The Next Next Big Thing

Poor Stephen Strasburg hasn't even been drafted, and already there's another kid threatening to steal his spotlight. His name is Bryce Harper. Up until Wednesday, he was known to baseball scouting directors and a small cadre of baseball junkies who attended high school showcase events.

But then he showed up on the cover of Sports Illustrated, accompanied by a story that declared he was baseball's version of LeBron James. Your first instinct is to be skeptical of such high expectations for a 16-year-old, but if you read the story, it's pretty remarkable.

Just about everyone in the baseball industry has known about Harper for at least two years. To a man they describe him as an impact player with the skills, body and attitude-he says he models his game after those of Mickey Mantle and Pete Rose-perfectly suited for the sport. "If Bryce were in the draft this year," says one American League scouting director, "he'd go in the top five picks."

"Wrong," says a National League amateur scouting director. "He'd go higher than that."

Higher than top five?

"Top two," he says. "And that's taking nothing away from the guys in the draft this year. He's honestly that good. He is a once-in-a-generation talent."

Harper is a catcher with a monster arm (he hits 96 mph when he pitches). He's so fast he has scored from second on wild pitches six times this year. Mostly, though, he seems to be a big-time hitter, a pure, power-hitting slugger. He hit a 570-foot homer in a high school game. He participated in a home run derby at Tampa's Tropicana Field in January and hit six homers, including one that traveled more than 500 feet. (He didn't hit any homers in swings with a wooden bat, though, so let's not put him in the Hall of Fame just yet.)

The story gets really interesting because Harper seems ready for pro baseball, but he has two years of high school left. He is being advised by ... take a wild guess ... Scott Boras, and there is speculation that Boras is looking for loopholes to get him signed next year. One possibility is that he could earn his high school diploma with a GED this summer, enroll in a junior college in the fall, and be eligible for the draft in 2010.

The hapless Nationals, by the way, right now look like they are steaming toward a second consecutive No. 1 pick, which means they could end up with Strasburg and Harper, AKA Scott Boras' $100 Million Battery.