With San Diego State righthander Stephen Strasburg in another stratosphere among the top prospects for this year’s draft, there is little mystery who the Washington Nationals have targeted as the No. 1 overall pick.
Strasburg was dominant as a sophomore for the Aztecs, dominant for Team’s college and Olympic teams last summer and has been dominant again this spring, posting a 9-0, 1.54 record in 10 starts for San Diego State along with 13 walks and 135 strikeouts in 70 innings. He is on pace to break NCAA records for both single-season strikeouts and strikeouts per nine innings.
Yet while there may be no mystery who the Nationals have targeted with the top pick in this year’s draft, scheduled for June 9-11, there may be plenty of suspense surrounding the selection as Strasburg. He is being advised in negotiations by none other than Scott Boras and has had some staggering bonus numbers associated with his name.
All that could lead the Nationals to go in another direction (highly unlikely), lead to a protracted holdout (unlikely) or lead the Nationals to sign Strasburg to a big-league contract (most likely), which would enable them to spread out the financial obligation over a number of years.
The latter option is the most realistic, particularly since scouts say there’s no question that Strasburg has everything—stuff, command, presence—to step immediately into a big-league rotation, and perhaps even dominate immediately. The 6-foot-5 righthander has impeccable control of three pitches, including a fastball that has peaked at a staggering 103 mph.
It’s unclear what effect a staggering economy may have in the drafting and signing of Strasburg—or any other players in the early rounds after the average signing bonus in the first round in 2008 reached $2.458 million, the third-highest on record and an 18 percent bump from a year earlier.
“There’s no question the economy will have an impact on bonuses this year,” an American League front office official said. “It had a big impact on free agents in the off-season. We haven’t had any directives yet from the top where we’re going with bonuses this year, but it’s pretty clear there’s going to be some restraint shown this year.”
Even in a depressed economy, which is being felt at ballparks around the country this spring, it would be inconceivable for the struggling Nationals not to draft Strasburg—or not find a way to meet his financial demands, which could still be considerable.
Both Strasburg and the Nationals may have a lot to lose if a partnership isn’t formed. An increasingly disenchanted fan base in Washington, D.C., is mindful that the Nationals didn’t sign their first-round pick (Missouri righthander Aaron Crow) a year ago, and it would not go over well that they passed up on a once-in-a-lifetime arm—either by not drafting or not signing Strasburg.
At the same time, Strasburg may have little to gain by not signing with the Nationals as that team is on a course to pick first again in 2010—and, barring injury, he would be a heavy favorite to be the first pick then, too.
For both the certainty and uncertainty that surrounds Strasburg, there is clear gap to the next level of talent in this draft—something that was evident late last season when the Nationals won a spirited battle with the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres on the final weekend to win the right to the No. 1 pick—in what was effectively The Strasburg Sweepstakes.
Think Strasburg wouldn’t be a fit by June in Seattle for a Mariners team that has charged out to a fast start in the American League West? Think Strasburg wouldn’t be an even better fit in San Diego, pitching for his hometown Padres? Click here for the complete order of early-round picks in this year’s draft.
The Mariners and Padres have all but scratched Strasburg from their short list of candidates, and will be forced to pick from a player pool that is noticeably short on power—both power bats and power arms.
“The draft has evolved pretty much as we expected,” said an American League scouting director. “The U.S. national team and Cape Cod League usually are pretty good indicators of the talent that will be available for the next year’s draft, and our first instinct was there wasn’t much in the way of premium hitters. That has pretty much come to pass.
“There seem to be a lot of players this year with either good tools who are not performing, or players who are performing but don’t have the tools. It was our determination that pitching would be the strength of this year’s draft, and it is.”
PG Crosschecker will break out its initial look of the top 250 prospects in this year’s draft over the next two days (Top 1-125 on Thursday and 126-250 on Friday), and we’ll also highlight the top 10 prospects overall as part of our Daily Top 10 on Thursday and the 10 players who have made the greatest climb up the prospects ranks since the start of the season in our Daily Top 10 on Friday. So we’ll reserve any discussion on specific players (outside of Strasburg) until then.
This year’s draft is significant in that it will take place on the latest dates in draft history. It will also be a three-day affair—not the customary two—that begins in prime time on June 9. Major League Baseball will host the opening night of the draft at its new MLB Network headquarters in Secaucus, N.J., and will televise the first three rounds (either on the Network or mlb.com) from 6-10 p.m. ET.