A Hidden Gem in the Free Agent Reliever Market
By: Mlb Splits
Tags: Baseball Analytics, R, Baseball

In an era where flame-throwing arms are highly valued, it’s easy to forget or overlook some of the other arms who don’t blow past hitters with high velocity. Sure, the high-velo pitchers are fun to watch and create excitement around the sport, but what about some of the other pitch-to-contact type of pitchers who get their job done just as well?

I want to look at a pitcher whose average fastball velocity is even below 90 MPH. After a strong 2020 campaign, I’m here to tell you why teams should explore the idea of signing Tyler Clippard.

Clippard will be entering his age 36 season in 2021. While velocity is not his strong suit, he has mastered the ability to pitch-to-contact. Sure, I know there are plenty of pitchers like this, but he’s not the standard high GB% low(ish) K% pitcher like Blake Treinen, for example. Clippard ranked 10th in baseball in fly ball percentage at 50.8%. Giving up just 2 HR on the season, he ranked 9th in HR/FB at 3.2%.

Clippard relies on his off-speed stuff, throwing his changeup 34.6% of the time. His next pitch in usage percentage is hit split-finger (20.4%), also off-speed. His off-speed arsenal produced a .279 xwOBA, higher than his xwOBA of .257 on the season.

His fastball, thrown at an average velocity of 89.5 MPH was his most effective pitch. How? Let’s look at his FB placement courtesy of Baseball Savant.

Tyler Clippard 2020 4SFB Heat Map (Baseball Savant)

Placement becomes that much more important when velocity is low, and Clippard does just that. We’re witnessing the revolution of the high fastball, and Clippard is a fine example of this. He was able to generate a 45.5% whiff percentage on his sub 90 MPH fastball with a 27.6% put away percentage while throwing this pitch just 18.3% of the time. It was his most effective pitch as far as xwOBA goes at .128.

Clippard ranked T-9 in reliever fWAR this season at 0.8 and 15th in FIP at 2.28. Among the top-15 in FIP, Clippard was the only one with a K/9 less than 10.

Let’s take a look back at placement. Clippard walked just 4 batters this season in his 26 innings pitched. This was a great deal of his success on the mound this season. It was his lowest career BB% by 2.1 percentage points. Let’s take a look at how that rate stacked up against the other top 50 relievers by FIP.

Clippard is among the league’s best when it comes to limiting free passes.

Over the past two seasons with the Twins and Indians, Clippard has ranked in the top 8% in wOBA. He ranked in the top 8% for xwOBA in ’19 and in the top 12% in ’20. His BB rate has been consistently dropping since 2017, where it was as high as 11.7%. His decrease in BB rate is certainly paying off, and his low xwOBA is a great reflection of that.

Red dot represents Clippard.

His BB rate in 2017 was as high as 11.7%, but he has brought that down to 4.1% in 2020. While his K% has been steady around 26%-30%, his K-BB% has trended upward due to his declining BB rate. Clippard did rank 43rd among relievers in K-BB% in 2020, but had the 2nd lowest K% on the list only behind Archie Bradley. Here’s how Clippard has trended in these categories over the last four seasons.

With age comes a decrease in velocity, but this has not and should not affect Clippard nearly as much since velo is obviously not what he relies on. His high fly ball rate may scare some teams away with hitter-friendly parks, but all the more reason why the Twins should try and keep him.

Jon Becker creates a very useful free agent tracker and rankings system where you get a good look at the free agents, who’s interested in them

(if not already signed), with an AAV projection. It’s looking like Tyler Clippard will bring in around $1 million AAV on a short-term deal, likely one year in length due to his age.

Clippard is going to succeed more in a pitcher friendly park, obviously. There is greater risk for fly ball pitchers in hitter friendly parks such as Yankee Stadium, where a routine fly ball in a majority of parks could sneak into the stands. If Clippard pitched all his games in Yankee Stadium this season, he would have given up 4 more home runs than he did.

I’d say there’s a good chance he could end up in the NL East this season, with PIT, MIA and ATL all having relatively pitcher friendly parks. Perhaps he could go to the NL West where SF, ARI, and SD have pitcher friendly parks. Park factors are incredibly important for many different pitchers, but especially fly ball reliant ones.

Assuming Clippard gets paid around $1 million, he’s a great talent whose projected AAV gives a false depiction of what he can bring to the table. It would be smart for the Twins to retain as much of that bullpen as possible considering their great success in 2020. Bringing back Clippard could be a step in the right direction for Minnesota after losing Trevor May to the Mets.