Anyone been to Allegheny Power Park (I think) in Charleston WV? Looks nice from the freeway but have never stopped.

There was a prospect some years ago who kyleb said had the best stuff he had ever seen but couldn't throw a strike. Some long goofy last name... I think he played in a few different minor league systems. Anyone know who I'm talking about?

Found him:

Jason Neighborgall

nice story, but nothing can live up to Steve Dalkowski

Had a great prospect with very good stuff who lost his control when we had him. Started off one game throwing 24 balls on 25 pitches including 19 in a row or something. And that was his last outing of his career I believe.


Edit - check that. Looks like he had a brief failed comeback effort a couple years later. Early round pick who was I think the 2nd or 3rd rated prospect in the Dodgers system after a very good 1996 season. But when I saw him in 1997 he was comically bad.

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/profile.asp?P=David-Spykstra

Easy to forget Mark Prior is still in baseball...he has pitched 28 innings over the past three seasons, with 15 hits allowed, 11 walks and 48 strikeouts.

ty, great find

From his wiki:
There is no way the bolded is possible true, right? That's like 12-17 mph faster than the fastest pitch ever recorded (and honestly I really doubt the accuracy of the recording system used for it).

Seriously, the Steve Dalkowski story is just so amazing. Do the "real" story on this guy in film. Not the Nuke Laloosh Bull Durham "loosely related" nonsense. The fiction is actually less ridiculous than the reality in this case:



The anecdotal evidence on Dalkowski is that he was easily a harder thrower than Nolan Ryan (from Earl Weaver who had seen both...but others also as well). And Ted Williams said he had never seen anything like it...except for one pitch which he didn't see at all. Williams said he never wanted to face him again.

I suspect that 110 at his peak is actually possible for Dalkowski. He had this freaky body and could whip his arm across like few others. He kept banging his left elbow on his right knee on his follow-through to the extent that he had to wear a knee-pad.


And beyond all the control silliness, I love the whole "283 pitches in a single game" ridiculousness. Haha. What on earth?

Some kid hitting 300 in Bluefield... probably a bust.

Hadn't heard of Dalkowski. It says he won bets by throwing a baseball through a wooden outfield fence from 15 feet away and also from throwing a ball over a wall 440 feet away. Jesus. Isn't it feasible to narrow down to a range of a few mph how hard you must throw to throw it 440 feet? Based on a reasonable range of trajectories?

No chance. My age will prevent me from ever being on a top prospects list if I make the MiLB.

Bah. Look where Jose Reyes was at that age.

Yeah, I thought that too. On the very best trajectory what would the minimum velocity to accomplish this be given normal weather conditions etc.

There is the off-chance that someone concocted that anecdote after determining how far a ball thrown 110 mph (or some arbitrary high number) could possibly travel. It's a suspect story obviously but I would be interested to know. I think someone posted that link itt that could answer it but I gotta run for the next 4 hours.

Great thread idea. Grearr's list is strong, although I think that a lot of people (me included) would put Taijuan Walker ahead of Bauer and Castellanos. If you are ranking for fantasy baseball purposes, you also would have to consider Billy Hamilton. He projects to be the first real threat in the last two decades to tally 100 SBs in a single year. He may be quite a bit faster than any current major leaguer.

Also, Fangraphs sucks for ranking prospects. Kevin Goldstein at BP is boss of bosses when it comes to prospects.