Strasburg’s Debut
Tonight’s the night – after a couple of years of intense hype, Stephen Strasburg makes his Major League debut. On Stubhub, there’s a ticket to the game going for $575, despite the fact that the 27-31 Nationals are hosting the 23-34 Pirates. People want to see what the hype is all about, and whether this kid is as good as he’s been built up to be.
I expect him to pitch well. The Pirates aren’t a good baseball team, and Strasburg has legitimate top shelf stuff. As long as he can overcome nerves and throw strikes, he should be fine. My one piece of advice, however, will not to be read too much into tonight’s performance, no matter how well he does.
As a matter of reference, here are the 14 pitchers who have posted a Game Score of over 80 in their Major League Debut since 1980.
Steve Woodard: 91
Jimmy Jones: 90
Pedro Astacio: 87
Mark Brownson: 85
Jeff Pico: 85
Danny Cox: 84
Mike Remlinger: 82
Johnny Cueto: 81
Kirk Rueter: 81
Jason Jennings: 81
Jeff Russell: 81
Kevin Morton: 81
Chris Waters: 80
Bob Milacki: 80
That is not exactly a list of Hall Of Famers. In fact, it’s a less impressive list that the guys who have absolutely bombed in the big league debut. It’s a long list, so we won’t go through the whole thing, but here are a few of the names of pitchers who have posted a game score of 20 or below in their first game:
Steve Avery (9), Tom Glavine (13), Matt Garza (14), Jake Westbrook (15), Jon Garland (15), Jason Hammel (18), and Ervin Santana (20)
Those guys were all disasters in their first tastes of the big leagues, but have gone on to much bigger and better things. And that group blows the “announce their presence with authority” guys out of the water in terms of career value.
Strasburg may be fantastic tonight, or he may be terrible. It will be interesting to watch either way, but in the end, it won’t mean anything. It’s one start. It might be his big chance to make a good first impression, but if he falls on his face, he’ll be in good company.
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What about their performances in their second start?
Mark Prior posted a game score of 64 in his MLB debut and struck out 10 in 6 innings. This is perfect comp for what we can expect from Strasburg.
Game score weights getting a lot of outs pretty highly and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Nationals pull Strasburg after 90-100 pitches even if he’s really dealing.
I believe the Nationals are on record as saying that he’s only throwing between 5-6 innings or 90-100 pitches.
I was hoping this site wasn’t going to post anything about Strasburg’s debut.
Right, and what with the newly-instituted and wildly unpopular law mandating that everyone read every post on every baseball blog, effective today, you’re just fucked.
I do read pretty much every word posted on this site, and the reason is because it’s almost always words you can’t find written everywhere else 1,000 times over.
If you enjoy picking and choosing through all the “filler my editor required me to write about” in order to select only the best, be my guest. I hope you enjoy such classic articles as “Strasburg’s Second Start,” “Strasburg’s 3rd Start,” and “Stasburg’s First Three Starts Reviewed.”
I’m just saying I was hoping. Nothing wrong with this article. I just had seen it before, maybe.
Did you find the 14 pitchers with the best debut game scores since 1980 in the USA Today article you read this morning about Strasburg?
I’m not a blind defender of FG or Cameron; I’m just sayin’.
Not USA today, but yes, I’ve seen this at least three times:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/6582
OR
http://www.sbnation.com/2010/6/8/1507557/stephen-strasburg-best-mlb-debut
What about their first month of pitching????
I thought Wilson Alvarez threw a no-hitter in his MLB debut.
I guess I’ll have to look it up.
It was his second start.
But Bobo Holloman did pitch a no-hitter in his first start.
http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&pid=6483&bid=1210
14 strikeouts to 0 walks? Best ratio in the majors prior this year was 11 and 0.
So my back-of-the-envelope calc gives Strasburg a 79 game score tonight.
I got 75 when I did it, both times. But I could have messed something up, this is the first time I’ve calculated it myself.
I came up with 75 as well, FWIW.
For fun, three other pitchers have posted a game score of 75 in their debut since 1990. Here are their lines:
ERIC GAGNE (1999)
6 IP / 100 Pitches / 2 H / 0 R / 0 ER / 0 HR / 1 BB / 8 SO
JERED WEAVER (2006)
7 IP / 97 Pitches / 3 H / 0 R / 0 ER / 0 HR / 1 BB / 5 SO
WADE DAVIS (2009)
7 IP / 105 Pitches / 3 H / 1 R / 1 ER / 1 HR / 1 BB / 9 SO
and, for completeness:
STEPHEN STRASBURG (2010)
7 IP / 94 Pitches / 4 H / 2 R / 2 ER / 1 HR / 0 BB / 14 SO
Yep. 75. Guess I shouldn’t use “back-of-the-envelope” to describe what was just mental math. Gives a bad name to true envelope calculating.
That was ridiculous.
GOAT