gotta love it, and as James said, this helps to work against the arrogance of youth. But Strasburg woulda done the same on Opening Day.
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Comments
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Strasburg really IS a great talent. Walker is just some punk kid who can throw real hard.
3
It is ok to be a narcissistic jerk if you have refined talent, but it isn't if you have raw talent?
I responded more fully to your earlier assessment of Walker as a "Punk Kid" in the original comments section, the above was just a quip, but I would love to continue the conversation there (link)
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But have seen plenty of ballplayers' MySpaces and a good number of them look very Ward & June Cleaver. A lot of jocks *are* choir boys, and a lot of the rest of them understand that representing themselves as "adults" gains them draft position and money.
I'd have guessed that Strasburg's MySpace was pretty level-headed, unless you have a link to it and already saw it otherwise?
Like you say, Taijuan at least represents himself as clean, sober, and loving momma, so that's good.
:daps:
5
The reason Strasburg went to a Sad Diego State in the first place instead of being drafted out of high school (not drafted at all) or going to a college in a bigger baseball conference was because he was fat and lazy, which of course could be construed as immature. I was being facetious about his MySpace page, I have no idea if he even had one, but I would bet that a kid with as much innate talent as him that didn't care enough about his body to not eat Taco after Taco also wouldn't care too much about what he put on his MySpage Page, it would probably look very similar to Walkers. His colloquialisms would have been different for sure, but similar in tone and content.
Yup here is an article discussing it.
6
My own take on that, is that being out-of-shape is a much lighter shade of gray than Taijuan's "who's yo boss" shtick before he's ever done anything in sports.
Let's not get into the "no human being is perfect, so what's the difference between partying hardy with the druggies, vs playing too much Mario Kart" moral relativity. ;- )
I'm not going for the "too many Doritos is the same moral failing as getting busted in the back seat of the bus with my 17th GF" shtick ... not even that Taijuan necessarily did that.
Coaches will look at a 17-year-old kid with questionable drive as somebody who needs a little sports coaching. This turned out to be the case with Strasburg. He went to college and got after it.
But any of them, such as me, look at a MySpace page like Taijuan's as a kid they've got to worry about in the locker room.
But, again, it could be that Taijuan is a pretty good kid at heart. The M's obviously think so.
7
It's amusing to me that some of the same people that fall all over themselves apologizing for Bradley's very real transgressions are alarmed at a teenager's MySpace page.
Chances are, you look at a hundred My Space pages of kids his age - and especially kids with Type A personalities - and a healthy number of them are going to look just like that. And in ten years, those kids are going to be young Doctors and Lawyers and business managers.
I shudder to think what my MySpace page would have looked like at 17. It would have been bad. I was a complete idiot back then and I turned out just fine. Let's not be too quick to condemn a teenager for being a teenager.
8
On the same subject, Bryce Harper the first overall pick who went to the Nationals and who many think is going to be the next phenom, is said to have really poor make-up.
Sports Illustrated dubbed him "Baseball's Chosen One" and likened his impact to LeBron James in basketball.
Kevin Goldstein of baseball prospectus had this to say.
Goldstein, quoting baseball sources, reported that Harper is pretty much loathed by everybody except his parents and maybe his agent, Scott Boras.
"It's impossible to find any talent evaluator who isn't blown away by Harper's ability on the field," but it's equally difficult to find one who doesn't genuinely dislike the kid."
"One scout called him among the worst amateur players he's ever seen from a makeup standpoint, with top-of-the-scale arrogance, a disturbingly large sense of entitlement, and on-field behavior that includes taunting opponents."
He makes Bradley sound like a choir boy.
9
LOL...
Sounds like Joe Montana.
Seriously. Try to find ONE thing ever said about Montana from a former teammate calling him a good guy. I'll wait.
FWIW, the one guy I know well that has met this kid told me he was the biggest jerk he has ever had the misfortune of meeting. What he actually said was "Bro, after ten minutes around that kid I found myself thinking what a nice guy AJ PPierzynski is.
I LOLed pretty hard.
10
The Sidney Deane personality that we've been attributing to Taijuan Walker. :- )