Matt Clement: The Puzzle That Is
I’m walking today back to my apartment in Boston. Walking reminded me of something that Matt Clement does a great deal of. See where I went? Pretty cool huh? I can just connect rhetoric so poignantly to personal manifests and day-dreams. Yeah, moving on. I dwelled on Matt Clement for a bit and realized that most experts said he was a far different pitcher after the second half. I wondered why. It bothered me to know that he was Jekyll first half, Hyde second half. I wanted to search through his games and figure out a possible reason. Rather than post every single stat here I will put interesting things I’ve found:
-Matt Clement is known to be “effectively wild”. Tek is a great defensive/fielding catcher. In 2005 he had a total of 7 passed balls. He allowed only 65 stolen bases, one of the lower number’s against batters in the American League. His FPCT was .990, one of the higher in his career. Tek by all intensive natures is a very good defensive catcher. Clement cannot blame Varitek for his inability to strike out batters, which conclusively isn’t Clements problem.
-Matt Clement had 146 strikeouts in 32 starts, a respectable strikeout number in a hitters ball-park. He allowed 18 hrs over the season: 6 before the All-Star break and 12 after it. This increase in home-runs could be a definite swing in his second half stats, as he had 7 of the 12 in July alone. In July he posted 10 BB, his second lowest, tied with August and 4 more than June. He was throwing strikes. He was getting guys out.
Another smaller thing that seems to occur with Matt Clement, besides being a strikeout pitcher, is his ground ball inducing skill, found in the GO-AO stat. During the first half of the season, up to the All-Star break his GO-AO was 128-112. In the second half of the season, he went to 95-77. The differences seem small, but the stat can also be broken down to this: he had 1.5 times more ground balls than fly-balls in the first half as opposed to 1.25 times in the second. As we all know fly-balls in Fenway kill either way you hit. Clement throws a cutter, slider, two seamer/sinker and a fastball. His two worst pitches, according to Greg Maddux, was his sinker and cutter. Lefties got more walks off of Clement. Coinky dink? Nope. He throws that cutter to lefties to jam them, and that sinker to induce ground balls. While he did give up less home-runs at home, than on the road, part of his dwindling success in the second half can be attributed to Clements lackluster 3rd and 4th pitch against lefties. He doesn’t have a good arsenal against lefties.
Of course, this is all very intangible. It could be something completely not in the stats. But walks seem to be a pretty big key. He had 2 more total walks the first half of the season than the second half in almost 30.0 less IP. In his last 13 starts, 7 of which at home, he walked 33 batters; 21 of those at home. In the 47ER he gave up, 29 of them were at home. See where this walking at Fenway brings you? He walked left handed batters 27 times in the second half as compared to 6 in right handed batters. His first half was poor with walks in general, with 21 left handers and 14 right handers. But control to left handers, in a hitters ballpark, in the second half kills our boy Matty in 2005. Similarly, in 2004, Clement had 77 total walks in181.0IP; 113.0 IP in Wrigley with 29 of those total walks coming against Left handed batters in Wrigley….well you see it. Walking left handed batters in hitters ballpark. Oh, and it may help you to know this: The kid who hit the ball into his temple, Carl Crawford, is a left handed batter. Coincidence? He loses control, literally, at the end of the season.
This could all be bullshit. I could be full of shit. But for last year, when people say that Matt Clement was afraid to pitch because of the comebacker: you’re half right. He was afraid to pitch to lefties.
It could also be something else….I dunno.