Scouting players is about having courage in your convictions, putting your grades on the player, projecting his role and standing by them. However, you can't be so rigid that you are unwilling to change your mind, especially if a player shows improvement or does something different that affects the way he plays.
This premise occurred to me while discussing the Cleveland Indians' Justin Masterson with another scout last week. I freely admit that in the past I saw Masterson as a pitcher who would be most effective as a bullpen arm, given his historical issues against left-handed hitters and lack of a solid third pitch. But after 17 starts this season, Masterson has been getting it done in the Indians' rotation. After many ups and downs over the past year and a half, he has a 2.85 ERA and 1.27 WHIP and ranks among the top 50 starting pitchers on our Player Rater.Masterson has a 6-foot-6 prototypical pitcher's frame that scouts look for, with long, lanky arms and broad shoulders, though his arm action can be a little stiff. One of the reasons he has had success is because he's among the league leaders in ground-ball percentage thanks to his two-seamer, which works as a sinker. That pitch also has helped him keep the ball in the yard; he has allowed just four homers all season. Although there might be a little luck involved in that regard -- his homers-per-fly ball rate is under four percent this season, by far a career low -- it's obviously very helpful to your ERA if you can avoid the long ball.Masterson told me last week that he doesn't think he's doing much different this year compared to last, other than throwing more strikes. "When I control the zone is when things usually go well for me," he said. Although his 6.3 strikeouts per nine innings is a career low, his 2.9 walks per nine is also a career low, and it has resulted in the best strikeout-to-walk ratio he has had in his four-year major league career. I think he's doing a better job of staying back and not rushing his delivery. When he rushes, that long arm of his doesn't get into position like it needs to. We'd like to see more whiffs, but if the tradeoff is a better command of the strike zone, we can deal with that.But what about his struggles versus lefties and his pitch repertoire? That was the crux of the old he-should-be-in-the-bullpen argument. Well, his splits do show consistent improvement against lefties:2009: .323 AVG/.407 OBP/.470 SLG
2010: .290/.370/.433
2011: .306/.351/.417And as Masterson notes, it's all about location. "If you're hitting your spots with your pitches, you're going to be pretty good with whatever you've got," Masterson said. "When I'm facing seven or eight left-handers a game, they're bound to be the ones getting the hits, right? (laughs) Sometimes a lefty may be 3-for-6 off me, but those three hits are [roll-over ground balls] into the hole. So I'm going to keep going, and he's bound to roll over one of those right at a guy."I think it comes back to hitting my spots better. Sometimes the ball just wants to go because I have so much movement. But if I get the ball in when we want it in, away when we want it away, and mix in strikes, it keeps guys off-balance. When things are going well with me, I'm able to mix and match in and out with both lefties and righties."As far as his pitch selection, Masterson has for all intents and purposes scrapped his changeup this season, focusing on his fastball and slider. Generally, right-handed pitchers want to have a changeup or cutter to go to against opposite-side batters, but Masterson is sticking with his best pitches."It's one of those things where within a game if I'm throwing sinkers and sliders and guys aren't really hitting them, there's not really a point in saying, 'Oh, let's just flip out some other pitches for the fun of it.' There's not really a need for it. I think my fastball [velocity] range itself helps keep some guys off-balance."Masterson brings up a good point. One thing he is definitely doing differently is throwing more four-seam fastballs this year to mix in with the two-seamer. If pitching is about disrupting a hitter's timing, Masterson is doing it with a harder four-seam fastball with less movement to play off his sinker rather than using a changeup, and the addition of more four-seamers has made him more consistently effective thus far. So he is changing speeds more this year, just in a different way than expected.Given all that I just mentioned, perhaps I was selling Masterson a bit short. I don't think he stays among the top 50 starters, but he can certainly continue to be an effective option for fantasy owners. If you own him, I still think he can be a tradable commodity if someone will give you "top 50-starter" value in a trade, but let's just say I don't consider him as big a sell-high option as I did earlier this season.Other notes
