As if Stephen Strasburg’s coronation at Nationals Park on Tuesday wasn’t enough, tomorrow’s annual Major League Baseball Amateur Draft offers another opportunity for the hometown nine to garner some additional attention, coast-to-coast.
Bryce Harper, the consensus best amateur baseball player in North America, is apparently a mortal lock to get the call at number one, a distinction — hard to call it an honor, as you had to lose a lot of games to pick first two years in a row — that falls to the Nationals. The biggest difference between Harper and Strasburg — to me anyway — is that Harper’s hometown doesn’t have a big league ball club. Las Vegas, a Pacific Coast League outpost since 1983, was never in the running for Harper’s main stage heroics, unless he dropped baseball for a career in stand-up comedy or plate spinning.
Not so for San Diego, Strasburg’s hometown and college town as well. When Stephen signed with the Nationals last summer and came to town for a day of press availability, he was asked several times about whether he would’ve preferred to have been drafted and signed by the Padres. He unfailingly said the right thing, over and over again: Baseball is a business, and things like that were never much of a consideration.
Look back at the tail end of the 2008 NL season. The Padres arrived in Washington on September 19 with a record of 58-95, the same as the Nationals. San Diego proceeded to sweep Washington by scores of 11-6, 6-1 and 6-2. When the season ended, the Nationals had 102 losses and the Padres 99.
Hello, Stephen Strasburg.
At the time, a lot of Padres’ fans questioned the wisdom of San Diego management, knowing what was at stake. Bottom line: You could not have approached Padres’ manager Bud Black and suggested that he not try to win that series. I think, given his reputation, he would’ve resigned on the spot had they taken that approach.
Remember the way the 2000 season ended for the Orioles, with a three-game series sweep of the Yankees at Camden Yards? It seemed wonderful at the time — a nice way to end a disappointing 74-88 season. However, those wins pushed Baltimore’s first round pick in the 2001 draft down to seventh. The guy they really wanted — local boy Mark Teixeira — was taken fifth overall by Texas, who, of course, won three fewer games than the Birds.
Nats’ GM Mike Rizzo would prefer not to have the first pick overall for the next several years, if you don’t mind. A very, very late pick in round one will be just fine, thank you. Nonetheless, the impending arrival of Strasburg and the future potential of Harper are changing the perception, both local and national, of big league baseball in town. And in the brief history of the Nationals, it’s about time.
Phil Wood is a contributor to Nats Xtra on MASN. Contact him at [email protected].
