Why Stephen Strasburg May Not End Up The Best Pitcher In His Draft Class

On Tuesday evening I, like many of you, sat back and watched one of, and for me,the single most impressive the single most impressive pitching performance this year.

There may have been three perfect games in about two months (yes Gallaraga's counts) however the 94 pitches the 21 year old threw in the 7 innings he was on the mound, for me, totally blew away everything else from baseball this year.

Having said that from what we've seen in the past the "sure things" haven't necessarily worked out (Ben McDonald, Paul Wilson, Mark Prior, Kris Benson, etc). We've seen all of these guys arrive with mounds of hype but who subsequently haven't been able to live up to their billing.

If this trend were to continue and Strasburg's career were to peeter off then there's one man who I feel could easily become, if he's not already, one of the most dominant pitchers in the game.

Mike Leake was drafted 8th overall behind not only the Nationals' phenom but also fellow pitchers Matt Hobgood, Zachary Wheeler and Mike Miner; yeah I've never heard of any of them either.

In the time it's taken this group to combine for one big league outing Leake has already started 11 games for the Cincinnatti Reds, is 5-0 and has a 2.22 ERA, T-7 best in baseball. Forget rookie of the year those are more like Cy Young kind of numbers. Leake's gone beyond competing with those drated around him and is now in the same conversation as the most stellar names in the game.

Who knows how things will work out? Leake may be the one who falls off as Strasburg goes on to dominate baseball for the next 15 years but if the most hyped pitcher in history's career doesn't go quite as anticipated then I'm sure there'll still be one man from the 2009 draft that we'll be talking about for years to come for the right reasons.