Ex Blue Jay Update: Marcum sore shoulder, Wallace bust?

[Raptorsrock]

My description about Wallace is a bit harsh, he's doing well this spring. Just going off of the scout's comments

Marcum's need for speed

This is turning out to be a difficult spring for Milwaukee, with catcher Jonathan Lucroy (finger) and righthanded pitchers Zack Greinke (basketball injury; rib), Mark Rogers (shoulder) and now Shaun Marcum (shoulder) all requiring medical attention. The Brewers must hope that the stiffness that knocked Marcum from his start Thursday is not a major issue, but something typical of the traditional mid-March "dead arm" period that pitchers face.

When I spoke with Marcum earlier this spring he told me he used to throw as hard as 94 mph, but lost velocity by relying on his cutter. He said he wanted to at least get back into the low 90s by ramping up his long toss program this spring.

When healthy, Marcum, 29, is one of the most rare pitchers in baseball: a young righthanded starter who is a successful without velocity. Marcum (87.1 mph) had the ninth lowest average fastball velocity last year among qualified starters, according to Fangraphs.com.

In fact, among the list of the 17 starters with an average fastball velocity no better than 89 mph, only two of them were righthanded and younger than 31: Marcum and Doug Fister, who was 6-14 for Seattle.

Marcum put up a 13-8 season for Toronto, posting a 3.64 ERA over 195 1/3 innings -- a stupendous season in the AL East. Over the past two years, only four other AL East pitchers managed an ERA that low while pitching that many innings: David Price, Roy Halladay, CC Sabathia and Jon Lester. And Marcum did it without anything close to the velocity of those star pitchers.

Houston waiting for Wallace to liftoff

Houston first baseman Brett Wallace turns 25 this season, and for a guy who was with four organizations in 12 months when he debuted with the Astros last year, he finally appears to have some security. Now all he has to do is hit the way scouts and each of his organizations expected.

Last week a Houston source said, "Everything tells you he should hit. He was Pac-10 player of the year [at Arizona State] twice -- on the same team as Ike Davis. He was involved in trades for Matt Holliday, Roy Halladay and Roy Oswalt. So come on, there has to be something there, right? The problem for us is, we haven't seen it yet. We just haven't seen it."

That was right before Wallace unloaded four hits, including a grand slam, against Baltimore last week. A career .308 hitter in the minors, Wallace hit .222 with almost no power in 51 games for the Astros last season. But this spring he is hitting at a .350 clip and taking ownership of the first-base job.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/w ... z1GzUXQt64

[Relentless88]

I remember most of us, myself included, questioned the Gose for Wallace deal. Still too early for a conclusion but Wallace didn't do so well last year. We'll see how he does in his first full MLB season.

[tecumseh18]

I remember most of us, myself included, questioned the Gose for Wallace deal. Still too early for a conclusion but Wallace didn't do so well last year. We'll see how he does in his first full MLB season.

Keep in mind, it's impossible to compare Wallace and Gose right now. Let's see see how Wallace compares to EE/Lind going forward.

[rtcaino]

Ya bust is a strong word.

He likely won't reach the ceiling that he was perceived to have when Jays initially acquired him. But there's some real estate between 'reaching ceiling' and 'bust': for instance, pretty good, decent, not bad.

[Parthenon]

Looks like Downs is out as well:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ycn-8088538