Life In The Cell

A Closer Look at Clayton Richard

I speculated before that Clayton Richard would start for the Sox. It turns out I was right, but had the date wrong. I thought he would take the rubber for the Sox on Sunday, but as it turns out he’ll be on the mound Wednesday against the lefty-heavy Rangers. So here’s a closer look at him, because to be honest, I didn’t know too much about him entering the year.

He was a bit of an unknown commodity due to the fact that baseball was his second sport. He was the top quarterback coming out of the state of Indiana and signed out to play QB for Lloyd Carr at Michigan. He redshirted his freshman year, but then was passed up by a true freshman, which led him to tryout for baseball. He served as a co-closer where he pitched well enough to be drafted by the Sox in the 8th round. Coming out of college (and according to ClaytonRichard.com) he threw a low-90’s fastball with a “developing curve”, and some scouts say his mechanics need work. That doesn’t sound like the best scouting report, let alone a scouting report posted on your own site (I’m assuming he owns that site) but he was a lefty and the fact that he hadn’t played baseball in about 2 years prior meant that he had some upside. I’m assuming this is what the Sox were banking on, and it seems to have paid off.

I’m going to discuss Richard in two different phases, first pre-2008 Richard and then I’ll discuss how he’s done this year so far, because his performances this year are far more impressive than his earlier performances.

To be honest, Richard wasn’t all that impressive prior to this season, which is probably why he only garnered a C rating from John Sickels in both 2007 and 2008 as well as dropping from the Sox’ 18th best prospect to the Sox’ 19th best prospect. He pitched pretty well in Rookie Ball after getting drafted. He gave up 8.12 H/9 while walking 2.63 per nine and striking out 8.56 batter per nine. Those aren’t outstanding stats, but the K numbers are good while the hit numbers are ok. It resulted in a 1.20 WHIP, which again isn’t good but isn’t bad either. The one thing he excelled at was limiting homers. He gave up .44 homers per nine. Unfortunately there isn’t much anecdotal evidence about him so we have to just roll through the stats and try to figured things out from there. 2006 saw his WHIP and his H/9 rocket upwards.

In A ball, his hits rose to 11.01/9. It seemed like his stuff just wasn’t good enough anymore as his K/9 rate dropped as well to 5.08. He was able to limit the damage, though, in his 18 starts. His ERA was only 3.76, which was undoubtedly helped by the fact he gave up zero homers. Zero homers, that’s right, quite Egbert like huh? He ended up getting promoted to Winstom-Salem (A+) and posted similar numbers in 4 starts. His ERA rose by .8 but that probably fluctuated due to luck as his per nine stats stayed around the same.

He spent all of 2007 in A+ ball and either struggled with his control or the hitters at this level just had better hitting eyes, as his walk rate jumped from 2.28 to 3.29 per nine. Other than that (and a rise in HR/9 which was due to him actually giving up a homer), he improved across the board when compared to his stint in A ball and his brief stint in A+ ball in 2006. Hits were down to 8.87 as well as his WHIP, while K/9 rose slightly to 5.52 from 5.08 in A ball. It was his performance in A+ ball in 2007 that first raised him up on my radar and others’ radars as a potential sleeper. I didn’t know about his two year gap of no baseball in between junior year in high school and sophomore year in college, otherwise I would have researched him harder at the time rather than merely just pay attention to his performances in the boxscore. That missing playing time definitely pushed back his development rate. In terms of chronological age he was 23 at the end of 2007 but in baseball age he was only 21. I know it’s not the most accurate way to look at it, because while yes, he wasn’t playing baseball, his body was still developing, but you can’t undervalue experience. John Danks showed the knack for entering a minor league level at a young age, and then mastering it a second time through, so experience does definitely help.

This brings us to the current season. He has exploded this season. It’s impossible at this point (from what I’ve been able to find out) whether to decide if this season is an outlier, merely a fluke or, rather, a culmination of untapped potential. Either way, he started the season in AA and proceeded to dominate. He lowered his stats completely across the board. He completely stepped his game up. His H/9 and BB/9 dropped significantly, falling to 7.12 and 1.72 respectively which resulted in a .98 WHIP. His HR rate stayed low at .22 and his K/9 rate rose to 5.70. Keep in mind the Barons’ home park is a bandbox, so depending on how many times he pitched at home, he could have done better than the stats would indicate. His performance in his 13 starts warranted a promotion to AAA, where he pitched even better than he did in AA. His hits per nine continued to drop, falling to 5.92 as well as his walks which were at a teriffic .95. His K/9 jumped up to 6.87 and his WHIP was a tiny .76.

He is no longer a middling prospect. He actually has a bright future. He started this year’s future game for Team USA. I am still unsure as to what his peak would be though. He looks like he could end up being a solid number 3 starter in the bigs in a few years, but that’s assuming he doesn’t continue to improve as he has over the last couple of years. Here’s a small blurb I was able to find about Richard which sums up his potential and his pitches a little bit:

White Sox left-hander Clayton Richard got the start for the U.S. team. A big 6′6″, 240-pound southpaw, Richard lives on his sinker. It’s a tough pitch to hit hard, especially coming from a downhill plane, and it also allows Richard to induce plenty of ground balls. That ground ball tendency was evident when Richard allowed three grounders in the first, though one of them was a single. The World team eventually scored a run in the inning thanks to an error by shortstop Jason Donald, a stolen base by Elvis Andrus, and a fielder’s choice by Pablo Sandoval.

Richard was posting a combined 2.44 ERA and 82/20 K/BB in 121 2/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A before the game. He hit 91 MPH with his sinker at one point in the contest, but he was more consistently in the upper 80s to 90. He’s already 24 and doesn’t have much upside, but if Richard can keep limiting walks and homers, he could be a No. 3 starter if everything breaks right. He’s more likely to be an innings eater, but he’s a solid, underrated prospect.

Having a sinker is a great asset when pitching for the Sox. We’re all well aware of the fact that the Cell is rather friendly to the home run. I guess his sinker will be put to an immediate test when facing the Rangers. As much as the Cell likes yiedling homers, the Rangers enjoy hitting them. Here’s hoping Richard can bail the Sox out while Jose is hurt much like Brandon McCarthy did in ‘05.