In a previous blog entry, I outlined the Washington Nationals’ terrific heart of the order, and how Orioles’ fans would kill to have a 3-4-5 of Ryan Zimmerman, Adam Dunn and Josh Willingham.
I’ve also outlined the Baltimore Orioles’ penchant to implode fairly spectacularly in the late innings, and now I’m going to tell you why Orioles’ fans would also kill to have a back end of the bullpen consisting of Drew Storen, Tyler Clippard and closer Matt Capps to avoid such implosions.
The biggest part of the Nationals’ bullpen, in my opinion, has not been Capps — it’s been the set-up man, Clippard, who came up through the New York Yankees’ farm system as a starter, but eventually was switched to a bullpen role once he was traded to the Nationals.
I’ve watched a lot of Nationals games this year, and I only recall Clippard blowing up once, and that was on May 11 against the New York Mets. Of the seven runs (all earned) that Clippard’s given up this season, three of them came on that night. All in all, Clippard simply shuts the door on the opposition seemingly every time out on the mound, either preserving the a Nationals’ lead or keeping the score as is. He’s been phenomenal, and I personally believe he’s more deserving of an All-Star Game invitation than Capps at this point.
Clippard is essentially a two-pitch guy (fastball and changeup) who will occasionally mix in a slider and curveball. According to FanGraphs, 51.0% of Clippard’s pitches are fastballs, 28.0% changeups, 13.2% sliders, and 7.9% curveballs. Clippard uses his fastball, which comes in at the 93-91 mile-per-hour range with good movement, to get ahead of most of his hitters, and has used his secondary stuff quite effectively to finish off hitters. Clippard can also blow away hitters with high heat late in a count.
Clippard has been missing bats, striking out 49 batters in 41.0 innings (32 appearances), which equates to 10.76 strikeouts per nine innings. He’s countered that with only 17 walks this season (3.73 walks per nine innings), for a 2.88 strikeout to walk ratio.
The two key aspects for a late-inning reliever, to me, are a) throwing strikes immediately out of the bullpen, and b) keeping the ball in the ballpark. Clippard, as shown above, obviously throws the ball over the plate, and in his 41.0 innings, has only given up two home runs on 24 hits. Clippard is often holding onto tenuous one-run leads — the Nationals tend to play a lot of close games — and his ability to keep the ball in the park has been a key factor in his ability to hand the ball over to Capps with a lead.
Clippard has also been able to keep the score right where it is in a tight ballgame, even if the Nationals don’t have a lead. Being such a highly-used reliever (tied for second in the majors in appearances with 32) on a team that plays a lot of close games, Clippard’s fallen into some odd luck. He’s earned eight wins on the year, three more than any other reliever in the majors.
All told, Clippard has compiled an excellent 1.54 ERA and 2.74 FIP, which is very good for a reliever (relievers tend to have better opportunities to earn a lower FIP than starters do). FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching, an advanced statisitic that I examine here), which measures how well a pitcher actually pitched, regardless of defense and luck by just taking homers, walks and strikeouts into account. The theory at play is that pitchers only can control those three things, whereas everything else is based upon the quality of the defense behind them and just plain old luck.
FIP, which is meant to be a predictor of future performance, is scaled to look like ERA. The theory is that over the course of a 162-game season, the luck involved in pitching will eventually even itself out and an ERA will begin to look more like the way the pitcher has actually pitched — in other words, an ERA will trend towards the pitcher’s FIP.
Common sense also tells us that it’d be difficult for Clippard to maintain a 1.50 ERA. But even if his ERA does begin to resemble his FIP a little, an ERA hovering around 2.50 is still fully acceptable out of the bullpen.
Clippard’s .248 BABIP (batting average on balls in play, homers aren’t taken into account) also suggests he’s in for a bit of regression. BABIP should be around .300 based upon the usual trends of luck on the batted ball. Then again, Clippard’s BABIP has been below .300 ever since he joined the Nationals’ organization in 2008, so maybe the traditional mean for BABIP doesn’t quite apply the same way to Clippard.
Clippard hands the ball to the closer Capps, who the Nationals took a gamble on last offseason after Capps had an ordinary 2009 with the Pittsburgh Pirates, who subsequently non-tendered after 2009. In 24 save opportunities this season, Capps has saved 20 of them. Capps began the year with 16 straight saves, then fell into a bit of a rut, but now seems to breaking out of said rut.
Last year, Capps saved 27 of 32 games for the Pirates, but did it in ugly fashion. He compiled a 5.80 ERA and 4.90 FIP, while only striking out 46 batters in 54.1 innings of work for the season, but still managed to only walk 17 batters. Last year’s strikeouts per nine innings averaged out to 7.62, and the walks per nine to 2.71.
Capps gave up 73 hits in his 54.1 innings, but I’m sure at least some of that had to do with his freakishly high BABIP (.370), which is especially freakish when considering that the Pirates had the sixth-best rated defense by UZR last season. Luck was just not on the side of Capps.
Capps did manage to give up a lot of home runs (10) given his workload. Still, his FIP and BABIP indicate that he did not pitch nearly as poorly in 2009 as his 5.90 ERA indicates.
Onto the 2010 season. Capps became the closer for the Nationals, which was the first time I had really ever seen Capps pitch. I liked what I’ve been seeing all year — I like pitchers that attack hitters early in the count with their best stuff. Capps doesn’t nibble around the plate — he goes right after hitters with his best pitch, the fastball. He can hit the black with his fastball, too.
Sure enough, Capps seems to be attacking hitters with his fastball more this year than last year. According to FanGraphs, 77.6% of Capps’ pitches this season have been fastballs, up from 68.7% last year. This season has also seen 18.4% sliders and 4.0% changeups, whereas as last season saw 25.0% sliders and 6.2% changeups.
Capps is not a finesse pitcher in the least. He’s gone back to his strengths. And unsurprisingly, when Capps was struggling on the Nationals’ recent road trip to San Francisco, San Deigo and Houston, Capps seemed to be fiddling around with his secondary stuff too much.
Overall this season, Capps’ strikeouts are up from last year and his walks are down. In 29.1 innings pitched, Capps has struck out 26 batters and has only walked seven, equating to 7.98 strikeouts per nine innings, and 2.15 walks per nine.
Capps is still giving up a lot of hits (36), but his BABIP is still very high at .361. This should come down over the course of the season — and subsequently, the rate of hits for Capps’ batters — but it’s not guaranteed.
Capps has given up four homers, which puts him on track to hover around last year’s total. All told, Capps has surrendered 11 earned runs (17 total) for a 3.38 ERA, and his FIP is in the same neighborhood, at 3.82.
Interestingly, Capps’ FIP indicates that his ERA should increase slightly in the future, but his high BABIP indicates that the hits that he allows should decrease over time. Of course, BABIP doesn’t take walks and strikeouts into account and home runs are the only batted ball that FIP takes into account, so there are two completely different statistics with two different meanings. But it is interesting to note the difference in how each statistic is predicting the future performance of Capps.
The recent call-up Storen is the new kid on the block. Storen, who was selected 10th overall in the 2009 draft as a compensation pick for not signing first rounder Aaron Crow in 2008, has been hailed as the future closer of the Nationals. He ripped through the minor leagues before reaching Washington.
Storen immediately went to a pressurized late-inning role along with Clippard and Capps. Through college and the minors, Storen’s calling card was his insane control. In 53.2 total innings in the minors, he walked just 11 batters.
Storen’s only pitched 10.1 innings for the Nationals thus far, so it’s obviously difficult to draw any real conclusions about him. But primarily, Storen is a fastball-slider pitcher that will mix in a curveball occasionally. According to FanGraphs, 66.5% of Storen’s pitches were fastballs, 24.1% sliders, and 9.4% curveballs.
Storen has six strikeouts and five walks in his 10.1 innings, equating to 5.23 strikeouts per nine innings and 4.35 walks per nine. He’s given up seven hits (no homers) and three runs (two earned). His ERA is 1.74 and his FIP, 3.70. He has an abnormally low BABIP, at .232. Both his FIP and BABIP suggest regression in effectiveness is coming. But again, it’s hard to analyze such few innings, especially from a rookie.
So Orioles fans, would Clippard, Capps and Storen look good in orange and black?
I think so.
All statistics are courtesy of FanGraphs.