In my guest post for MASNSports.com today, I took a look at Tyler Clippard’s underlying statistics to determine why he doesn’t look as sharp this season as last. Granted, he’s only thrown 17 innings so far this season, so all small sample size caveats apply. And comparing anything to his performance last season, which frankly was otherworldly and unrepeatable, is unfair.
But I had to write about something and since he gave up a run in the only inning he worked last night, I figured what the heck? So I suggest you click the link above to get all the details. But due to space constraints I had to keep out a few other points I’d like to append here.
Clippard just hasn’t passed the eye test on most nights, looking much less dominant than his All-Star version last season. I hope no one (especially Mike Rizzo) anticipated Clippard duplicating last year’s numbers, where his 1.83 ERA and 0.838 WHIP put him in very elite company as far as middle relievers go. It was a remarkable season in many ways.
This year, he’s back to his 2010 form for the most part, which is still quite good but not elite the way we looked at him last season, and I wanted to find out why. Or at least, try to. What I found out was a troubling combination. Though Clippard’s velocity and strikeout rates are virtually the same from last year, batters are swinging at fewer pitches in the strike zone but making much more contact when they do, and he’s walking batters at twice his established rate. Again, if you want to see the hard numbers, please read my MASNSports.com article.
Here’s the other weird thing I left out of the article though, because it could mean nothing — or it could mean everything. Fangraphs and PITCHf/x are both reading Clippard’s slider as a cut fastball this season. Click on the link to see it in graph form. Clippard has never thrown a cut fastball in his career. He’s always thrown a slider. Yet Fangraphs has it backwards this year in the data.
Is it a mistake? Or is the break on Clippard’s slider so less pronounced that it’s acting more like a cut fastball than a slider? That could certainly explain why batters are making more contact in the zone: a pitch that used to break more is now flatter. Couple that with the fact that he’s throwing it more this year than last makes it that much more intriguing.
All this prompts the question: Is Clippard broken? He’s throwing his fastball less, throwing the slider more often, not throwing his curveball at all, a computer thinks his slider is a cut fastball and batters are swinging at fewer strikes but making much more contact when they do swing. Oh, and he’s walking batters at twice the rate from last season.
Maybe I just need something to worry about.
