community projection: matt clement

Clement's shoulder may be healthy, but he is going to have control issues and I'm worried his sinker won't sink and his slider won't bite like it used to.

Control will be a problem.  His K-rate won't be what it used to...but not too bad.

I am not as pessimistic as these numbers sound.  I think he will get off to a shaky start, find himself for a while, and then kind of fall apart as the shoulder fatigues.  Kind of like my golf game.

clement?  nothing sexy about his numbers.  here's my uneducated guess (and that's exactly what it is!)....

23,138,135,58,129,18,8,8,4.20

7,35,52,18,18,9,1,5,7.02

26,152,213,83,143,18,12,9, 4,12

GO CARDS!!!

As you can guess I am betting he is as healthy as everybody says he is...

30,173,150,60,20,12,8,4.10

18,100,115,25,75,14,4,8,5.41

End of threadjack

games started
innings
hits
walks
strikeouts
homers
wins
losses
ERA

10,63,95,28,48,10,3,5,5.36

20,106,121,44,55,10,5,10,5.05

He definitely won't get 30 starts this season pitching on the back-end of the rotation and his ERA is probably going to regress to league average from his 3 year average from 2002-2004.  Same with strikeouts, althougth I'm optimisitic that his walk rate might go down as he has to rely on location and finesse a bit more to get hitters out.  Why only 10-8?  Because he's literally the unluckiest pitcher in the big leagues.  He should have at least three 15 win seasons under his belt and probably should have won 20 games in 2004 if it wasn't for atrocious run support.  Baseball-Reference has him most closely related to Todd Stottlemyre at this point in his career; if he can be as successful as Stottlemyre was at age 33 & 34 we probably have ourselves a steal.

I think we're going to see some of the same tendencies from Clement this season that we saw from Kip this year, though not quite as pronounced.  Good stuff at times, poor control, and times when he's pitching well and then loses it in a hurry, due to the shoulder.  

Slightly above M.O.R.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2008/01/pirates-interes.html

Maybe they will take like 3 4th outfielders off our hands with 2 or 3 swingmen pitchers.

i think Matt will either be himself (and pitch well), or not pitch at all. i can't see him performing as a '06 Wells/Reyes. i've gone with the optimistic variant.but of course he should have some comeback struggles in the first couple of weeks (april through may).

On a side note, I'll be in Ft Myers for Easter and noticed I'll be able to take in the Cards v Twins on Mar 24th.  Chance to see Colby finishing off a strong spring.  And I can be first in line for an Aaron Miles autograph!!

For now, that is what I am thinking.  I hope I'm off in the wrong direction on some of those.  I REALLY hope I'm NOT off in the right direction.

stlfan

20,130,125,45,100,15,8,6,4.35

He's a first-half surprise: throws a couple of absolute gems and has a nice 6-1 stretch in June/early July.  But also throws a few 3-inning Ponsonesque stinkers, misses a couple of starts with soreness and is finally shut down Aug. 15 for more surgery.

Not going to go deep, but will make it thru the season with a few games skipped for rest. Velocity will only improve slightly.

BUT....Will whip up on the Bear Whelps, the Houston Minute Maids and will lose mainly because of bad luck run support.

OOPS sorry, had my computer do the projections for me and forgot it only speaks in binary.
Wait, did I see a 2 in there? Oh no I think I've got a virus.