Meet the new baseball Jesus

By
Collegian Staff
on March 26, 2009 6:43 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Felix Hernandez may be Seattle's King. Geovany Soto may have the hearts of Chicago. And Matt Wieters may be knocking on the door of stardom. However, there is another who could be the next Great One.

Stephen Strasburg, a pitcher at San Diego State, is making headlines as the next great flamethrower and is being considered the top player available in the upcoming June MLB Draft.

He's been creating buzz with his tremendous stats, fastball, makeup, repatiore, and well, just about everything about him is causing a rave.

In 5 starts this season, he is 4-0 with a 1.57 ERA. That not good enough for ya? In 34.1 innings pitched this year, he has only 7 walks and 74 (yes, 74) strikeouts. Does it get better? Yep. His fastball regularly touches 100 mph. And a little more background information -- he struck out 23 batters in a game last season. For his career, he has 254 strikeouts and 38 walks in 168 2/3 innings. He was on the USA Olympic team in Beijing last year, tallying 62 strikeouts in 41 innings.

The stats are all insane, but scouts rave about his stuff. His fastball has been clocked at 102 mph multiple times this season. His breaking pitch is a combination between a curveball and a slider and is clocked in the upper-80s. One scout said he's as surefire front-of-the-rotation starter and another said the scary thing is he still has room to develop.

His coach at San Diego State is someone who's seen good pitching, Hall-of-Famer Tony Gwynn. He's impressed with his pitcher's stuff and has been taking care of his prized pitcher, limiting his pitch count.

Scouts have said he could start for any MLB team right now, and one scout even said right now Strasburg is better than a healthy A.J. Burnett. One thing that might scare teams away his who he is represented by -- avenging agent Scott Boras.

Boras has said he wants to get Strasburg a big contract out of the draft. However, some team will pay up, even if it isn't the Nationals, who have the first overall pick.

Strasburg is something special, and he will catch everyone's attention shortly.

Here is a video with every one of his 23 strikeouts from that game:


- Miniaci

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The Roster

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Dave Miniaci is a senior majoring in journalism and is the Daily Collegian's sports chief. He has previously been sports night chief and a sports copy editor. He has also covered men's rugby, men's track and field and field hockey. He is from New Jersey and is a big Devils fan and proud of both, and he doesn't care if you hold that against him.


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Adam Clark is a senior majoring in journalism and is the Daily Collegian's sports editor. He previously covered fraternity and sorority life, crime and courts and was the Collegian's summer 2009 news/sports editor. His favorite athlete died on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 and his favorite football team is coming off the worst six-year stretch in NFL history. He does hold it against Dave Miniaci that he's from New Jersey.


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Dan Rorabaugh is a senior majoring in sports journalism and minoring in English. He is the sports copy desk chief, and was previously a reporter for the men's rugby, men's cross country, men's volleyball, women's soccer, women's basketball and men's lacrosse teams. Last year, the impossible dream happened - one of his favorite teams, the Phillies, won a championship. Now if only the Eagles could catch some of that magic, he might be able to actually find peace with sports.


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Michael Oplinger is a junior majoring in media studies and political science and the Collegian's assistant sports copy desk chief. He previously covered the men's tennis and men's volleyball teams. Even though he enjoyed the Phillies' World Series victory, he misses the days of Jose Mesa and David Bell.


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Eddie Gentile is a senior majoring in journalism and minoring in history. He works on the sports copy desk and previously has covered the women's tennis team, the Lady Icers and the Penn State baseball team. Gentile is your stereotypical Philly fan - he considers every game a loss until they actually win... and even then he'll probably still be moaning. Go birds.


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David Rung is a senior majoring in journalism and minoring in kinesiology. He works on the sports copy desk and previously has covered the women's swimming team and the men's rugby team. Rung isn't as die hard about pro sports as his sports staff brethren from Philly and Pittsburgh, but he does take pride in being a Red Sox fan before the bandwagon started.