A Look at Preston Claiborne

Preston Claiborne has now thrown 97 pitches out of the Yankees bullpen this year since being promoted from AAA, what you might conservatively call a start.

First, lets look at his stuff:

So here is how I break down and classify his pitches, along with the closest comparisons for right-handed relievers in the Pitch F/X era.

63 Fastballs: 94.14 MPH, Jason Frasor

19 Sliders: 84.96 MPH, Derrick Turnbow

15 Changeups: 87.67 MPH, Kyle Farnsworth

Picked out of the 17th round out of Tulane by the Yankees in 2010, Claiborne has never been a rated prospect. He has purely been a bullpen pitcher in his professional career, so that is one reason why, but the fastball is clearly a MLB fastball. To go a little further on the Frasor comparison, Frasor doesn't throw a changeup, and his slider isn't as hard as Claiborne's.

Claiborne's average release point so far is 6.14 vertically, and -.86 horizontally. His closest comparison is probably Greg Holland, who has a dominating 58 FIP - in his career with somewhat reverse splits.

Holland doesn't throw a change and his fastball and slider are both a couple MPH harder than Claiborne's, so obviously Claiborne won't be as dominating. However, the release point does seem to show that Claiborne shouldn't have to be in a specialist role, as he should be able to get out lefties as well (throwing a changeup helps as well). Last year, he had large platoon splits when it came to OPS last year in the minors.

While the sample size is obviously small, we can get some idea of how Claiborne is trying to attack batters by looking at his average locations (pitches are my classifications, as above):

He locates the change arm side and the slider glove side, not surprisingly. His average pitch is located about average for a right-hander, and his fastball is a little high. Clearly, Claiborne is going for the strikeout and whiffs with the fastball, and not the groundball. Strikeouts are needed out of the bullpen obviously, but if a lefty can pull that fastball (it helps that he locates it slightly arm side like most righties), they can put it in the seats in the short porch at Yankee Stadium (it is tougher for righties to pull homers in that park, so going in on them with good fastballs is probably a good thing). This will make Claiborne's change very important. For him not being any kind of real prospect, I like Claiborne, and while he won't be any kind of elite reliever, if he can go one or two innings at a time and have the minimal platoon splits the release point suggests he should have, he can pitch in the big leagues for a long time.

Free Agent Watch: Phillips and Cordero

The Cincinnati Reds have 2 big free agents that they could possibly lose this offseason. Both starting 2nd basemen Brandon Phillips, and closer Francisco Cordero can test the free agent waters. The Reds have all the intent on keeping these two, as they were discussing contracts even before the season is over. First, Brandon Phillips: how much value does he have, and how much is he worth? He has already said that he will not give the Reds a "hometown discount". In 2011, he had his career high in both batting average and on base percentage. He also posted his career high WAR (4.1) and 30 years old. This is usually bad news, because this almost always adds up to a player being overpaid in the next contract. According to last year's numbers and the Halladay Standard, he deserves 12.3 million dollars. However, even though teams do it all the time, it is incredibly stupid to pay a player because of one year's performance. Instead, lets look at the 09-11. In that time, he averaged a 2.9 WAR, this would mean he is worth $8.7 million. If I were the Reds, I wouldn't go over this number (and may even go lower). I don't have a real pulse on how this situation will play out, but it seems that the Reds are really going to make sure he stays a Red. This may mean overpaying him, and could be a disaster. Now, on to Francisco Cordero. Closers are usually way overpaid (and now 7th and 8th inning guys are getting this way as well). Let me use a couple of examples, Mariano Rivera is making $15 million dollars to put up a 3.5 WAR and -3.843 PE (for those who counter that his postseason experience/success makes him invaluable, 27 of the 30 teams cannot afford to massively overpay a player just for the postseason). His own bullpen teammate David Robertson has posted a 3.9 WAR and -9.595 PE, while only making $460,000. Angels' closer Jordan Walden posted a 1.2 WAR while only making $416,000, Rangers' closer Neftali Feliz posted a 1.6 WAR while making just $457,000, and Rays' closer Kyle Farnsworth has a 1.8 WAR while making $3.25 million. This doesn't mention that a closer is not near as valuable as a starting pitcher, Alexi Ogando put up the same exact WAR as Rivera this season. With Cordero, the story isn't any different, as he made 12 million this year, while posting a WAR of 2.4, giving him a WASP way over the Halladay Standard at 5217. His WASP as a Red is 5302. This doesn't even mention that his PE was very unimpressive this year at .049. Unless Cordero is willing to take a huge pay cut, there is no way I would bring him back. However, I would not be surprised at all to see the Reds bring him back anyway.