Stephen Strasburg Returns: Power Ranking the 15 Best Young Pitchers in Baseball

Stephen Strasburg will return to the Washington Nationals Tuesday, according to Adam Kilgore of The Washington Post. A year and three days after undergoing Tommy John surgery, Strasburg will be back in the big leagues gaining experience and building arm strength for 2012.

If Strasburg is not the best young pitcher in baseball, he's very much in the conversation. His blend of sheer velocity (100 miles per hour was not uncommon last season, although one assumes he'll sit in the mid 90s for the rest of this season), terrific command and secondary pitches that overwhelm opponents promises he will be a dominant hurler again—if not this September, then going forward.

But is he really the best pitcher age 26 or younger in MLB? That's a tricky question. Here are the 15 best such hurlers in the game.

You Must Be This Young to Ride List-O-Rama

Before we get going here, let's lay down some ground rules. No list of this kind is worth the effort unless some parameters define the argument. Specifically, to know who belongs on this list, we must make clear and immutable rules about eligibility for this list.

1. A pitcher must have at least 50 big-league innings under his belt in order to qualify.

2. This 2011 season must be the pitcher's age-26 or younger season.

3. Only starters are eligible for this list.

The third rule might ruffle some feathers. After all, Neftali Feliz might be a starter in the near future, and Craig Kimbrel and Jonny Venters at least deserve to be discussed. Fine, I say, but it should be done in a separate setting, because starters and relievers are not the same. Different skill sets and mentalities are required, and starters are unequivocally more valuable.

So we know who's in play and who's not. Now let's see who makes the cut and where they fall.

15. Jaime Garcia

The Cardinals were wise to lock up Garcia, 25, to a four-year deal with club options at its end. He's a Dave Duncan guy who could thrive without Duncan.

Garcia keeps the ball on the ground really well, strikes out his share of batters and has improved his command as he has gotten further removed from Tommy John surgery.

If Adam Wainwright is back next season, the Cards will have a solid one-two punch atop their rotation, and Garcia's left-handedness adds balance.

14. Ian Kennedy

A late bloomer, Kennedy was unable to sew up any significant role in the big leagues until the Yankees dealt him to Arizona prior to 2010. Since then, though, he has grown by leaps and bounds with each passing start.

He might not be a long-term ace, but in the here and now, Kennedy is pitching really well, and his changeup and fastball are as well-balanced with one another as any young pitcher's can be.

13. Daniel Hudson

Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune, who hardly ever writes anything interesting or insightful, had an interesting and insightful examination of Hudson recently.

In it, he discussed Hudson vis-a-vis Jered Weaver, another tall, lanky right-hander with a low arm angle who is having a huge season. Apparently, Rogers talked to White Sox Assistant GM Rick Hahn before the Sox dealt Hudson to the Diamondbacks (in a disastrous deal, by the way) last summer, and Hahn comped Hudson favorably to Weaver.

It's not an unreasonable take, although Hudson is far less accomplished and seems to present an injury risk with his long arm action. That risk might be the best chance NL hitters have not to be dominated by Hudson for years to come.

12. Johnny Cueto

The current MLB ERA leader, Cueto features a sick curveball, five total pitches (each right around league-average or better) and a violent delivery batters have trouble seeing well.

His average fastball in 2011 has been over 93 miles per hour, good enough for fourth among NL starters.

11. Michael Pineda

Shutting Pineda down is a wise move for the miserable Mariners, but in the long run, I don't view him as a big injury risk anyway.

Despite his long levers and sturdy build, he actually has a fairly compact arm action. Pineda will one day be able to throw 225-plus innings just like Felix Hernandez, and the prospect of that should frighten every other AL West club.

10. Ricky Romero

How hard is life in the AL East for non-Axis teams? Consider Romero's rawest numbers against three groups:

1. Red Sox: 11 GS, 52.1 IP, 47 ER, 2-6

2. Yankees: 9 GS, 54.1 IP, 29 ER, 3-3

3. All Others: 68 GS, 468.1 IP, 155 ER, 35-18

Without the Red Sox and Yankees on his schedule three or four times a year, Romero's career ERA would be 2.98. Very few people adequately adjust for the dynamic of the AL East in making this sort of ranking.

9. Madison Bumgarner

Only a handful of pitchers of any age can match or exceed the season Bumgarner is having at age 21 (he turned 22 in August, so his baseball age is still 21).

He blends good movement with deception in his delivery, and his remarkable command—to the tune of 2.12 walks per nine innings—makes the skill set play up.

8. Tommy Hanson

Hanson has run head first into nagging shoulder soreness and bad home-run luck this season, but he remains one of the game's most promising young pitchers.

He is not excellent in any one area, but rather, he brings an extraordinarily balanced repertoire to the mound. He has cranked up the juice and started missing bats the way scouts predicted he would this year, piling up 142 strikeouts despite being limited—so far—to 130 innings.

7. Gio Gonzalez

It's going to be a long 10 years for great left-handed hitters, because great left-handed pitchers are popping up seemingly every day.

Gonzalez figured out his control problems enough last season to post some good numbers, but he has been even better in 2011. He's striking out nearly a batter per inning for the year to this point.

6. Matt Cain

Is this guy overlooked or what? If one surveyed 10 baseball fans, nine would (incorrectly) tell you Tim Lincecum is younger than his co-ace, Cain.

Overlooked because people get too tangled up in foolishly primitive numbers (he's 67-71 in his career) or slightly overwrought better ones (4.24 career xFIP), Cain has quietly posted five straight seasons (it will be six at the end of 2011) with at least 3.5 FanGraphs WAR.

His command improves seemingly every time he toes the rubber.

5. Yovani Gallardo

Plenty of people saw Gallardo's true 2011 breakout coming, but he also had his share of detractors. Could he hold up for a full season and top 200 innings? Could he harness his command a bit?

He has. Walking fully a batter per nine innings fewer than he did in 2010, Gallardo has also gotten better at keeping the ball down and is fewer than 10 innings shy of his career high in innings as the Brewers enter September.

4. David Price

For some pitchers who ride the express rail to the big leagues, development has to happen even two and three years into the job. Therefore, although Price's seasonal ERA is up about three-quarters of a run relative to last season, this has still been a singularly successful campaign.

His walk rate has fallen by about 30 percent this season, and his strikeouts are up. He continues to display a dominant arsenal of pitches, and he's going to blow by the 208.2 innings he threw in 2010.

3. Stephen Strasburg

The Man of the Hour has the future at his feet. He must stay healthy, but plenty of pitchers in this modern era undergo Tommy John surgery and come back at full strength.

Strasburg is still the guy who fanned 12.18 batters per nine innings in the big leagues before getting hurt last season. In just 68 innings of work, he used that sick repertoire—the high 90s heat, the 90 MPH changeup, the vomit-inducing curve—to rack up 2.6 WAR on FanGraphs. That would put him on pace for Cy Young consideration. In 2012, that's certainly in play.

2. Clayton Kershaw

To marvel at what Strasburg is capable of is well and good, but Kershaw (just four months Strasburg's senior) already is going on his third full season of dominance at the big-league level.

That he no longer walks batters unless they really work for it (2.27 walks per nine frames, down fully 1.50 from last year) is cruelly unfair to hitters, whose best chance against the game's nastiest left-handed fastball-slider combo was to hope both pitches missed the strike zone.

Kershaw deserves very real NL Cy Young consideration.

1. Felix Hernandez

Hernandez, like Price, has seen some ERA regression this season, but don't be fooled: 90 percent of the problem (if one can call a 3.37 ERA a problem) traces to batted-ball luck. King Felix had allowed batting averages of .278 and .263 on balls in play in 2009 and 2010, respectively, but that fickle number has leaped to .300 in 2011.

He'll still approach 250 innings, is striking out and walking batters at essentially the same rates and keeps the ball on the ground. He's just human is all.