Did anyone else see what I saw last night? Pedro Strop has good enough stuff to be the Rangers' closer one day. In his first major league appearance, the 24 year old went one inning, allowing no hits, and striking out one on 13 pitches. The most impressive thing about his performance was, he battled Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, and Jason Kubel.

When it comes to physical attributes, he has a lot of the same characteristics as Neftali Feliz. His fastballs were topping out between 95-97 miles per hour and he looked to have decent command to his slider.

When Feliz comes to the mound, I drop whatever I'm doing to watch. Every game, I want him to throw, even if he threw two innings the night before. After seeing one performance from Strop, I'm going to take the same approach.

Jon Daniels deserves credit for picking up this kid. Strop was signed by Texas as a free agent on Sept. 25, 2008 after being released by Colorado. He missed most of last season in the Rockies organization with a right elbow fracture. I guess Colorado though he was damaged goods.

The thing that I'm probably most excited about when it comes to this prospect is, he is a converted infielder in just his fourth professional season on the mound. With the tutorage of pitching coach Mike Maddux, this kid could be really special.

Photo By: (AP Photo/Andy King)

Leave a comment

Name:

Email:

URL:  

Remember personal info?

Captcha:

Type the characters you see in the picture above.