Bleacher Creature Feature

#24: Boomer vs. Rocket

5 September 2002

Many Yankee fans lamented the deal at the time. Clemens was viewed as a carpetbagger who was only coming to the Yankees to get the World Series ring that a career in Boston (and later Toronto) denied him. Wells was (and still is) a fan favorite, a dyed-in-the-pinstripes Yankee fan who worshipped the team in general and Babe Ruth in particular. He was also a hero of the historic 1998 campaign with his perfect game and stellar postseason performance.

Let's look at the deal several years down the line. The Yankees also traded Homer Bush and Graeme Lloyd. Lloyd is an eminently replaceable left-handed reliever who got a ridiculous $9 million contract from Montreal to perform a task that could just as easily been performed by a minimum-salary waiver wire pickup. (Stupid owner tricks like this are why there was almost a strike last week. SEE ALSO: Brady Anderson, Roberto Hernandez, Darren Dreifort, etc.) Lloyd was also hit by personal tragedy, as his wife died, and he missed the entire 2000 season. Still, he wasn't a big loss to the Yanks. Bush was an even smaller loss; as long as Chuck Knoblauch was performing (a timeframe that was much shorter than anticipated, admittedly), Bush was never going to be more than a 25th spot on the roster. Right now, Enrique Wilson has that spot, and he's more versatile than Bush. And Bush wound up being even worse than anticipated, an empty .300 hitter in 1999, and a total scrub after that. (Amusingly, both players now toil for the Florida Marlins.)

So that leaves the two pitchers.

Here's what Wells has done in the years since the trade (through his last start in 2002):

112 G, 18 CG, 3 SHO, 737.1 IP, 821 H, 396 R, 360 ER, 85 HR, 159 BB, 512 K, 57 W, 32 L, 4.39 ERA

Over the 1999-2002 seasons, he's had opponents' BAs of .271, .289, .297, and .269; OBP of .318, .314, .333, and .313; SLG of .438, .429, .453, and .419. His average run support numbers are 6.25, 6.23, 4.92, and 7.60.

That gives him a H/IP ratio of 1.11, and a K/BB ratio of 3.22.

Now here's Clemens for the same time period:

120 G, 2 CG, 1 SHO, 769.1 IP, 723 H, 371 R, 341 ER, 80 HR, 300 BB, 734 K, 59 W, 26 L, 3.99 ERA

Over those same three-and-five-sixths seasons, he's had opponents' BAs of .261, .236, .246, and .249; OBP of .345, .317, .307, and .311; SLG of .394, .384, .375, and .394. His average run support numbers are 4.94, 5.37, 6.58, and 5.22.

That gives him a H/IP ratio of .93, and a K/BB ratio of 2.44.

Aside from the fact that Wells has a ridiculous number of complete games (probably a reflection on the bullpen in Toronto in 1999-2000, since 16 of those 18 were in those two years) and a better K/BB ratio (a reflection of Wells being more of a finesse/control pitcher than Clemens) Clemens is superior in pretty much every relevant category. Clemens has given up fewer hits and runs than Wells despite having pitched thirty more innings. Clemens has a superior ERA. Clemens has given up fewer home runs. Clemens opponents' BAs are lower, the OBPs are about the same (which fits, given Clemens's higher walk total), and the SLGs are much lower (which means that not only does Wells give up more hits, he gives up more big hits). Clemens has done all this with much less run support than Wells has enjoyed (and Wells has played on weaker teams).

Clemens is a power pitcher; power pitchers tend to have longer careers. Wells's injury history was already nasty before the trade, and has only gotten worse -- culminating in back surgery last year -- and is still worse than Clemens's, this season notwithstanding.

This is not to say that Wells is a bad pitcher. Hell, I'll take somebody with a K/BB ratio of 3.22 over four years and a 4.16 ERA this season over most pitchers. He's definitely a huge asset, when healthy. But the difference between them is the difference between a very good pitcher and a great pitcher. Roger Clemens is a great pitcher.

This was definitely the right trade for the Yankees to make. It made sense then; it makes more sense four years later.

Amusing reading: Filip Bondy (a BCF subscriber) writing the obituary of the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry in today's New York Daily News. "The Yankees have a rivalry with the Red Sox the way a whale has a rivalry with plankton." For the entire article, click here.

Also, for the statheads among us (and I know you're out there), Rany Jazayerli at BaseballProspectus.com has posted an interesting three-part series on the Five-Pitcher Rotation. Here's how it starts:

"The five-man rotation is a failure.

"I don't mean to be overly dramatic here. I'm not trying to frame 'failure' in a pejorative sense, the way we might describe Tony Muser, or airport security pre-9/11, or Bud Selig's ceaseless efforts to acquire a human soul. I use the term 'failure' in a purely literal sense. How else to describe a concept which has not succeeded in accomplishing the precise objective for which it was created?"

You can read the entire thing on the Web: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

We'll be at Sunday's game against the Tigers -- our penultimate Sunday game of the year. More then....

NEXT: Snow-Globe Day

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