Marcum ready to return / the Brew Crew and Oswalt?

Something that gave a lot of us a scare was the sore right shoulder of Shaun Marcum. While his soreness wasn’t serious, Marcum has acknowledged that his shoulder felt stiff and did not feel as loose as it should be in Spring Training. The Brewers have announced that Marcum is ready to go back to his bullpen sessions, but has yet to pitch in a game. Ron Roenicke announced his concern over Marcum’s shoulder, however he thinks Marcum should be be good to go by April 9, which is his expected first start of the season. So really, this gets me to thinking, there’s one guy that needs a job and if we were to have some kind of horrid injury, perhaps we should take a look at him. By “him”, I mean Roy Oswalt.

Much like my article, well more just a potential scenario, on Yoenis Cespedes, the Brewers could eventually think about signing a pitcher like a Roy Oswalt. That really would only happen if a serious injury or two took place, but if Marcum’s shoulder remains mum, who knows where that’ll take us. I’m not saying that we need to even sign Oswalt or Javier Vazquez, but it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility. On the condition of Marcum’s shoulder, Ron had this to say,

"“I talked to him this morning, and he thought, timing-wise, he is actually ahead of where he was last year. Last year, it was close. We didn’t know if he was going to be ready at the beginning [of the season] or not. I think he’ll probably be in the same boat this year.”"

Of course, I’m pretty sure Marcum will be A-okay by the time the season rolls around. If not, we can’t rule out signing one of these guys. Even then, if Chris Narveson has trouble, there’s a spot open. I’m sure we’ll more than likely find one of our own guys, like Wily Peralta or Michael Fiers to step up and start. Really, it’s just mere speculation, but injuries are nothing to mess around with, especially this early. Even still, Roenicke has said he may use Marco Estrada to fill in for Marcum, if he misses any time at all.

Looking at Roy Oswalt, the only thing I see against him is his age. At 34, he is still a very aggressive pitcher. Oswalt throws a lot of fastballs, mainly topping off near 94 mph, but even then, that’s still pretty fast for being in your mid 30s. The most interesting pitch that Oswalt has would be that of the ‘Vulcan’ changeup. Much like how Spock salutes his fellow comrades, the salute is the grip that Oswalt puts on the ball. He also throws an overhand curveball and a slider. During his 10 year tenure in the MLB, Oswalt is overall 159-93 with an ERA of 3.21, a WHIP of 1.194 and 1,759 strikeouts. He has also been an All-Star twice and won NLCS MVP in 2005. He’s still a very good pitcher and had contact with several teams in the offseason, however none of the talks went through. Despite not still being with a team, Oswalt himself has announced that he will not sign with a team until at least June.

Like I’ve said before, I like to write speculation articles. It gets me thinking, but certainly it’s an entertaining idea to see “Well, wouldn’t it be cool if we had so and so?” Well sure, but at what cost? I don’t want to lose Marcum to injury and I want us to use our own guys to replace the holes we may have. My own personal philosophy is to build off of what we already have. Our future lies in the younger guys on our team and in our minor leagues. Sure, getting Oswalt would be nice, but realistically, with trying to keep Zack Greinke, I’m not sure how it’d work out. If anything, we’d have him for half a season before letting him go, much like with C.C. Sabathia. The good news in all of this is that Marcum plans to throw his bullpen session either tomorrow or Monday. Hopefully he’ll regain the strength back and go on to pitch a tremendous year. However, with anything, it’s always one step at a time.

On a completely unrelated note, Nyjer Morgan was hit in the head today by a Barry Zito pitch in the game against the San Francisco Giants. Morgan had to exit the game, but he seems fine. He’ll probably have one heck of a headache, but come on, you can’t stop Tony Plush. If this video doesn’t at least make you grin, I believe you have no soul.

Until next time guys and gals.