I looked at a late round sign in Tim Melville, today a quick look at Pirates 2nd rounder Tanner Scheppers who failed to come to terms.  Long story short, he was rated as a surefire Top-10 pick up with Aaron Crow as the the #1 college righty, but before the draft he had some significant shoulder problems.  First it was diagnosed as a stress fracture, which would be completely ridiculous without some sort of trauma, but it turned out to be some rotator cuff and labrum problems after visiting with some of the best in the biz of sports medicine. 

As someone new to pitching (according to the MiLB draft report---and he threw 15 innings freshman year) throwing 91-95 is going to put a lot of stress in new places it's not terribly surprising there's some hurting going on, but lets see if there's some mechanical background as well after the break.

From an shoulder injury perspective there isn't a whole lot that I can see that's wrong with the back of his arm action.  Low elbow, up at footplant, front side looks fine, honestly he looks nearly identical to Carlos Zambrano.  The one problem I see is in the active breaking of the arm on the follow through, just focus on what happens after release.  That's a ~94 mph of arm speed coming to a stop fairly quickly.  Technically Zambrano even does a similar thing, but he's also one of the biggest human beings I've ever seen at 6'5 255+ and finishes off his shoulder rotation much more---even then he's also been losing fastball velo for 4 years running so who knows.  (For any of you who want to watch the full draft video, here's your link)

From the reverse angle:

To quote the Disabled List Informer:

The decelerator muscles at this phase are actually in the posterior aspect of the shoulder, i.e. the rotator cuff - particularly the Infraspinatus, Teres Minor, and Supraspinatus - as well as the Triceps (preventing the elbow from flexing), Lower Trapezius/Rhomboids (decelerating the Scapula), the Latissimus Dorsi, which decelerates the trunk as well as the assists in preventing the upper arm from crossing the body), and the Supinator and Wrist Extensors, which decelerate the forearm from continuing into forearm pronation and wrist flexion.

Normally I'm in favor of signing basically every draft pick, especially for a team like the Pirates, but when a new-to-pitching guy has rotator/labrum problems with a flaw that matches the symptoms AND he isn't 100% healthy, it's hard to justify spending the dollars to get it done.  Had he come back this summer throwing at full velocity (I'm operating under the assumption that "he's not throwing his bullpen [sessions] at 100 percent velocity" means he's not remotely at 100% velocity) it'd be a different story, in this case velo=health.  Can't really blame the Pirates here, shoulder injuries are death to pitchers. 

As for Scheppers, if he is healthy I hope he makes a couple of changes---dude just let your arm go, don't stop it---comes back fine and gets the money he would've gotten had this cropped up 3 months later.  Tough gig to go from likely getting 3+ million to what happened.

(Note: tomorrow....or maybe the next day the way I procrastinate....I'll have a tidbit on super draft prospect for '09 Stephen Strasburg)