Fantasy Baseball Spring Training Takeaways: Max Scherzer gets some work in while Koda Glover gains ground

Max Scherzer is pitching, though not yet in a game environment. Meanwhile, Dylan Bundy, Matt Moore and Adam Wainwright all have something new in the works. Scott White looks at the latest spring happenings.

Well, he’s pitching. Maybe not in a way he ever has before, but he’s pitching.

Max Scherzer threw 44 pitches in batting practice Tuesday, taking a break in the middle to simulate game conditions, and it seemed to go well enough.

“See how he feels tomorrow,” pitching coach Mike Maddux told MLB.com. “And have to entertain maybe a game.”  

He has, of course, altered the grip on his fastball to compensate for the stress reaction in his ring finger knuckle that dates back to last August.

“Yeah, it looked the same. I couldn’t tell he was using three fingers,” manager Dusty Baker said. “I was seeing if I could really see it on the ball, but his arm speed is such where you really can’t pick it up.”

That’s all well and good, but when doing something one way has made someone an expert in his field, doing it another way introduces a scary and unpredictable variable.

Even Scherzer acknowledges it’s more of a Band-Aid than a remedy.

“The way I look at it, this is actually giving me a chance to heal and throw,” Scherzer said. “Whatever I do in a game or [when] we get a radar gun, that’ll be a tell-tale sign of where I’m at.” 

It’ll take him dominating in actual game conditions to convince me that the three-finger grip is fully the answer. I had a chance to take him with the 20th overall pick in the Tout Wars mixed draft Tuesday but opted instead for A.J. Pollock, not wanting to invest so much in a player so risky in a league 15 teams deep.

Glover a hurler

Scherzer wasn’t the only one to get people talking in Nationals camp Tuesday. Rookie Koda Glover struck out the side in his one inning of work against the Red Sox, giving him seven strikeouts to just one hit (no walks either) in three innings this spring.

It’s noteworthy because the Nationals don’t seem completely settled on Shawn Kelley as their closer, believing he may not be able to meet the physical demands of the job with two Tommy John surgeries in his past.

Glover, who had a 2.09 ERA, 0.90 WHIP and 10.9 strikeouts per nine innings across two minor-league seasons, may be the team’s long-term answer in the role.

“We liked Koda last year,” manager Dusty Baker told MLB.com. “We liked him when he came up. We liked his demeanor on the mound. He’s all business. He never smiles on the mound out there. He’s coming to make this team. I’m very impressed.”

His 5.03 ERA, 1.12 WHIP and 7.3 strikeouts per innings in his 19 major-league appearances last year may not inspire much confidence, but he pitched with a torn labrum in his hip down the stretch. Over his first 12 appearances, he had a 2.63 ERA, 0.88 WHIP and 8.6 strikeouts per nine innings.

“Every time I was landing, it felt like an ice pick going in my hip,” Glover told The Washington Post this offseason.  

In leagues where saves are scarce, he’s very much in play.

Bundy a cut above

Dylan Bundy’s latest outing Monday at the Tigers was solid by any measure, but what made it solid is what matters the most here.

He’s throwing his cutter again.

The pitch that made him the fourth overall pick in 2011 and that got the baseball world buzzing when he had allowed just one hit through his first five starts at low Class A back in 2012, is once again part of his repertoire.

He had scrapped it when working back from Tommy John surgery, believing it was setting back his recovery, and the Orioles didn’t exactly discourage him. But according to FanGraphs, new pitching coach Roger McDowell is fully on board, with all parties believing it’s what Bundy needs to succeed that third time through the lineup.

It might make those first two times a little easier as well.

With Bundy’s pedigree and history with the pitch, this is the sort of news that could vault him up the rankings with another impressive start or two this spring. Add him to your sleeper list if he wasn’t there already.

Back to the drawing board

You may have noticed the Athletics and Diamondbacks played a 21-13 game Tuesday, but you may not have noticed who took the brunt of that two-sided beatdown.

It’s especially discouraging because both need a good spring to get back in our good graces after crashing and burning in 2016, and both had such encouraging performances last time out.

Gray allowed no runs on one hit with no walks and four strikeouts over two innings his first time out, and looking at his velocity, pitch selection, pitch location and everything else, there is no obvious reason why his ERA ballooned to 5.69 last year.

Spring struggles are to be expected for any pitcher, and Gray does have an excuse for Tuesday’s ...

“I kept throwing [my slider] in the dirt, in the dirt, in the dirt,” he told MLB.com. “I couldn’t really correct it and got behind in some counts.”

... but he doesn’t exactly deserve the benefit of the doubt right now.

Miller was purportedly throwing 99 mph when he struck out six Cubs over three one-hit innings last time out and has touted a new eating regimen that’s supposed to simulate the effects of an anabolic steroid, but clearly the Athletics were unimpressed. The one silver lining is that Archie Bradley, who could technically beat out Miller for the job, was hit just as hard Tuesday, allowing six earned runs over 1 1/3 innings.

Miller doesn’t get as much benefit of the doubt as even Gray because he wasn’t as good prior to 2016. For now, both pitchers’ draft stock remains unchanged.

What’s one more?

On the brighter side Tuesday, two of the more enigmatic pitchers had encouraging outings while each working in a new pitch.

Matt Moore actually started using the cutter over his final eight starts with the Giants last year, at the encouragement of Buster Posey, and put together a 3.77 ERA, 1.26 WHIP and 9.3 strikeouts per nine innings during that stretch.

“Basically, we just went right into games with it,” Moore told MLB.com. “I haven’t been around that long, but it does feel nice to have a pitch that’s something new, to mess around with a different look.” 

It’s a limited sample, of course, but its effectiveness may be what finally allows him to maximize his potential. He’s a decent source of strikeouts in the middle rounds either way and, as a fly-ball pitcher, should benefit from a full year at baseball’s most pitcher-friendly venue.

Adam Wainwright, meanwhile, succeeded with the help of his changeup, a pitch he hasn’t featured extensively in the majors.

“Threw probably more changeups today in three innings than I have in an entire game in the big leagues,” he told MLB.com  

He has tinkered with it in spring trainings past but this time seems committed to using it, recognizing the need for another weapon with his diminished stuff.

“I’m having a lot of fun creating that mix where, hopefully, the hitters don’t know what is coming,” Wainwright told MLB.com. “You have to be willing to adjust to whatever the batter tells me I need to do. I don’t have a 99-mph fastball to go out there and just live on. The hitter always tells me what I need to do, and I just feel like when you stop looking, you stop trying to be better.”

I’m not convinced it’s a miracle solution, but these are the kinds of small changes that can sometimes become a big deal. It’s worth monitoring, if nothing else.

Hwang making a name for himself

Jae-Gyun Hwang lined an opposite-field shot Tuesday at the Dodgers, his second such hit this spring.

It wasn’t a huge display of power, but the 30-year-old did demonstrate some in his days in Korea, homering 26 times each of the last two seasons.

How exactly those numbers translate remains to be seen. We don’t have too many examples beyond Jung Ho Kang and Byung Ho Park, but peripherally, Hwang would seem to have more in common with the former than the latter. He’s also quickly gaining the trust of the Giants.

“He has good instincts,” manager Bruce Bochy told MLB.com. “He has a good feel for the game. When we go over fundamentals, he gets it right away. He’s not a guy we have to spend extra time on. He’s a ballplayer.”  

Hwang just so happens to play the same position as Eduardo Nunez, who many believe performed over his head last year and who may have already come back down to earth with a .244 batting average and .836 OPS in the second half last year. Nunez’s versatility could easily push him into a utility role if Hwang continues to shine.

I’m not saying he’s on the mixed-league radar yet. I’m not sure his upside is any higher than, say, Brandon Drury’s. But Hwang is a name to remember, especially in NL-only leagues. He’ll play a lot this year.