If you haven’t read the new SI article on Harper, I’d check it out.

Interesting bit here:

What the Harpers are considering, however, is having Bryce earn a GED credential this summer and enroll in a junior college this fall, which would expose him to more challenging baseball competition as well as make him eligible for next June’s draft, in which he would likely be the first pick in the country. Under that scenario, assuming the Nationals keep losing games at something close to their current rate (they have the worst record in baseball, and it isn’t even close), Washington could wind up with Strasburg and Harper in the next 12 months—the baseball equivalent of the Cavaliers getting James and Dwight Howard in consecutive NBA drafts. Of course, in both cases the Nationals would have to negotiate with Boras, who represents Strasburg too. A combined outlay in the neighborhood of $100 million is entirely possible. Boras, according to league sources, will use the six-year, $52 million deal he negotiated with the Red Sox for Daisuke Matsuzaka in December 2006 as the benchmark for a Strasburg deal.

Have to wonder if this’d fly with MLB. Interesting if it did. I’ve never much agreed on age limits and whatnot. I think they’re stupid. I hope it works and he gets in next year if they try it.

And if he fell we probably wouldn’t take him, cause it’d mean he was dead, cause that’s the only way he falls.

But let’s say we enter an alternate universe where baseball has a draft lottery and we won the number one pick for this year.

Do I think Strasburg would be woth a Dice-K type contract and would I be pissed if the Rangers passed on him cause of his contract demands? Yes, and Yes, so fucking angry I’d murder seven members of a travelling carnival.

The hype for Strasburg is at least an order of magnitude greater than for any of those guys. Wood, Taylor, and Josh Beckett were all high school kids. They were incredibly hyped. But they simply were not what Strasburg is.

Prior, McDonald, Anderson (to a lesser extent), and David Price were all obviously the best pitchers available in their years. And they were obviously talented enough to be in a big league rotation in the near future. But none were as dominant as Strasburg has been, and none had stuff hyped to Strasburg’s extent.

To me, the hype for Strasburg is equivalent to that of Ken Griffey Jr or ARod – probably the two closest “sure thing” stars to ever be in the draft. I don’t think any pitcher has been as potent a draft pick for as long as I can remember. Who knows if the hype is accurate, but he’s been sensational practically every time he’s pitched in the last two years. Obviously there is risk, but I don’t think it’s fair to compare Strasburg to Prior and McDonald

why is brien taylor listed as a flop? its not like he sucked at the ML level – freak accident=ended career

go look up his minor league stats…

that the nationals nudge boras into trying to get him to go to juco?

seriously

I heard Law on Mad Dog Radio about a month or so ago. He said that if he were the Nats, he would make Strasburg an extremely competitive offer (let’s say $60 million), and then put in the stipulation that it goes down by X amount of dollars for every day that Boras delays signing the contract. And then you would tell every fan, beat writer, talking head, and blogger about the deal you made and penalties for trying to draw out the process. Law seemed pretty confident that this would work. If Boras called his bluff, that would be disastrous for the Nats.

More interestingly, however, was that Law said Strasburg could pitch in the majors this season.