Along with Adam Rosales, Dan Straily is apparently headed down I-80 to join the A's in Oakland. Perhaps he's been overhyped, or perhaps he's a truly exciting prospect who has quickly blossomed from obscurity to budding starlet.
Certainly the "stuff" is intriguing: Straily is now reputed to be armed with a 93-ish MPH fastball, a slider and changeup reported as anywhere from "very good" to "plus" and good command. There's no questioning that the results have been there: Straily followed up AA dominance by dominating AAA this season, and leads all of baseball in strikeouts this year.
In trying to compare him to current major league starting pitchers, it's not easy to find a comp based on his stuff. At first I thought maybe "Max Scherzer with better control" but in going through all the pitchers I could think of, ironically the one I settled on is an A's pitcher: Jarrod Parker. At this point in their respective careers, it sounds like Parker may have the better changeup, Straily the better breaking pitch, Parker a tick more velocity, Straily a tick more control -- but the repertoires are actually reasonably similar and if Straily is anything like Parker you can see why the A's kept saying "no" as his name came up in trade talks.
Now we'll get a glimpse of what he can do!
