Quote:
Originally Posted by redsof72
We are talking about a guy that is consistently 95-97 with no major control issues. Give me just a list of those kind of guys, no one else, and, assuming they stayed healthy, tell me how many of those guys fizzled out.
|
I agree Stephenson technically has all the stuff to succeed. Yet young flamethrowers sometimes do lose velocity (Colt Griffin, Mark Pawelek). And you simply can't take injury out of the equation (otherwise we'd all be singing the praises of Adam Miller).
I love Stephenson's stuff and I'm thrilled the Reds picked him and I think he's been handled just about as well as possible to date. He's exactly the kind of high ceiling talent the Reds should have been after with a lower 1st round pick. But he's got a lot of innings and a few years between here and the majors. We don't know how his arm is going to respond to that. I hoping he hits the majors with every ounce of that heater intact and finely polished secondary offerings, so I don't want to dwell on whether something could wrong outside of saying pitchers can make you bang your head against the wall.
Anyway, my point wasn't about Stephenson. It was about projecting hitters vs. pitchers in generic terms. The tilt is pretty strong towards hitters.