Toronto Blue Jays Sign Tyler Clippard
The Blue Jays have added veteran relief pitcher Tyler Clippard on a minor league deal. Since it's a minor league deal it's hard to take issue with this contract and it adds some much needed depth to the bullpen.
Clippard had his worst season as a major league reliever last year, posting a 4.77 ERA. Walks became an issue for him last year and he handed out 4.62 free passes per 9 innings. He also continued a worrying trend of giving up a lot of home runs and allowed 1.49 hr/9. On the plus side, he had the second highest k/9 mark of his career with 10.74. He still generates a lot of swing and miss and ranked 32nd among pitchers with at least 60 innings with a 14.0% swinging strike rate. Even in his career worst season he allowed just a .203 batting average against.
With a lot of his numbers heading in the wrong direction it's easy to see why he was only able to land a minor league pact this offseason. However, he just turned 33 years old and it isn't unheard of for relief pitchers to have a down season only to recover to past levels of performance.
xwOBA is a stat that uses launch angles and exit velocity to determine quality of contact and combine them with a pitcher's walk and strikeout rates to get an expected wOBA stat. xwOBA was a bigger fan of Clippard last season than actual wOBA and it could point to a return to form for Clippard. Clippard had the 83rd largest negative gap between xwOBA and wOBA among 341 pitchers who threw to at least 200 batters with a -0.026 xwOBA-wOBA. His .282 xwOBA ranked 80th out of 341 pitchers. He wasn't the most unlucky pitcher in baseball, but he certainly didn't have good fortune on quality of contact.
No pitcher had a .282 wOBA last year, but pitchers with a .283 wOBA included Chris Rusin (2.65 ERA), Ryan Buchter (2.89 ERA), Addison Reed (2.84 ERA) and Rich Hill (3.32 ERA). Now, all these pitchers outperformed FIP by quite a bit to have ERAs so low, but even FIP had them in the mid to high 3s (other than Buchter who had a 4.54 FIP). All of these pitchers also had xwOBA's between .254 and .296. Interestingly, Buchter was the one with the xwOBA of .254. Buchter was also the one that had a strikeout, walk and flyball profile that closest resembled Clippard's. Based on quality of contact Clippard may have been more deserving of an ERA around 3.75-4.00, perhaps even lower.
A lot of fans may not get very excited about an ERA barely below 4.00, but in this new high run scoring environment it is easily below average and would be a big boost to the team's bullpen. Clippard isn't going to be the bullpen's saviour, but since he's on a minor league deal he doesn't have to be. If the Blue Jays get even league average run suppression from Clippard this deal can be considered a big success. The average reliever had a 4.15 ERA and a .311 wOBA in 2017 so it's not hard to envision Clippard being an average reliever.
The biggest key to a successful 2018 is likely for him to lower his walk totals closer to his career norms. The home run issues are probably here to stay so it will be important for him to limit the free passes so there are fewer runners on base when he eventually gives up a home run.
This signing is not without risk. Clippard's FIP and xFIP numbers have been poor for the past 3 seasons and despite having a reputation for outperforming FIP, Clippard's luck may be running out. This is a deal where it wouldn't be surprising to see him get lit up early and often and be off the team by mid-May, while it also wouldn't be surprising to see him with a mid-3 ERA at the end of the season after having played a key role in this team's bullpen. For a minor league contract on a team in need of pitching depth it's a deal well worth making.
