Next save could be biggest

Smoltz hoping surgery can keep brilliant career going

Phil Rogers | On Baseball

June 8, 2008

Nothing scares scouting directors and general managers more than the thought of investing huge money in high school pitchers.

While you can measure the velocity of a fastball and evaluate the nastiness of a slider, the staying power of a teenage pitcher is always a guess. Ditto their level of commitment and ability to stand up to the heat that comes from pitching to the world's best hitters.

That's why there were only two high school pitchers taken in the first round of Thursday's amateur draft—half as many as the college relief pitchers who were selected.

As recently as 2002, there were seven high school pitchers taken in the first round. While that group included rising studs Scott Kazmir, Matt Cain, Cole Hamels and Zack Greinke, there have been only 25 high school pitchers selected in the first round in the last six drafts.

The Dodgers (Toccoa, Ga., right-hander Ethan Martin) and Yankees (Orange, Calif., right-hander Gerrit Cole) were the only teams to go that direction this year. Most teams trusted scouts to find diamonds in the rough deeper in the draft.

And why not? John Smoltz, the future Hall of Famer who has pitched better in big games than anyone else in his generation, was a 22nd-round pick in the 1985 draft. The Tigers found him but traded him to Atlanta when he was only 20, getting veteran Doyle Alexander in a deal that helped them outlast Toronto in a great division race.

Smoltz's career, which now hangs in the balance as he faces shoulder surgery, illustrates the limits of scouting.

He never had the best stuff in the big leagues. He rarely had the best stuff on his staff. But he has refused to flinch for 20 seasons, which is why he has 210 regular-season victories and 154 saves.

Pitching alongside Greg Maddux for 10 years and Tom Glavine for 15, Smoltz has gone 15-4 in the postseason. He traded blows with Jack Morris into the eighth inning of Minnesota's 1-0, 10-inning victory in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series.

"I literally gave everything I had every single time I went out there," Smoltz said. "I just relished it. I could not wait for the big moment, the big game. … This has been the time of my life."

Smoltz has had four elbow surgeries, including a major reconstruction that kept him from pitching in 2000. He has been trying to pitch through pain in his shoulder the last couple of years. He began the season as a starter and returned from the disabled list as a reliever hoping he could help another competitive Atlanta team in some fashion.

But his shoulder wouldn't let him function.

"You can tolerate only so much pain," Braves manager Bobby Cox said. "He always pitched with pain. He always has been the best competitor in the world."

The team announced Wednesday that Smoltz is done for the season, if not forever.

"It's a sad day for us in a lot of ways," general manager Frank Wren said. "We don't know the outcome of the surgery."

Smoltz, a golfer strong enough to play regularly with Tiger Woods, is such a competitor that the thought of retirement frightens him. He hopes surgeon James Andrews will give him a chance to pitch again, but no one will know until Andrews actually operates.

"I'm 41," Smoltz said at a news conference. "I still love to compete. I would retire if the desire is gone in five or six months. I'm not there yet. Not there emotionally. Physically would be the one thing to be determined."

His longtime teammates can't imagine life without him.

"Knowing him, I know for a fact this is not going to be it," catcher Brian McCann said. "He's going to get back on the field."

Scouting would be a lot easier if there was a way to know which pitchers have heart, like Smoltz, and which ones don't.

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