Raptor_Guy wrote:Schadenfreude wrote:
As for Castro surviving 100 pitch outings, I guess perhaps we'll never know. There's some irony in writing him off based on body type while we're now penciling in Stroman as a top-level starter, given that pitchers with Castro's build have a much longer history of success than those built like Stroman.
It's so true, most teams are any point can gush over how good their rotation will be in a few years when you optimistically assume everything will work out. I remember when people though "Our rotation in a few years will be Romero, Morrow, Drabek, Stewart, Cecil" but it doesn't work that way. Someone gets hurt, someone ends up being terrible, someone gets traded, it's just how it goes.
Or perhaps the saddest example. In 2003, the Cubs got Bartman'd, but their future was still incredibly bright...they had a frontline trio of Mark Prior, Kerry Wood and Carlos Zambrano that was as good as anyone, and they had some fairly well-regarded pitching prospects behind them (Angel Guzman and Andy Sisco were 47th and 53rd on the BA top 100, Sergio Mitre was making waves, a teenage phenom in Justin Jones was lighting up then-affiliate Lansing).
By 2006, Prior's career was effectively over. Wood's injuries resulted in several years in the wilderness, eventually reemerging as a reliever. Mitre never produced, Guzman went bust, Sisco was mediocre-to-bad in 2004 and got taken in the Rule 5 draft, and Justin Jones flamed out. Pitchers, particularly young starting pitchers, will break your heart. Doesn't mean that you shouldn't build with them, but you better not get too attached to any one individual.
