Trading For A Reliever: Tyler Clippard?

Claps for LA, Tyler

H. Darr Beiser-USA TODAY Sports

So the Dodgers need a reliever. Well, truth be told, they need several relievers to be better in order for them to be competitive in the playoffs next season. And honestly, they will have to be creative to upgrade the bullpen this coming offseason. Brian Wilson, Brandon League hold down two spots right off the bat, and only one of them was remotely useful last season. Combine that with J.P. Howell and Kenley Jansen taking up two spots, and there’s only 3 spots to fill on next year’s bullpen.

In a seemingly unrelated move, Zach Duke was signed to an outrageous 3 year 15 million dollar deal by the White Sox today. Basically the upside of this deal is that Duke isn’t Boone Logan who somehow got a 3 year 16.5 million dollar deal last offseason, establishing an outrageous market for left handed relief.

Add in the fact that many multi-year deals to fringy relievers with massive question marks have been signed fairly recently (Brian Wilson, Brandon League, Logan, Rafael Soriano, Joe Nathan, Jason Motte, etc, etc) and I have a strong suspicion that Paco Rodriguez is given every opportunity to be the second lefty out of the bullpen. Paco’s cheap, he’s pretty good when healthy, and has some level of major league experience.

So the state of the bullpen assuming Paco Rodriguez starts the year in the pen is:

(i’ll use traditional bullpen roles for the sake of simplicity)

Closer- Kenley Jansen

Setup Man- J.P. Howell

Middle Relief- Brandon League

Middle Relief- Brian Wilson (I guess)

LOOGY- Paco Rodriguez

That’s 5 out of 7 spots taken up right off the bat without even considering the likely need for a long man. So take your pick, multi-year deal for David Robertson? Multi-year deal for Luke Gregerson? Multi-year deal for Andrew Miller?

There’s always the option to buy-low on Luke Hochevar or Brandon Morrow hoping they recover their form and become shutdown late inning options. But if they flame out, then you’re left with basically the same mediocre bullpen next season except a full season of Paco Rodriguez, and that’s not exactly the difference between losing in 4 games in the NLDS and making the NLCS.

So, I expect a TON of NRI’s this winter hopefully some collection of Phil Coke, Kyiju Fujikawa, Jesse Crain type players. Players either at the tail end of their careers, or with significant enough injury issues that they can’t be counted on for a 40 man roster spot.

I also expect trades, and the Nationals’ Tyler Clippard is a prime candidate. Lets start with some background on Clippard, he’s served as the Nationals setup man for the past 2 seasons, and has been quite good. For his Nationals career he has proven to be quite durable, having pitched more than 60 innings in every season since 2009. He has some decent peripherals, 10.3 K/9 and 3.5 BB/9 are solid numbers, even if he’s prone to the home run, giving up 1 home run per 9 in his career they don’t stick out because of his fairly average 3.64 fielding independent pitching. However, that might be a bit misleading.

Looking back since 2009, when Clippard became a constant fixture in the Nationals bullpen, Clippard has an amazing track record for suppressing hits, take a look at this chart for relievers, Clippard has the lowest BABIP for a reliever in baseball since 2009, minimum 200 innings pitched. I’m inclined to believe that he has some ability to limit hard contact after 5 years of success in that regard, especially considering that he has a plus fastball, a plus changeup, and just added an above average splitter last season (according to pitch fx).

So all in all, Clippard has a career adjusted ERA- of 72 (2.88 ERA), if you think that Clippard’s split finger has allowed for even more success, he has a 62 ERA- (2.29 ERA) since he added it in the beginning of 2013. You probably know the dangers of using ERA when looking at a reliever and his effectiveness, but when one of the biggest variables in reliever ERA is luck on balls put in play (BABIP), having a reliever who seems to effectively mitigate hard contact would appear to bode well to put up above average ERA figures as a setup man.

But there is still a lingering question, why the heck would the Nationals trade one of the better setup men in all of baseball when they’re trying to win a world series and are almost locks to repeat as NL East champions?

Well salary arbitration is funny, and according to MLBTR’s arbitration projection figures (which are amazingly accurate), Clippard is set to enter his last year of arbitration with the Nationals, and he is projected to make a whopping 9.3 million dollars. That’s Brian Wilson money! That’s slightly more than Brandon League! It’s quite a bit of money for someone who only pitches one inning.

And the thing is, the Nationals have some pressing issues for the 2016 offseason (next offseason). Their starting shortstop Ian Desmond, their #2 starter Jordan Zimmermann, and their #3 starter Doug Fister are all set to become free agents at the same time, along with the aforementioned Clippard. There aren’t really any teams who can afford a 9 million dollar setup man AND attempt to lock up their SS, and 40% of their rotation, much less a smaller market team who doesn’t get gazllions of dollars in television revenue.

The idea to trade for Clippard essentially comes down to a few things.

1. Clippard has excellent specs on the mound. Better than any Dodger since maybe Eric Gagne.

2. The Dodgers could massively overpay for a good reliever/buy low on an undervalued guy, but if said reliever regresses/never gets better or explodes, then they are basically stuck with the same bullpen as last season towards the end except a full season of Paco Rodriguez. One year of Clippard still allows the Dodgers a lot of flexibility for next offseason while having a pretty high floor, knowing he’s not coming off of some horrific injury spell or he just turned bad.

3. The Nationals likely want to lock up Ian Desmond and Doug Fister and Jordan Zimmermann way more than they want to continue to pay Tyler Clippard 9 million dollars which could be allocated to keeping their talent.

I suppose this deal comes down to how much the Nationals like the Dodgers mid tier prospects. The Scott Scheblers, the Darnell Sweeneys, of the prospect world. Or if the Nationals believe in Alexander Guerrero’s ability to play second base at least as well as Asdrubal Cabrera, then maybe something could be arranged in a very fascinating challenge trade that results one year of Guerrero for one year of Clippard.

Smarter people know how to arrange these sort of things obviously, but Clippard might be the best option for the Dodgers on both the trade, or free agent market.