Not disagreeing at all with your thought, I agree. But one of my favorite "crazy things" TORP was Kerry Wood.
1997: 131BB/152IP
7.8BB/9.
One year later, ace of the big-league staff and totally a TORP guy.
I loved Kerry Wood as a rookie. As exciting a player as the Cubs had then, who simply reeked with potential, while still already performing very well. My my dad to see him pitch a game in August when the Cubs won and Sosa also hit a HR. Great day.
But Wood was NOT a TORP guy in 1998. True enough that he was so much better than the rest of the dreck pitching for the Cubs that year (Traschel was next best, with an ERA+ below the league average) that we tended to think of him as an ace, but he wasn't.
First he was a rookie, next he only threw 166 innings and was shut down for a month, and then there is the fact that his ERA+ of 129 didn't even put him in the top ten in the NL that season. The Brave had a TEAM ERA better than Wood's. Maddux, Leiter, Glavine, Brown, and Smoltz certainly were aces that year, with ERA+ figures ranging from 187 for Maddux down to 144 for Smoltz, but Wood was not durable enough, had not yet established a performance track record, and then simply did not perform enough better than the league average to qualify as an ace, unless you set the bar fairly low. Being an exciting pitcher does not make someone an ace.
Ks are the thing for prospects, if you want one thing. Yeah, there are exceptions here and there.
Maddux never struck out more than 6.5 an inning in any minor league season when he pitched as many as 30 innings in the minors.