ESPN’s baseball expert Buster Olney tweeted
on Sunday that he felt Orioles rookie Zach Britton could become the Stephen Strasburg of the 2011 season. Olney said that both pitchers have the “must-see TV” affect on fans.
“He is a very rare lefty with a veering 95 mph fastball,” Olney wrote.
Clearly Olney doesn’t feel that the hype surrounding both pitchers is similar enough to compare the two. Fans were flocking to minor league ballparks to see Strasburg throw 100 mile per hour fast balls down hitter’s throats, that was not the case with Britton.
However, baseball always looks for a young superstar to flock to and in this era of pitching power, Britton could be that guy. It’s early, but so far Britton has been dominant against two powerful offenses in Texas and Tampa Bay. He’s allowed just seven hits to those offenses in 13.2 innings pitched and is coming off of a shutout against the Rangers over 7.2 innings pitched.
So far the 24 year old is 2-0 with a 0.66 ERA, if that trend continues, you’ve got to think that Olney is right.
I love Britton and think long term he could be more valuable than Strasburg b/c he could prove to be more durable. However, Onley’s position is ridiculous. If we move beyond things like ERA and WHIP to more advanced numbers like FIP the difference becomes obvious. In his first two starts (and his second was one of his worst) Strasburg posted a FIP ~3.00 while Britton has posted a FIP of ~3.35. The ridiculous thing is those numbers include two HRs given up by Strasburg while Britton has yet to give up one. Britton’s a really, really nice pitcher but he has been no where near as dominant (K/BB) as Strasburg was when he came up.
Waiting for the BSR shirts…
Alright, Texas has shown itself to be a powerful offense, but where do you get Tampa Bay as a powerful offense? Writers have already written articles about how bad their offense is. Sure it was good for that one day against Boston, but for every other night, it has been the definition of bad.