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If you're reading this, there's a 99.8 percent chance that you're a baseball fan. And if you're a baseball fan, there's a 97.3 percent chance that you're pretty excited about this season's crop of rookie pitchers. Francisco Liriano, Justin Verlander, Matt Cain, Cole Hamels, Chad Billingsley, Jon Lester, Anthony Reyes ... and those are just the starters. If young pitchers like these don't get you going, there's either (1) something wrong with you, or (2) you're afflicted with a serious case of reason.

Because, of course, most of these exciting young pitchers won't get much better than they are right now. Take 1993, for instance. I was there. Rookies Rene Arocha, Jason Bere, David Nied, Kevin Rogers, Scott Ruffcorn (especially Scott Ruffcorn) and Allen Watson were all supposed to become stars. Arocha did win 11 games that season ... and he won seven the rest of his career. Bere did win 12 games that season, and he did win 12 games in two other seasons. He also finished his career with a 5.15 ERA. Watson won 51 games in his career but also finished with a 5-plus ERA. Nied, Rogers and Ruffcorn combined, in their careers, for 19 wins and 30 losses.

So I hope you'll excuse me if I do get excited about Justin Verlander and his colleagues but am not ready to anoint any of them as future Cooperstowners. And while it certainly seems like this is the best rookie crop we've seen in some time, we don't have any real basis for comparison, as nobody's been tracking "Excitement Inspired" by previous groups of rookie pitchers.

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