Tanner Scott is peaking at the perfect time

Ely Sussman · July 22, 2024

As if Scott's body of work over the last two seasons was not brilliant enough, the Marlins trade candidate has been nearly perfect in his most recent outings.

No, the Miami Marlins didn't forget. They know that Monday is Tanner Scott's 30th birthday and they have a special gift in store: sending the pending free agent closer to a contending team. It's just difficult to coordinate these transactions to happen on a particular date. Deadlines spur activity and MLB's trade deadline isn't until July 30.

My own gift to Scott is a partial retraction. On June 13, I had the audacity to write that you, dear reader, were overestimating his trade value. "Those of you who were underwhelmed by the (Luis) Arraez deal are about to be underwhelmed again," with part of my rationale being that the left-hander could not be trusted to sustain his All-Star-caliber first half.

Hours after publication, Scott blew a save against the New York Mets, allowing a walk that set up a J.D. Martinez walk-off two-run home run.

Since then, though? He has rebounded with an extended streak of flawless high-leverage relief. Scott is in the midst of 14 ⅔ innings of scoreless work, additionally stranding three inherited baserunners. It's been four weeks since he last allowed a hit.

Scott's fastball is as overpowering as we've ever seen it. During his erratic opening month of the 2024 season, he was averaging only 96.3 mph on the pitch and throwing his slider almost as often. In July, Scott is regularly touching triple digits (averaging 98.0 mph) and locating it well. He has altered his pitch selection accordingly—Scott's 70.1% fastball usage is on pace to be the highest of his career for a single month.

Scott's 28.2% strikeout rate this season is below his career average while his 14.7% walk rate ranks in the second percentile among MLB qualifiers, per Baseball Savant.

However, the only people citing these as legitimate concerns simply have not been paying attention. Scott's aforementioned fastball reliance is limiting his whiffs. It's a conscious trade-off and a justifiable one because that pitch is practically unhittable even when opponents make contact. Only a quarter of balls put into play against his four-seamer have been hit hard with an average exit velocity of 78.1 mph. In between K's, he is inducing a soothing series of routine grounders and lazy fly balls that even Miami's porous defense cannot screw up.

Scott began spring training with a serious control problem and it permeated into the regular season. He allowed one walk per inning through his first 17 appearances. That has been resolved: his walk rate is down to 8.8% over his last 24 outings, which is approximately league average and right in line with where he was throughout the 2023 campaign.

Minimum 100 innings pitched, Tanner Scott has posted Major League Baseball's best ERA over the last two seasons (1.94). His 2.56 FIP ranks second only to Tarik Skubal (2.33). And because he is doing it in crucial game situations, he is leading all pitchers in win probability added by a comically wide margin.

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This sport can lend itself to strange outcomes in small sample sizes, as the Marlins learned the hard way with David Robertson a year ago, but Scott provides the ultimate combination of dominance and durability to teams shopping for bullpen reinforcements.

I stand by what I wrote originally, that MLB front offices are too disciplined to trade their very best prospects for a rental reliever. Even so, Scott has distinguished himself enough from his fellow RPs to bring useful long-term contributors back to Miami in return for his remaining 2024 services.

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