Less than an hour’s drive from here, you’ll find the new home of Nationals’ top prospect, Stephen Strasburg. He’s been the talk of the town since he was the draft’s number one overall pick this past June. Hell, this kid was the number one overall on the entire planet. Then, the young righty was surrounded by speculation as the Nationals worked out a deal that would satisfy the young player’s veteran agent, Scott Boras.
Even though the Nats have secured the fire-baller with a record deal, the team’s general manager, Mike Rizzo, is heading into the winter meetings with his eyes on acquiring even more quality arms.
With all the hype surrounding Strasburg, I think the Nats are in a very unique position. Strasburg is the caliber of pitcher that they don’t need to baby him around in the minors, fretting over when he’ll be ready to come up to the big show.
Pitchers at the Major League level are paid to win games. It’s as simple as that, and I think Strasburg is ready to win some games for the Nats. While I understand the desire to ease guys into the bigs, I don’t like to see unwritten rules that bar a guy from coming up until he passes some arbitrary deadline.
Come the end of spring training, Rizzo will look at his lineup of pitchers and he’ll have to decide the 11-or-so hurlers he wants to start the season with. I’m willing to bet that Strasburg is well within that top-11, and I think that earns him the right to skip the minors and get right to business earning his monster salary.
Rizzo will have to determine if Strasburg has the right make-up and a strong enough mentality to perform at the highest level and really help his club out. But I really think Strasburg already shows signs of having what it takes.
Does he give the Nats a better chance to win? I’d say so, and I don’t see any need to have an arm of that quality just biding time in the minors.
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