The White Sox went for pitching-big.
Delighted and maybe a little surprised he was still available, the Sox chose Baylor University right-hander Scott Ruffcorn with the 25th pick in the first round of Monday`s free-agent amateur draft.
”He`s 6-foot-4 and 210,” said scouting director Duane Shaffer. ”He`s a horse.”
But is he a pitcher? No doubt about it, said Larry Monroe, vice president of scouting and minor-league operations.
”He`s a very aggressive, confident, poised young man,” Monroe said.
”He has all the intangibles, and he throws the ball over the plate with good stuff.”
Ruffcorn, 21, was 7-1 with a 2.37 earned-run average this season at Baylor. Projected before the year as a likely first-round choice, he missed about six weeks with a microscopic tear in his pitching elbow before coming back to pitch three innings in the NCAA regionals.
In 64 2/3 innings, he walked 26 and struck out 47.
”I really didn`t know if I was going to be able to go first round or not,” Ruffcorn said from his home in Austin, Texas. ”Then when I got called and they said I was their first-round pick, there was a great feeling of relief to know they had faith in me to be a first-rounder.”
On the elbow problem: ”It (the tear) was so small that it was treated the same as a strain. Right now, I think I`m fine.”
The Sox expect to sign him within a couple of days, send him to their mini-camp later this month, then start him out in Class A, probably Utica of the half-season New York-Penn League.
Could he come up as quickly as Alex Fernandez?
”I would love to do what Alex Fernandez did,” Ruffcorn said, ”but I don`t know if I`ll be able to.”
”We`re not projecting him to do that,” Shaffer said. ”It`s possible, but I doubt it.”
They`re projecting him to be ready in two or three years.
”He`s got the ability to pitch in the big leagues,” said Sox pitcher Ken Patterson, another Baylor product, who has seen him throw and likes what he`s seen. ”He`s got a real strong arm, and he`s tough mentally.
”I don`t think he`s a guy you`ll see at the end of the year, but in two or three years, you`ll see him.”
Ruffcorn, whose fastball is in the 89-90 mile-an-hour range, knows he needs work.
”I need to learn how to throw my breaking stuff for strikes to be more effective,” he said.
He`ll get the time.
”We`ll move him along at his own pace,` Monroe said. ”That`s what we do with all the kids. When they get to a certain level, when they have some success, when they dominate that level, we move them to the next one.
”And that`s what we plan on doing with Scott.”
It certainly was uncertainty about the elbow that made so many clubs pass on him.
Said Shaffer: ”I`m glad it did.”
