The Lineup Card

That's the first question that crawled into my mind after learning how much money Roger Clemens would make and reveling in what a glory hound and attention whore he is (why didn't he just hand out $100 bills to the bleacher creatures while he was at it). It's hard to pinpoint.

He wasn't anything special in his last two seasons in New York (ERA+ of 101 and 112), but he certainly seemed to find another gear in Houston. Despite the discrepancy between the NL Central and the AL East, it's hard to believe there's actually a two-run difference in ERA between the two divisions. Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projected a 3.16 ERA and 118:39 K:BB over 127 2/3 innings with the Astros.

If I had to guess, I'd put Clemens at an ERA in the high 3's. What the Yankees need most, though, is a pitcher who's going to get into the seventh inning routinely and take some pressure off of the bullpen. That could be a concern with Clemens, who, even with all his rest, was limited, often, to a lot of six-inning outings with Houston. Here's some other random thoughts about the Rocket that didn't merit a full entry:

• Anyone who thinks this isn't a big deal for the Yankees is kidding themselves. If Clemens and Hughes return healthy this could be a pretty good rotation, maybe not as good as the Red Sox and Angels, but good enough to make the playoffs.
• Any shred of a legacy Clemens had left in Boston he took a hatchet to Sunday and finished off. Clemens' mother famously said he was "treated worse than Hitler," the first time he returned to Fenway Park as a Yankee, but I think it could actually be worse this time around. Clemens was probably never going to come to Boston, but he let people in New England think he would. Hell hath no furry like a baseball fan scorned.
• The surprise nature of this signing has to hearken back to the Johnny Damon signing, particularly in the way it blindsided the Red Sox. "Sox CEO Larry Lucchino, according to club sources, thought Clemens was still days from making a decision -- Lucchino believed this Thursday was the operative date -- leaving the Sox time to tweak their offer if they chose," wrote Gordon Edes. Much like with the Damon negotiations, Boston never had a chance to make a final offer to Clemens, kudos to Brian Cashman and the Yankees. Still it doesn't seem like the Red Sox would have met the Yankees offer anyway. "Even if the Sox had been given a chance to make a counter offer, club sources said there is no way they would have come close to the Yankees' bid. New York's willingness to lay out that kind of money, in the Sox' view, was a reflection of the desperate straits the Yankees are in, pitching-wise, though the Sox fully anticipated that with or without Clemens, the Yankees would have been tough to beat in the AL East."
• Clemens should make about 20 starts and get roughly $925,000 per start this season, an expensive price for sure, but that's still less than half the price of each of Carl Pavano's starts for the Yankees (rough cost: $2,102,631)
• I know some Yankee fans thought the Daisuke Matsuzaka signing and New York's lack of activity over the winter, meant some sort of sea change, and maybe getting a little of the higher moral ground back from the Red Sox fans. Um, not so much

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this

• #1 Comment from evorgleb1 
  5/7/07 10:47 AM | Permalink

  One of the guys over at <a href="http://highbridnation.highbrid.com/?p=2065">Highbrid Nation</a> wrote a very interesting post about Roger Clemems and and the "real" reason he has come back to play for the Yankees. Good Stuff.