Shocked, shocked

With Stephen Strasburg having now gone down to the sadly predictable (and predicted) arm injury, his 2010 is now in the books. Thus one can make lists like the following, which numbers the top 10 strikeout rates among starters 22 or younger with at least 50 innings pitched. I detect a pattern here, and keep in mind that these are the ones who actually survived long enough to reach and succeed in the majors...

1	Kerry Wood	12.58	1998	21
2	Stephen Strasburg	12.18	2010	21
3	Dwight Gooden	11.39	1984	19
4	Mark Prior	11.34	2002	21
5	Oliver Perez	10.97	2004	22
6	Sam McDowell	10.71	1965	22
7	Mark Prior	10.43	2003	22
8	Scott Kazmir	10.14	2006	22
9	Oliver Perez	10.02	2003	21
10	Rick Ankiel	9.98	2000	20

Comments

[Peter]

Guess who Kerry Wood's manager was in 1998.

[Rhino]

It would have been fun to see Oliver Perez develop in Petco.

[Brian Mangan]

What an incredible observation. What do you draw from it?

1. Strikeout pitchers tend to throw harder, therefore increasing their risk of injury?

2. Young pitchers who experience extreme success tend to be overused? (unlikely)

3. Strikeout pitchers throw more pitches per inning, therefore stressing their arms more than a pitcher who throws more innings but an equal amount of pitches?

4. The freakish torque required to strike out major league hitters at such a young age is just something the human body was never intended for?