Knobler: Nats players don't mind price
SAN DIEGO -- The Legend peers in from the mound, staring in toward his catcher, more than a dozen radar guns poised behind the home-plate screen and a record-setting, standing-room-only crowd at San Diego State University.
He kicks. He fires. Ssssssssss! Here comes a fastball, hissing through the cool night air. The radar guns leap into action. The readings? Let's just say if the pitch were a vehicle on the interstate, highway patrol would have its driver behind bars more quickly than you can say "June draft, No. 1 pick."
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| Strasburg pitched for Team USA in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. (Getty Images) |
Another pitch, another loud hiss, another swing-and-miss. Whooooosh! A grandpa sitting in front of the scout wheels around. "How fast was that?" he demands.
• B/R: Nats must draft, sign Strasburg
The gun clutched by the scout sitting next to me reads 99 mph. The gun held by the scout behind me reads 100. The gun next to him, 98.
Pitch-by-pitch, The Legend of Stephen Strasburg grows more outrageous.
"He's ready for the majors right now," one weather-beaten scout says.
Another, when asked whether The Legend is the most polished college pitcher he's ever seen, practically strains his neck muscles, he answers so quickly.
"Oh yeah," the guy says. "Maybe of anybody."
There is buzz that Scott Boras, Strasburg's "adviser" (remember, college kids cannot have agents), will attempt to extract $50 million or more from the Washington Nationals, who own the No. 1 pick on June 9.
The momentum clearly is with Boras, too: Not only is the gap between Strasburg and The Rest of the Field probably the largest separation in draft history, but the Nationals, after failing to sign their top pick last year, pretty much have to get Strasburg into their organization at the soonest possible moment or else they'll really look like clowns.
Lest you think this is pure, unadulterated hype, go ahead and ask a certain Hall of Famer about the kid.
"Once you see him, you'll understand," says Tony Gwynn, in his seventh season as Aztecs baseball coach, smiling the smile of a guy with insider-trading knowledge. "This guy pitches."
Strasburg, a 6-5, 220-pound junior right-hander with cartoon statistics and a rock-star future, is about the only guy here who isn't ready to dream big at the moment. Ask him whether he's keeping tabs on the Nationals or Mariners (who own pick No. 2) or even the hometown Padres (No. 3), and he shows that, in addition to a fastball (two-seamer and four-seamer), slider/curve hybrid (which he throws two different ways) and change-up, he's got a pretty good stiff-arm, too.
"No," he says evenly. "No. I'm not even watching that. We have a season here and, other than that. ..."
Strasburg, who grew up in San Diego, is doing his best to help pay back the Aztecs for what they've given him. They haven't been to the NCAA Regionals since 1991, and that's the clear short-term goal. As for beyond that, well, out there in the distance, that's where the radar guns and imaginations meet.
It's no wonder scouts resemble 'tweens at a Jonas Brothers concert when watching The Legend in action: In 70 1/3 innings pitched this spring, Strasburg has struck out 135 batters and walked only 12.
His fastball has been clocked as high as 102, and it normally sits around 97, 98. But it goes well beyond that. He works both sides of the plate with precision and he changes speeds with the sneakiness of a cat burglar. What's beyond the surface of his ludicrous walks-to-strikeout ratio is this:
It isn't simply a matter of Strasburg's great control. It's that he is so overwhelming that he rarely gets deep enough in the count to risk a walk. Hitters are overwhelmed from the first pitch, and once they get into defensive-mode swinging, forget it.
"It's true," Gwynn says. "Last week in Albuquerque, his first pitch of the game was 97 and the guy was jumping at it. That's why I marvel at him, because he saw that and dropped a change-up with the next pitch and locked him up.
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"You start waiting for his fastball and then he drops an Uncle Charlie on you, you're like, 'Oooooh.'"
Last Friday night, a Texas Christian right-handed hitter was so bent-over and off-balance on one particular attempt at an outside pitch that his butt was practically in the third-base dugout as he feebly strained to reach out into the left-handed batter's box and squib a foul that nearly hit the on-deck batter over by the first-base dugout. He was stretched out like a poor man's Gumby. And this was a TCU team ranked 16th in the nation.
It isn't simply his velocity. That alone is overwhelming enough. But this kid pitches. That's where the overwhelming turns into the cruel and unusual.
"He reminds me of Mark Prior in college, the way he dominates the game," Gwynn says. "He locates, changes speeds, his angles. He's got tilt to his pitches."
In that game at New Mexico two weeks ago, the Lobos in one inning sent a man to third with one out ... and Strasburg whiffed the next two hitters. They put a runner on third with one out in another inning ... and Strasburg fanned the next two hitters again. They put a runner on third with none out in another inning ... and he whiffed the next three batters in a 1-0 SDSU win.
"Each time it was a little different," Gwynn says. "A guy would jump at a fastball and, pow, he'd throw him a breaking ball. A guy was waiting off speed and, pow, he hits him with a 95 fastball.
"He gets it. He'll cruise at 94, 95 and then when he needs to turn it up, he will."
Against TCU last Friday, Strasburg surrendered his first homer of the season, a three-run job on a 95 mph heater (hey, even Cy Young gave it up here and there). Then he fanned the next two hitters on six pitches.
"I didn't want to walk him," Strasburg, now 9-0 with 1.54 ERA, would say of the home run. "I left a pitch over the plate, and he made me pay for it."
Strasburg's is the most fun kind of legend, because it's grown from the ground up and taken nearly three years to germinate. He was not heavily recruited while at West Hills High School in suburban San Diego, partly because his fastball wasn't even a training-wheels model of what it is today and partly because, back then, he mostly was viewed as a slacker.
It was SDSU pitching coach Rusty Filter, now in his 17th season on the job, who saw some potential when Strasburg was in high school.
"I thought he was average," Gwynn says. "I really did. Rusty was the one who assured me we should take him."
"Just to set it right, we have to convince Coach Gwynn on everybody," Filter says, chuckling. "He threw 86-to-90 with a good breaking ball, so it wasn't like there wasn't much to work with already.
"I felt like he could have some impact in middle relief."
The early days weren't pretty. Strasburg was overweight, out-of-shape and mostly spent his first few days of conditioning at the school throwing up. Filter told him he was soft, wouldn't compete, wouldn't make it, "everything negative I could say."
There wasn't much verbal reaction from Strasberg, but there was the best kind of reaction. He worked. And worked. And that, combined with his intelligence -- he's already got 30 hours completed toward a degree in public administration and is on track to graduate in 3½ years -- has been a splendid combination.
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| Despite the hoopla, Strasburg keeps his focus on his college team. (US Presswire) |
He was the team's closer as a freshman and joined the rotation last year. His fastball velocity jumped as he got leaner and stronger, from the low-90s as a freshman to the mid-90s that spring to 98 in the summer before his sophomore season while pitching for the Torrington (Conn.) Twisters of the New England Collegiate Baseball League. He first hit 100 during the fall of his sophomore year.
"I've had numerous requests for his workout program," Filter says. "It's incredible. I've probably had 50 of them this year. Grandmas for their grandsons. From parents. From kids. It's been an array of people."
Filter, not interested in attaching himself to Strasburg's success, doesn't respond.
"I'm not going to do that," he says. "It's the same program for every pitcher on the team. He has some things he does, but it's baseball. There are no secrets."
Not only was Strasburg the only collegian on the U.S. Olympic baseball team in Beijing last summer, manager Davey Johnson gave him the ball to start the semifinal game against Cuba. He was 1-1 with a 2.45 ERA in two starts in Beijing.
"Velocity-wise, he's able to maintain his higher end for three, four innings," Filter says. "He might be 98, 101 out of the chute, then he'll plateau for awhile (in maybe the mid-90s), and then at the end he'll kick it back up to 98, 101.
"I don't have the justification for how that can happen, but it does."
And it is all duly recorded each Friday night by scout after scout.
But really ... is he ready for the majors right now, this instant?
"Is he ready for the majors?" one scouts asks, repeating the question. "That's tough. I look at him and I look at what's out there. Justin Verlander, Felix Hernandez ... he's got better stuff.
"There's nothing like him in the country, I'll tell you that."
The consummate hitter who carefully built his Hall of Fame resume standing 60-feet, 6-inches from some of the greatest pitchers of our generation considers the question.
"There are a crapload of guys who can cruise at 94 and turn it up. Roy Halladay, Johan Santana, John Smoltz, Josh Beckett, bing, bing, bing," Gwynn says. "I'm not comparing him to them because those guys are established.
"Stuff-wise, there's no question he can pitch on that level. Stuff-wise, he could pitch there now. Maturity, composure, more balls in the strike zone ... you've got to learn that stuff.
"He's got more learning to do, no question."
Mostly, though, like a student after a doctorate degree, that learning must come at the next level.
"I've said two words about pitching to him all year: 'Nice job'," Gwynn says.
The hoopla here is reminiscent of when Marshall Faulk burst onto the scene at SDSU in 1991 by rushing for a record-setting 386 yards in a game as a freshman. Friday night's baseball attendance of 3,072 was a regular-season record for the school, and the largest crowd since the New York Yankees played an exhibition game at the school in 1998.
University president Dr. Stephen Weber was there. So was basketball coach Steve Fisher. As Strasburg warmed up to start the game, a crowd of close to 75 people, many aiming digital cameras, crowded toward the end of the stands just past third base that overlook the bullpen, straining to get a better look.
Strasburg pitches on Friday nights, and back in March, the school announced a "Strasburg Mini-Season Ticket Plan" which offered fans the opportunity to buy tickets for, you got it, Friday night home games.
"That's the first time I realized this thing was a phenomenon," Gwynn says. "It was the week we hosted the NCAA women's regional, so we were understaffed at the ticket office. The ticket line was down the track, up the sidewalk, around the corner and down to the parking structure."
The attention from all angles has become so crushing that Gwynn has put Strasburg off-limits to the media except after games in which he pitches. But the kid continues to handle things with aplomb.
As the hurricane around Strasburg blew harder, Gwynn late last month was going to leave his ace home when the team played at UC Santa Barbara. The Legend wasn't pitching and Gwynn was attempting to shield him from so much attention -- but Strasburg insisted on making the four-hour bus trip simply because, well, he's part of the team.
In that 1-0 game at New Mexico two weeks ago, at 109 pitches through eight innings, Strasburg rebuffed efforts to remove him, insisting on pitching the ninth.
Gwynn is handling him with great care, pitching him no more than once a week and rarely letting him exceed 115 or 120 pitches. His career-high is 125 in a game against Utah last year (he fanned 23).
"He's not leaving his arm here," Gwynn promises. "I'm going to make sure of that."
"They're doing a very good job," says Jim Strasburg, Stephen's father (and a regular at all games, not just those in which his son pitches). "He has a definite routine he does between starts. You can't control injuries, but they don't overwork him."
Like his son, Jim, an SDSU graduate employed by Jenny Craig Inc. as a real estate manager, also declines to look ahead to the major league draft.
"We don't do it," he says. "If it happens, it happens. We'll worry about that on June 9. There is a lot of college baseball left for San Diego State, and that's all we're thinking about right now."
As for the potential pot of gold at the end of the rainbow ...
"I've only met Scott Boras twice," Jim Strasburg says. "After a game here, and at an In-N-Out burgers after a game at Cal State Fullerton last year. I bought burgers for everybody."
Little more than one month from now, Stephen Strasburg will be in line to purchase a lifetime supply of burgers himself for his entire family, the entire SDSU baseball team and, heck, probably even for all of those radar-gun toting scouts, too, if he wishes.
Before that, though, he's got three more regular-season starts and, if things work out the way they all hope, the NCAAs. It all should culminate with Strasburg's final start of the season on May 14 against the University of Utah. By then, the draft will be close enough that the eyes of much of the baseball world will be locked on that old baseball hotbed: Ogden, Utah, site of the series.
Gwynn chuckles, anticipating the madness.
"I'm sure it will be like George Clooney going to Ogden to do a movie," he says.
Intolerable Cruelty, no doubt.
The stuff of pure Legend.
