A First Look At Scherzer; Guillen's Unraveling(?); The Angels' Skill Over Luck

• Max Scherzer's Motion and Future:

    I was interested to get my first look at Diamondbacks pitching prospect Max Scherzer last night and came away with some impressions. Keith Law had written that Scherzer should stay in the bullpen rather than become a starter----Law Blog 4/30----for various reasons. (I hadn't read Law's blog until about five minutes ago.) I think that the basic conclusion of Law is correct, but for different reasons. I didn't think that Scherzer's motion was something to be overly concerned about. There's a slight recoil at the conclusion over a stiff front leg (he reminded me of Jason Isringhausen when he came to the big leagues as a starter with the Mets), but it doesn't appear anywhere nearly as stressful as that of Jake Peavy or even Joba Chamberlain. Scherzer does have a more prominent than usual hip turn as he lifts his leg (sort of like Mariano Rivera), which will increase the torque as he delivers; the combination of the flaws might cause problems in the future; but I'm beginning  to think----with the likes of Peavy going strong and other pitchers like the retired Steve Karsay (whose motion was directly out of the handbook) or someone like John Smoltz (another flawless motion and repeated arm injuries)----that the health of a pitcher is a combination of genetics and luck.
     Scherzer's stuff at this point probably translates better to the bullpen. While I was watching, his fastball fluctuated between 92 and 96; his changeup was very good and he was getting it over the plate; but his slider was coming in at about ten miles slower than the fastball (making me think it's more of a slurve) and he was having trouble throwing it for strikes; in fact, it looked more like a "show-me" pitch to let the hitters know he had it than something to get them out. As a reliever, he'll be able to get away with being a fastball-changeup guy, but as a starter, a two pitch pitcher is going to have problems. This was the first time I saw him, so maybe his breaking stuff is better than it looked last night, but with his fastball and changeup, he could be a shutdown reliever a la Chamberlain in the late innings. He threw some fastballs on the corners and at the knees that were literally unhittable. The Diamondbacks aren't currently in a position where they're going to need to force feed Scherzer a spot in the starting rotation, so the bullpen would be a better place for him to learn in the big leagues and create a dominant bullpen. In the foreseeable future (2008), he's probably better off in the bullpen.

• Blue Jays 1-White Sox 0:

    The Blue Jays still can't score, but are winning because they're getting great pitching and (in case anyone hadn't noticed) are using a genuine closer by committee system with four different pitchers having recorded saves so far this year. Whether they're doing this to slowly work the recovering B.J. Ryan back into the role, because Jeremy Accardo has had a couple of bad games, or because it's a strategic decision will be revealed in the coming months. The difference between the Blue Jays using the strategy over the long term and the Red Sox attempts to use a closer by committee is that the Blue Jays have at least two guys who are genuine closers and the Red Sox didn't have one in 2003. On paper, it's always been a good idea, but has rarely worked in practice especially in the era of "defined roles". I'm interested to see if it works long term.
    The White Sox are spiraling and manager Ozzie Guillen is beginning another meltdown, which is a bad sign in May. In looking beneath Guillen's well-earned image of an uncensored raving lunatic, his comments really weren't out of line. If someone like Jim Leyland had said the things Guillen said (clipped from ESPN.com), no one would bat an eyelash; it would be a manager defending his team. Here are the quotes:    

    "Right now everyone in Chicago is making lineups -- 'Call up this guy, call up that guy.' ... If we had 50 people allowed on the roster, we could do that. That's what ticks me off about Chicago fans and Chicago media: They forget pretty quickly. A couple of days ago we were the [bleeping] best [stuff] in town. Now we're [bleep],"
   
    "We won it a couple years ago, and we're horse[bleep],"
   
    "The Cubs haven't won in [100] years, and they're the [bleeping] best. [Bleep] it, we're good. [Bleep] everybody. We're horse[bleep], and we're going to be horse[bleep] the rest of our lives, no matter how many World Series we win.

"We are the [bleep] of Chicago. We're the Chicago [bleep]. We have the worst owner [Jerry Reinsdorf]. The guy's got seven [bleeping] rings, and he's the [bleeping] horse[bleep] owner."

    "How about the Cubs celebrating that Lee Elia bull[bleep]? How many times do I curse people out? I will make a lot of money with my [stuff]. I have to keep going because in the future Ozzie will need money, and I can say, 'Here, give me money, here's the 10-year anniversary of my time I called [Jay] Mariotti stuff and the time I went on the radio and cursed out Mike North,'"

    Guillen, as psychotic as he sometimes seems, does have a point with this rant. He is held to a different standard and while it's due to his own lunacy, it gets lost in the morass of his other rants and number of <bleeps> that are present within the soliloquy. People don't appreciate the fact that it was the White Sox that brought a baseball championship to Chicago before the beloved Cubs. That being said, it's a terrible sign for the White Sox that they're losing so frequently and at the first sign of trouble Guillen is already starting another meltdown.

• Angels 4-Royals 0:

    It has to be seen as a little bit more than pure luck that the Angels have been able to overcome the injuries to John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar, slot Ervin Santana and Joe Saunders into their rotation and have both pitchers start the season at 6-0. Branch Rickey once said, "Luck is the residue of design" and with no team is that proven in a more effective way than in the organization of the Los Angeles Angels.

    Please check out my book The Prince Of New York's 2008 Baseball Guide also available on Amazon.com and BN.com.