Strasburg, Storen to start 2010 season in minors
I can't imagine anyone is terribly shocked by the minor league demotions of first-round picks Stephen Strasburg and Drew Storen.
GM Mike Rizzo is absolutely right: the track record for players jumping almost straight from the amateur ranks to the major leagues is abysmal.
Starting Strasburg off at Double-A is a little surprising though; I thought he'd start at Potomac in high-A.
Storen was sent across the street to the minor league camp for reassignment. He finished last season at Double-A, and could start there, or possibly at Syracuse.
In any case, they'll both be in the big leagues this season, likely more sooner than later.
A sad note to bring up: former Senators' lefty Frank Bertaina passed away this month at the age of 65 - he would've turned 66 next month.
Frank - nicknamed "Toys in the Attic" when he was with Baltimore where he was considered a little flakey - came to the Senators in the May 1967 swap that sent lefty Pete Richert to the Orioles and brought first baseman Mike Epstein and Bertaina to Washington. In all or parts of 3 seasons, Frank went 14-21, 4.28, in 59 games and 45 starts in a Senators' uniform. His big league career - he was done by age 26 - wasn't bad: 19 wins, 29 losses and a solid ERA for the era in which he pitched of 3.84.
In an interesting twist, Frank found his greatest achievement in sports as an angler on the west coast - something that would certainly have endeared him to Ted Williams. Frank was an expert fly fisherman, and was featured in a recent film "Rivers of a Lost Coast." Frank was renowned for being able to throw strikes with his pole, something that had occasionally eluded him as a left-handed pitcher.
You can play against everyone or create your own league - and it's Free!
 |
Categories (click for archive)Phil Wood |
When they got Bertaina and Epstein it was a decent trade.They did give up their best pitcher in Richert.Bertaina,did have 4 shut-outs in 1967.
Didn't Bertaina prefer to pitch in the daytime? What was his record under the sun?
It was the Epstein trade-Frank was in it, but I'll always think of it as the Epstein trade-that started me following baseball for more than the hotdogs and peanuts.
Richert had been my favorite Senator (as a really small tot I was a Harry Bright fan) and the team trading him was the start of my actually reading the sports pages and following the box scores, for some reason.
Epstein was supposed to be the next great slugger; he wasn't. Bertaina just couldn't throw strikes and was unbelievably bad in 1968. He led the league in wild pitches and had an ERA of 4.66 when the league ERA was less than 3.