TL;DR: A Mike Hazen gamble that never quite paid out
- Rating: 3.09
- 2024 stats: 26 G, 32.2 IP, 7.44 ERA, 6.04 FIP, 1.684 WHIP, 57 ERA+, -1.1 bWAR
- Date of birth: October 31, 1989 (35 years old)
- 2024 earnings: $3,000,000 (via Spotrac)
- 2025 status: free agent after declined option and $750,000 buyout
Introduction
As baseball continues to move towards larger and larger roles for relievers and the bullpen, front offices across the league must continually find new ways to cover those innings. In some cases, that includes looking abroad – literally in some cases – for pitchers who might have a unique offering to bring the big leagues. That search style yielded Merrill Kelly for the D-Backs who had been drummed out of American baseball only to discover an entirely new gear and transform into an excellent rotational member. We can thus be forgiving towards Mike Hazen for hoping that he might capture magic in a bottle again with a similar archetype. For Scott McGough, it was yet another step in one of the most circuitous career trajectories I’ve ever seen. Originally drafted in the 5th round by the Dodgers, McGough was a throw-in for a trade with the Marlins that sent Nathan Eovaldi and himself for Randy Choate and Hanley Ramirez at the 2012 Trade Deadline. He toiled in the Miami farm system for another three years before making his debut with an uninspiring cup of coffee during the 2015 season. Afterwards, he would bounce across a handful of clubs including the Orioles and Rockies while never breaking back into the bigs before being released during the 2018 offseason and landing with the Yakult Swallows. Thereupon, McGough adjusted his arsenal and leaned more heavily on his splitter and it paid big dividends as the Pennsylvania native posted a combined 2.94 ERA across four seasons in the Nippon league. That body of work – combined with a relatively cost-effective salary – was enough to convince Hazen to give the veteran another chance during the 2022 offseason.
2024 Overview
In our review of the roster last year, Steven was cautiously optimistic on what McGough could offer the club in 2024 with another offseason of big league coaching and a healthy on-ramp of activities. Indeed, there were reasons for that optimism given the stretches of excellence he had demonstrated that included a two-month span as the club’s undisputed closer before sputtering in the back half of the season. Sadly, those flickers of optimism were quickly extinguished as McGough managed a 6.75 ERA through the first month-plus of the season and was sent back to Reno at the beginning of May. He returned a month later and logged similarly poor results with an 8.18 ERA and 1.636 WHIP that included a pair of opener performances and earned him another option to Reno – this time for nearly six weeks.
The demotions did little to change his season’s trajectory as he would make just four appearances for the team after the end of June including a fateful one in the penultimate game of the season when he gave up a two-run homer that further sank the team’s chances of a comeback in a must-win game. In a cruel twist of fate, McGough did actually make some tangible improvements between 2023 and 2024 – particularly in his home run rate, which plagued the back half of his 2023 campaign. Instead, his walk and strikeout rates went in opposite directions, inflating his pitch count and leading to more baserunners, which in turn led to more runs allowed. Specifically, his four-seam fastball went from being a decent pitch by run value to one of the worst fastballs in the entire major leagues by the same metric. That’s even more impressive considering the actual physics of the pitch (spin, velocity, movement, etc) did not change considerably from year to year. Instead, batters clearly were sitting on it and were so keyed in on it, that they were able to tee off on it to the tune of a .361 BAA.
2025 Outlook
Unsurprisingly, the D-Backs opted to decline their half of a mutual option for the 2025 season, which leaves McGough as a free agent for next year. Given that he just had his 35th birthday (happy belated Scottie!) and holds an unsettlingly high 5.83 ERA in his big league career, it would not shock me if his playing days were officially over. However, there are several clubs that will be looking to fill innings – competitively or not – that will at least give McGough a look for 2025. He clearly still has enough competitive spirit to take the ball every couple days and has shown flashes of the kind of dominance that first piqued the curiosity of Hazen back in 2022. I wish him all the best in whatever his next endeavors are, but I won’t necessarily miss seeing him suit up for the D-Backs.