Sunday Question
Stephen Strasburg is the hottest card since 2001 when Albert Pujols and Ichiro Suzuki were on everyone’s mind. Strasburg has had a bit of a rough time lately, though.
Last night, he left his start in the fifth inning when he threw a 90 mile per hour changeup to Domonic Brown. He winced, grabbed his arm and the Nationals quickly took him out of the game.
If Strasburg ends up on the disabled list again this season – because he was already there once – he should be shut down for the rest of the year. Topps has invested a lot of money on this pitcher. They have signed him to an exclusive and have probably given him plenty of money to sign all the autographs that he has done.
If Strasburg is injured seriously and is shut down the rest of the year, how is the value of his cards going to change?
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It's got to go down, but the Strasburg prices couldn't stay in the stratosphere forever anyway.
I'm not sure it will kill demand for his cards, but I think there will be plenty of people jumping ship if he's not 100% by spring.
Maybe I'll finally be able to buy a Strasburg card at a reasonable price. 🙂
I think it'll impact the future releases greatly, especially Bowman Draft; but current market will be OK for a while. Mark Prior and Kerry Wood's cards were solid for three or four years … eventhough both ended up hurt all the time.
Investing in prospects is a crapshoot.
I recently read a hobby magazine from 1985 while doing some research and there was an article on that year's rookie cards. The article mentioned Gooden, Eric Davis, Glenn Davis, Alvin Davis, Mark Langston, Shawon Dunston, Oddibe McDowell, et. al…but absolutely nothing was said about the three players that would emerge as the strongest: Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett and scandal-tainted but possibly HOF candidates Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire.
Just like that crop of players, it might be years before we know how somebody is going to turn out.
I predicted a blowout of the "phenom" back when he was first brought up to the Bigs. I have also said many times that by then end of the season, people paying insane money for his cards will be crying. Here we go.
Maybe the injuries are from signing all those cards.
People have been paying insane amounts for his cards, hopefully some of them will now see he is actually human.
The hype machine will keep on chugging along at least through the first few weeks of next season. Even Tim Lincecum was a May call-up in 2007 for a crappy team, and his cards hit stride a year later.
Of course, Timmy didn't have his arm pop springs all over the place in his call up season.
For Strasburg's cards to even maintain where they are now:
– He will need to have two better Cy Young seasons than Lincecum had, winning at least 20 games each season;
– Break some meaningful record, whether it's 21 Ks in a none-inning game, or Ryan's 383 Ks in aeason;
– He'll need to win over 20 games;
– He'll need to somehow retain the limelight from the "Next Big Thing", whether it's Vanilla Bryce or someone else.
Otherwise, I think that The Ghost of Mark Prior may have it in for him…