Tyler Clippard: Arbitration

Tyler Clippard has a 6.1 WAR in 5 seasons. More importantly, he has a 6.4 WAR in 4 seasons in Washington, a 1.6 average. 2011 was Clippard's best campaign, racking up a career high 3.4 WAR. The best part? He made $443,000 in 2011 (a great 130 WASP). Clippard was originally traded by the Yankees to Washington for Jonathan Albaladejo, who had a -.1 WAR as a Yankee and didn't play in 2011. The Nationals payroll is $57,892,929. So they can afford 1.3 million for every 1 WAR (if they want to make the playoffs). So Clippard's 2011 season was worth 4.42 million to the Nationals. His career average is worth 2.08 million to the Nationals. His career PE is a nice -4, while his career adjusted PE (replace ERA with FIP) is still very good at -2.94. In 2011, his PE was an amazing -6.35, while his adjusted PE was -5.01, still very good. His career TR is 10.07, while in 2011 it was fantastic at 12.67. However, there are some metrics that could worry you. He is an extreme flyball pitcher giving up over twice as many flyballs as grounders, which leads to more home runs, as he has given up 1.18 HR/9IP in his career. His FIP in both 2011 and his career, is extremely higher than his ERA, and his BABIP is extremely low (.242 for his career, and .197 in 2011). Now with a pretty large sample size, this may be just who Clippard is and he can get away with it, or he could be due for a disastrous season. His strikeout totals (10 per 9 innings) would certainly suggest that this is just how Clippard is, but it can't be attractive that a late inning reliever has a weakness for the long flyball. However, he is still certainly worth 2 million to the Nationals, and since it is nearly impossible to fathom that he will receive that much in arbitration, the Nationals have no reason not to keep him around.