Earlier this week, I spoke with Rich Marrazzi- the rule guy- about how so many major league players don’t even know the rules of the game.  I often write about how the players today have no idea what it is to be a fan.  And then there are all these new stats that are out there that the old school fans don’t understand, let alone these players that never spent a day in stats class.

But I came across this Steve Kornacki piece this morning about young pitcher Max Scherzer of the Detroit Tigers.  While Scherzer uses traditional scouting reports to prepare for an opponents line-up he uses some very new stats to check out where his pitches crossed the plate, and what his numbers mean.  He analyzes his ground balls versus his fly balls and says he knows about 10% of fly balls will be home runs- so he needs to work to keep the ball down.  Mostly, he says he is reminded that a pitcher can’t be successful every pitch in every game.

“It shows me there is an inherent failure in pitching,” he said. “You just have to let go of those and focus on the next batter, the next game. You can’t do anything about bloop hits.

That is big for a young guy to have figured out and will only help him move past failures and be successful on the next pitch.