Kori

[Jimcs50]

Will you post the ESPN Insider articles on Roger Clemens?

[Kori Ellis]

Clemens putting Cooperstown on hold
By Jerry Crasnick

ESPN Insider

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. -- Roger Clemens passed through Cooperstown for a visit during the All-Star break in 1999, when his son Koby was playing in a youth baseball tournament in town. Koby was 12 years old, and Roger, soon to be 37, was already wowing the baseball establishment with his longevity.

It had been more than two years since Dan Duquette's infamous "twilight of his career" quote -- a comment that has tormented Duquette far more than Clemens -- and the Rocket Man was fresh off back-to-back, 20-win seasons in Toronto.

Clemens had already established his Hall of Fame credentials. The only question was how long he could keep dominating hitters and reach the next level at Cooperstown -- the one that separates players who make it from those with the luminescent glow that turns heads and evokes whispers when they walk into a room.

The answer: He'll keep pitching for as long as he darn well pleases.

Six summers after touring the Hall and checking out the personal items he donated from two 20-strikeout performances, Clemens steadfastly resists becoming a museum piece in his own right. At an age when lots of guys are cultivating beer guts and contemplating regularly scheduled prostate exams, he's still destroying the morale of younger men coast to coast -- and prompting speculation that he'll hang around long enough to one day play alongside Koby, a recent Houston draft pick.

Each productive day at the ball park adds to an illustrious résumé. Clemens ranks ninth in major-league history with 338 wins, and needs six more to pass Tim Keefe and move into eighth place on the all-time list. He's reached the point where the men ahead of him are recognizable only through black-and-white photos. Cy Young. Walter Johnson. Pete Alexander. Christy Mathewson, Pud Galvin. Kid Nichols. Warren Spahn, who won 363 games and died two years ago at 82, is the closest that Clemens has to a contemporary on the list.

The Rocket ranks second all-time in strikeouts with 4,452, trailing only the uncatchable Nolan Ryan, and shows no sign of diminished skills. His .750 winning percentage (78-26) ties him with Pedro Martinez for the best in baseball since 2001.

Today Clemens celebrates his 43rd birthday, and who better to assess his legacy than the men he will ultimately join for an annual July weekend of golf, dinners and wall-to-wall autograph sessions in upstate New York?

ESPN Insider trolled the lobby of the Otesaga Hotel during induction weekend and asked several Hall of Famers for their take on the Rocket at 43. Baseball greats aren't easily impressed as a rule, but they are downright animated when the subject turns to Clemens. Although no one wants to touch the "greatest pitcher ever" debate, several Hall members conceded that Clemens definitely belongs in the conversation.

Just don't compare him with anyone who hurled during the Roosevelt administration. As in Teddy.

"All we're doing is batting hot air when we try to compare the guys we see with the guys we read about," said Don Sutton, a member of the 300-win club. "There's no foundation for the comparison."

But Sutton doesn't hesitate to put Clemens on the list with Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, Bob Gibson and Sandy Koufax as an "A" list Hall of Fame pitcher of more recent vintage.

"There's a ledge of greatness for guys like that, and he's earned the right to be in that group," Sutton said.

At the risk of stating the obvious, Clemens' success is the result of a marriage of talent and uncommon desire. In his book, "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty," Buster Olney writes of Clemens' obsessive preparation and unwillingness to yield an inch on the mound. Biting down on his mouth guard and sporting a two-day growth, Clemens is a classic throwback in the Nolan Ryan mold.

"It's that Texas spirit, I guess," said Gaylord Perry. "You can see it in the pride they have and the way they compete."

Clemens is a different pitcher from the kid who won the first of his seven Cy Young Awards in 1986. Dennis Eckersley spent two weeks as Clemens' teammate in Boston before leaving for the Cubs in May 1984 in a trade for Bill Buckner. But he saw more than enough to understand what makes Clemens tick.

"He's always been aggressive," Eckersley said. "He'll knock you down in a heartbeat, even today. And physically, he's different from some other great pitchers. Jim Palmer had the body type that everybody thought you were supposed to have, right? But Roger showed you need that stocky lower side. Big legs. Maybe that's what got him so far. Big legs and that split finger."

Al Kaline agrees that Clemens' strong, Seaveresque lower half has taken considerable strain off his arm and helped him last more than two decades.

"You could see the tremendous drive he had with his legs," Kaline said. "That's really important, particularly for someone who's going to be pitching for a long time, to have that good, strong leg base."

With each year that passes, another hitter or two with first-hand experience against Clemens makes it to Cooperstown. Two recent inductees, Paul Molitor and Dave Winfield, both hit a career .308 against Clemens. According to Retrosheet's Dave Smith, Winfield had three homers in 65 at-bats and a .538 slugging percentage against the Rocket. Molitor hit only one homer in 107 at-bats against Clemens and had a .411 slugging percentage.

As a hitter who liked to stand close to the plate, Molitor knew he was tempting fate against a pitcher with Clemens' competitive streak.

"More times than not, as the leadoff man, I would see a pitch from Roger that would move my feet in my first at-bat," Molitor said. "But I enjoyed that. I think it was out of respect that he did that, to let me know, 'Hey, the game's on.' "

As Clemens turns 43, he has the luxury of being immune from the same grind that his teammates endure. The Astros, in an effort to lure Clemens from retirement last season, let him carve out a schedule that allows him to miss entire series on the road when he's not pitching. That special treatment -- as well as Clemens' $18 million annual salary -- evokes a sense of wistfulness in former Yankee great Whitey Ford, who never earned more than $78,000 in a season.

But no one would dare accuse Clemens of failing to earn his money or abusing his perks. When he's not with the club, it's usually because he is traveling to watch his four sons play in tournaments. And it's quite common, when Clemens is in Houston and the Astros are away, for team employees to look out their office windows at Minute Maid Park and see the Rocket running sprints or throwing off the bullpen mound early in the morning.

"That goes to show you he has this appetite for success," Eckersley said. "How could you want something so badly after doing as many things as he's done? It's incredible. Beyond all the physical stuff, that in itself sets him apart."

In his early years Clemens was pure power, but he has long since made the transformation from natural talent to pitcher supreme. He added the splitter, learned to sink the ball, and continued to improve his control. Ever the perfectionist, he's been able to stay relevant by constantly adding to his repertoire, honing it and making adjustments.

"First of all, he does have overwhelming ability, but he continues to refine that," Sutton said. "And now everything is not a flat-out effort. He's not snapping the strings of his jock with every pitch. He's learned how to pace and take what the hitter will give him, and then to reach back.

"I love watching him pitch, and I've seen the transition. I pitched against him in '86. It's a less complicated delivery now. He's smoothed it out. He's learned applied effort and applied mechanics rather than squeezing the blood out of the ball and throwing it as hard as you can with maximum effort every time. He's mastered his craft."

Every victory and strikeout merely add to the Hall of Fame portfolio. The game's elite are waiting to welcome Roger Clemens. But judging from the way he's pitching, it might be a while before he joins the club.

Jerry Crasnick covers baseball for ESPN Insider. His book "License To Deal" has been published by Rodale. Click here to order a copy. Jerry can be reached via e-mail.

[Kori Ellis]

Clemens vying for eighth Cy Young

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By Rob Neyer
ESPN Insider

In 1984, his rookie season, Roger Clemens debuted in mid-May and finished with nine wins and a 4.32 ERA (slightly higher than the American League as a whole). In his second season, an elbow injury limited him to 15 starts. But in 1986, Clemens turned in his first great season, easily leading the American League in ERA (2.48) and wins (24) and finishing just seven strikeouts behind AL leader Mark Langston.
Clemens was obviously the best pitcher in the American League from 1986 through 1992 … and then again in 1997 and 1998. He was brilliant in 1994 and 1996, too. So it's not easy to pick Clemens' greatest season; after all, he's won seven Cy Young Awards, and while he didn't deserve all seven of them, there were a couple of times he didn't win but probably should have.

The competition, I think, comes down to two seasons: 1990 and 1997. In 1990, Clemens went 21-6 with a 1.93 ERA (league average: 4.07). In 1997, he went 21-7 with a 2.45 ERA (league average: 4.62). These are the only two seasons in Clemens' career in which his ERA was less than half the league average. His next best season in that regard was 1994, when the players' strike limited him to 24 starts (and his ERA was 56 percent of the league average).

Could Clemens, who turns 43 today, really be putting together the best season of his career? And what does this season, whether or not it's his greatest, tell us about his future? Let's try to answer the first question first, because it's the easier of the two.

Here are some key numbers for 1990 and 1997, along with projections for this season:

Year W-L ERA IP BB/K QS Ratio
1990 21-6 1.93 228 54/209 27 0.47
1997 21-7 2.05 264 68/292 26 0.44
2005 15-6 1.45 224 63/203 30 0.34


Before we go any further, a few words about those last two columns. "QS" is quality starts; a starter is credited with a QS when he pitches at least six innings and allows three or fewer earned runs. Essentially, it's a measure of how often he's given his team a pretty good chance to win. And "Ratio," in this case at least, is the pitcher's ERA divided by the league ERA; obviously, the lower the number the better.

How significant are those (projected) 30 quality starts? Here are the best qualty start percentages since 1960, among pitchers with at least 20 starts in a season:

Pitcher Year GS QS Pct.
Greg Maddux 1994 25 24 96.0
Dwight Gooden 1985 35 33 94.3
Bob Gibson 1968 34 32 94.1
Rick Reuschel 1985 26 24 92.3
Chris Carpenter 2005 22 20 90.9
Roger Clemens 2005 21 19 90.5


From 1960 through July 30, 2005, there were 4,572 pitcher-seasons that included at least 20 starts. Only five of those pitcher-seasons included a QS percentage higher than 90, and two of them have been this season. Of course, that's a bit misleading. There have probably been other pitchers with similarly high QS percentages in early August. If you start 33 games, it takes only four non-quality starts to drop your percentage below 90, which means Clemens and Carpenter can afford only one more. And two months is a long time.

Similarly, Maddux's percentage almost certainly benefits from a strike-shortened season (though he was truly amazing that season; in 23 of his 25 starts, he pitched at least seven innings … and in the other two, he pitched 6.2). Reuschel, too, benefited from a short season (he missed the first seven weeks). So the champs on this list are Gibson in his famous '68 season, and Gooden in '85. In addition to Gibson's 1.12 ERA (the best since 1920), he's also got the distinction of never being relieved for cause; he completed 28 of his 34 starts, and in the other six, was removed in favor of a pinch-hitter. Gooden gave up more than three runs, earned or unearned, just twice all season.

But we were talking about Clemens, weren't we? He's not going to win as many games as he did in his greatest seasons -- in fact, he's won more than 15 games in a dozen different seasons. He's not going to strike out as many hitters -- he's topped 203 K's in a dozen different seasons. And he's certainly not going to pitch as many innings as he has -- in six seasons, Clemens has pitched more than 250 innings, and in both 1990 and 1997, he tossed nine complete games.

And that's the only real knock against Clemens' 2005 campaign: He's not a finisher. He hasn't completed a game this season (he has just one this century), and has pitched more than seven innings only twice (which might help explain his success, though that's fodder for another column).

So where does this season rank among Clemens' greatest? Assuming that he continues to pitch like he has, he'll finish with roughly the same number of innings, walks and strikeouts as in 1990, but with a substantially lower ERA. The comparison with 1997 isn't nearly as favorable, though. That 40-inning difference -- six starts, basically -- and all those strikeouts simply aren't quite balanced by Clemens' sublime ERA and quality start percentage to this point in the season. If he continues as he has, this will rank as one of Clemens' three greatest seasons among many great seasons, and it might rank among the top two. But the greatest? That will always be 1997.

So what does 2005 tell us about Clemens' future? It tells us that all we can do is wait and see. Because there's never been a pitcher remotely like Roger Clemens -- still able to dominate with his fastball, at 43 -- we simply don't know what his limits might be. If he's healthy and wants to pitch, should we assume he can't keep winning until he's 45? Or older? Hardly. Are Pete Alexander and Christy Mathewson, tied for No. 3 on the all-time list with 373 wins apiece, out of reach for the Rocket?

Probably. But I don't think I'd want to bet against him.

Senior writer Rob Neyer writes for Insider two or three times per week during the season. To offer criticism, praise or anything in between, send an e-mail to [email protected].

[Jimcs50]

:elephant


Thankyou missy. :)