Right-Handed Relief Prospect Battle Royale

I’ve developed something of an obsession with our relief prospects as of late. It’s to the point that I’m going to come out hard and fast against (virtually) any free agent relief signing in the next few seasons. There’s just too many good relievers at the upper levels of the system to continue dumping money on mediocre middle relief for the veteraness.

This isn’t a stats post and it’s meant to be more fun and help to draw comparisons and contrasts between the relievers. If someone wants to argue any of the rankings, there are several I could be persuaded on. The table that follows has 5 different ratings: Poor, Fair, Good, Very Good, Great. You could probably read those as fringe, marginal, average, above-average and plus if you wanted terms that sound more baseballee.

Sleeper: Matt Scherer

How the heck does one post a 5.3 K/BB ratio and not get noticed? That’s exactly what Matt Scherer did for Palm Beach last season. With all the talk about Dennis Dove with his 97 mph “2 Seam Fastball of the Apocalypse” and Submarine Sillman, Matt Scherer went on to complete quite the troika of terror in the Palm Beach bullpen, and he was a year younger then the other two pitchers.

Check out his numbers: 80.1 innings pitched, 71 hits, 106 strikeouts, 20 walks, 9 home runs, 3.25 ERA, 2.76 FIP.

Yep, that’s pretty good. So who is Matt Scherer? Real quick bio stuff: Selected in the 16th round in the infamous 2004 draft out of La Moyne College, Scherer was the Metro Athletic Conference pitcher of the year, going 10-3 with a 2.18 ERA despite not a real high strikeout rate. After two middling seasons at the Rookie and low A level, Scherer found a home in the bullpen at high class A. His K/9 rate doubled while maintaining his already good control.

Scherer possesses an average fastball that’s clocked at 88-91 and a slurve, but his bread and butter pitch is the splitter. He’s especially tough on righties, as they only posted a .228/.260/.360 line against him. He’s a rather extreme fly ball pitcher, and he may struggle with the long ball on occasion. All I got to say is for all the talk of Sillman and Dove, Scherer posted terrific #’s had a better K/BB ratio, yet we haven’t heard much about him. He’s currently in camp with the AAA team, and could stick there as a middle reliever. Remember his name.

A last look at batted balls-Relievers

(EDIT: Chart now added, and embarrassing gramatical errors mostly fixed.)

One last go ’round, this time the relievers. There’s a lot of guys I decided not to bother with, whether it was playing time, the player is now elsewhere as in the cases of Rich Scalamandre and Cory Doyne, or I just plain figured it was a waste of time. I probably could’ve done without Chris Russ, former Yankee farmhand turned journeyman arm for hire, but he had that 60% groundball rate so I figured what the hey. I wasn’t going to figure in any short season guys but I read a chat transcript at Fanhome with John Vuch, Director of Minor League Operations and he picked Luke Gregorson as a potential sleeper. Once I saw that 65% groundball rate coupled with that insanely high K rate I just had to mention him. And now for the usual bullet-pointy thoughts:

• Some of you may remember Kevin Ool was the PTBNL we got from Boston in the Mike Myers trade. He certainly doesn’t miss bats, and he doesn’t have a platoon split you’d expect from a lefty reliever. However, he sure does keep the ball on the ground and he doesn’t walk guys. He virtually has no room for error but he’s worth halfway watching considering his control and his ability to get ground outs.
• Josh Kinney. How can you not root for this guy? From River City Rascal to postseason hero, he showed great poise and a freakish slider that made Met hitters look like fools. Great sinker/slider combo.
• Mike Sillman saved 35 games for Palm Beach this season. He’s a submariner, I’m not sure what to make of him until he pitches in Springfield. Between the tougher park and the tougher competion his true ability should be revealed. After watching 2 dominant performances in ’06 from sidearm/submariners Pat Neshek and Cla Meredith you sort of get excited about a player like Sillman, but he doesn’t have the resume the other two have and was quite old for his level. Still have to like the very high GB% and K per 9.
• Matt Scherer was another Palm Beach reliever who was very dominant at Palm Beach, but too old for his level. I worry about his fly ball tendencies and how that will effect what will happen to him in Springfield. He’s a huge guy at 6’5″, 230 and he struck out 106 while walking only 20 in 80 innings, he’s really thrived after being switched to relief. Scherer has a decent fastball with late life and a good slider that’s very tough on righties. He doesn’t throw from the windup and pitches at a 3/4 angle.
• Cairns was drafted in the 8th round of ’05 out of Central Michigan. He throws from a low 3/4 angle and relies heavily on his sinker, which he throws in the 90-94 mph range. That explains the high GB%. He improved a lot on his control this past season.
• 16% of the balls put in play against Andy Cavazos were infield flies, those are about as good as a strikeout. It can be a repeatable skill to induce weak pop ups for some pitchers, which makes Cavazos that much more of an intriguing bullpen option then he already is.