At Least He's Not Carl Pavano

In the 2004 offseason, one of the biggest signings for the Red Sox was Matt Clement. When the hottest free agent pitcher, Carl Pavano, signed with his childhood favorite Yankees for 4 years, 40 million dollars, the Red Sox responded with Matt Clement, the Cubs starter with the electric stuff and uninspired record. This signing was lauded around the league for several reasons. First, although Pavano and Clement shared sub-.500 career records, Clement at least could point to the bandbox of Wrigley Field, some of the worst run support in the Major Leagues, and the anti-Gold Glove defense up the middle in Alex S. Gonzalez/Nomar Garciaparra and Todd Walker. Pavano could make no such claim, pitching in the abyss that is Pro Player Stadium with a stellar infield behind him in Mike Lowell, Alex Gonzalez, and Luis Castillo. If you look at it that way, it looks like the Yankees took the bigger gamble and still managed to spend an extra 13 million dollars (Clement signed for 3 years, 27 million). Clement put up the better season in 2005, going 13-6 with an unremarkable 4.57 ERA, while Pavano went 4-6 with a 4.77 ERA over 17 starts, due to injury. We can all agree that the season was not that spectacular for Clement, but at the All-Star Break he was 6-0 in 11 starts. His stuff was electric and under the tutelage of Jason Varitek he seemed to begin to harness the talent he was reputed to possess. Unfortunately, immediately following the Break he took a Carl Crawford line drive off the forehead and never recovered. He gave up an obscene amount of runs to the White Sox in Game 1 of the ALDS against the ChiSox, and as he left the field in Chicago, his fall from grace was complete.

Now in the Boston media it's being reported that Clement is on the trading block, and the citizens of the Nation are ok with this, having been apparently let down by he, our once highly regarded signing. The question we'll look at here is, "Are the fans justified in believing Clement best serves the club as a piece of trade bait?"

What happened to Clement in the second half of the 2005 season? Did he lose some of his edge after being struck by that line drive? Did it rattle him on the mound? What exactly happened to his pitching? His numbers? Is this a fluke or something he has done each year through his career? Well, boys and girls, we here at The Hot Corner have just discovered an amazing web resource in Fangraphs, and we'll have a look at the charts.





The second graph displayed above illustrates Clement's K/9 rate for the last 4 seasons, and for a pitcher who is known for a slider that absolutely baffles hitter and gives him the capacity to rack up the K's it is unsettling to see his K rate drop so dramatically to a career low. Of course, it's possible that his transition to the AL aided this descent, but his highest K/9 came in the middle of 2005, hinting that he likely had figured out many of the batters he was facing.







As you can see, Clement's WHIP ended up roughly about league average, but towards the second half of the season that WHIP began to rise rather dramatically, ending up just over 1.5 at the very end. In addition, his ground ball/fly ball/line drive ratio began to come together, the ground balls dropping off again at the end of season, about the same time batters began to tattoo the crap out of his pitches. This all seems to come together rather nicely, as even the most casual fan could have noticed Clement's pitches beginning to flatten out over the strike zone.

Although Clement has very visibly demonstrated a knack for being consistently inconsistent, his numbers from last seasons are beginning to point towards mediocrity. One can verily easily venture forth that Clement will continue at times to demonstrate moments of sheer brilliance, dominating the opposition for one start and getting lit up like a Christmas tree the next.

Again, most pitchers who come out of the National League to the younger dance partner show a decline in their numbers. Unfortunately for someone like Clement, this downward trend with the league change is coupled with his inconsistency is likely not a good thing. The Red Sox have improved their defense over this past offseason, replacing Kevin Millar with Kevin Youkilis/J.T. Snow, Tony Graffanino/Mark Bellhorn with Mark Loretta, Edgar Renteria/30 errors with Alex Gonzalez, and Billy Ballgame with Gold-Glover Mike Lowell. These improvements will help with those ground balls Clement is so fond of, but unless he can manage to maintain focus enough to keep the ball away from those bats, it's a good bet he'll be a just an average pitcher for the Sox.

Still, this doesn't, in my mind, justify trading him. Clement is still young, only 31 for this upcoming year, and he can still be a very good 4th starter. With David Wells on the wrong side of 40 and asking for a trade so that he may finish his career on the West Coast, it's not a bad idea to hang onto Clement for one more year, or at least for the first half of the 2006 season, until Jonathan Papelbon can get a little more time under his belt and Jon Lester can come up for his cup of coffee. Maybe by the trading deadline he can be a useful trading chip.

I guess, in the end, all there really is to say is, "At least he's not Carl Pavano."