No Price is Too High For This Guy

Davey Johnson loves talking about Stephen Strasburg. He gets excited talking about Stephen Strasburg.

Johnson is a baseball manager who has seen great pitching and knows great pitching.

That's why he loves talking about Strasburg - because he gets to use the word "great" so many times.

"He has a great arm, great poise, great command, great stuff. ... He is special, no doubt about it," said Johnson, who managed Strasburg, selected Tuesday by the Washington Nationals as the first pick in baseball's amateur draft, during the 2008 Olympics.

You've already read so many accolades about Strasburg that it can make you skeptical about whether he can live up to the hype. Strasburg has been so deified that if and when the Nationals do sign Strasburg, it will never rain again at Nationals Park, as it did Tuesday night. The ballpark clock will suddenly work. The sausages will shoot out of the sausage gun intact and be the best-tasting sausages you have ever had.

Nothing will ever go wrong for the Nationals again.

He may not have supernatural powers to change curses, but the natural powers he has certainly could help change the fortunes of this woeful franchise.

Stephen Strasburg may indeed live up to the hype.

"He is the real deal, baby," Johnson said.

Johnson, skipper of the 1986 World Series champion New York Mets and a winner everywhere he has been, was one of the top managers of his time and particularly good at managing pitching. As a player, he was part of those Orioles teams with Jim Palmer and Dave McNally. As a manager, he nurtured Dwight Gooden with the Mets.

Johnson knows pitching, and he is not a man who is easily impressed. He is effusive in his praise of the 20-year-old Strasburg, who went 13-1 with a 1.32 ERA in 15 starts as a junior for San Diego State, also striking out 195 in 109 innings. He did not issue more than two walks in any game this season and walked one or fewer batter in 10 of 15 starts.

"Great makeup and a great competitor," Johnson said. "He was the only college kid on what was basically a professional team for me in the Olympics, and a lot of the guys used to get on him about it. But it didn't faze him a bit.

"The first game he pitched for me was against the Netherlands in China, and it made me nervous because he had a no-hitter going for about five innings," Johnson said. "He ended up with a one-hitter through seven. He threw about 90 pitches. He was overpowering. Great command. He is a power pitcher with control. ... He doesn't overthrow. He has a nice, easy delivery, and he locates real good.

"You couldn't ask for anything better," Johnson said. "He goes about his business and knows what he has to do to get prepared. He's outstanding."

Sounds like a $50 million pitcher to me.

That reportedly is the price that Strasburg's uber-agent, Scott Boras, is seeking for his client, only nearly $40 million more than the highest number any No. 1 pick has gotten in the past. I can't fathom the Nationals paying that amount, and consensus has been that while Strasburg will sign for a record-setting figure, it will be closer to $15 million to $20 million. Then again, I also can't fathom under any circumstances how the Nationals could not sign Strasburg, no matter what his price - particularly after not signing their No. 1 pick, Aaron Crow, last year and how damaged the organization's credibility is in and out of baseball after a series of mistakes and mishaps.

The Strasburg hype is so great that if you announced that Stephen Strasburg was simply going to make an appearance at Nationals Park - sing with Cliff, race with Teddy, whatever - it would outdraw the paying crowd of about 20,000 that the Nationals have supposedly averaged so far this year. So if indeed Strasburg is the real deal, he will be worth whatever the Lerner family has to pay at least to stop the bleeding of this wounded franchise.

The hoopla is already driving Nationals management crazy, and the negotiations are just about to begin. On Tuesday night, when acting general manager Mike Rizzo was asked in a press conference about Strasburg being a "once-in-a-generation" pitcher, Rizzo responded, "I don't know why he is called that."

Because he is, until proved otherwise, and the Nationals better hope is turns out to be just that.

WRITTEN by Thom Loverro at The Washington Times on June 10th, 2009

It's Just a Fantasy

If you know me, you know that I am a huge baseball fan. A lifelong Phillies fan, of course, and someone who played for and managed a local championship men's softball team for over a decade and a half. As I got a bit older, I retired the old glove and bat, and moved into the fantasy game. Fantasy baseball has been one of my biggest hobbies over the past decade, particularly with a 'Keeper' league of which I am a part known as the 'Whitey Fantasy Baseball League'. In this case, 'Whitey' refers to the man for whom the league is dedicated, Philly's own Rich 'Whitey' Ashburn. We have 16 players known to each other as GM's (general managers) of the 16 teams all league-owned. My own team, the Philadelphia Athletics, has been highly successful, having won 7 of the 11 pennants in my Paul Owens (East) Division, and one league championship during our history which began back in 1998. That first summer we stocked our team's for the first time with a Draft, and since then players have been exchanged over the years through trading and a waiver-acquisition process. We are permitted to keep between 16-20 players every year, so you can actually build a team and keep it together if you like. My first Draft yielded me Scott Rolen and Derek Jeter as my cornerstones, and I picked up later in the Draft such young studs as Billy Wagner and Andruw Jones. We have two divisions, my Owens Division and the western Connie Mack Division, with eight teams in each. Most of the current 16 GMs have been with the league for a long time, with four of us still remaining from that first Draft day and season. In the east there are teams representing New York, Boston, Alexandria, Carolina, Atlantic City, Middle Village (NY), Montreal and my Philly club. From the west the teams are in Portland, California, Jackson Hole, Alabama, Louisiana, St. Louis, Eugene and Spokane. The actual GMs are from all across the country as well. There are two of us from Philly, three guys from the Bayou of Louisiana, and the rest spread from the Pacific Northwest to the Cayman Islands and everywhere in between. Our ages range from 24 to 58, with most in their 30's and 40's. We utilize an even mix of offensive and pitching stats, making both sides of the game equally important, and we play a head-to-head schedule of 22 games, once each vs. the other division and twice vs. your own division rivals. It's now playoff time in the WFBL, and my A's finished in 2nd place in the Owens/East and so will open this week against the 3rd place Boston Bulldogs. My club has always been known as a pitching-first team, and this year was no exception as the A's staff was tops in the league led by Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, Cliff Lee (pictured), Cole Hamels & Tim Lincecum in the rotation and closer Francisco 'KRod' Rodriguez. My offense features Chase Utley, Jose Reyes, Mark Teixeira and Grady Sizemore. Boston has a tough squad, one that the A's edged out in last year's opening round. Okay, it's only fantasy, but in our little 16-man world of nationwide friends, it's a big time of year. Here's to hoping that my A's put the stats together over the next few weeks to bring my 2nd WFBL championship to Philadelphia.
NOTE: On Sunday September 28th, after a three-week run against the best competition in the league, my Philadelphia Athletics edged the Eugene Emeralds by a 6-5 final score to win the 2nd championship in my history, the first since 2002.