Card
thoughts: Oh boy, am I bored with these
interchangeable Blue Jay head shots of indistinguishable white pitchers.
The
player: With a long career as a high-ERA innings
eater, it seemed the Blue Jays were always waiting for Clancy’s raw stuff (one
of the best sliders in the game, an overpowering fastball) to translate into a
consistently winning season. Every year, however, Clancy would get himself
involved in a bunch of a blow outs that raised his ERA a bunch, which belied
his effectiveness in other starts. Edwin Jackson of the Cubs comes to mind as a
similarly frustrating pitcher.
An original Blue Jay, he was selected from the
Rangers minor league system in the expansion draft, despite pitching
consistently poorly there. He made it to the majors later in 1977, but his
first full time season was in ’78, where he had a typical season for him: a
near .500 record, with an ERAs north of 4.
After a few more inconsistent years, mostly marred
by injury, Clancy had an great campaign in 1982, starting a league high 40
games (I guess the thought was then the injuries allowed a pitcher to “rest”
his arm), and pitching the fourth inning of the all star game. Clancy ended the
year 16-14 and a career high 266 innings pitched.
Another good season followed in 1983 (15-11), but in
1984, he was pretty terrible (13-15, 5.16 ERA). Despite this, he was still run
out there all the time, and led the league once in again in games started.
Clancy was injured much of the season shown on this card (only 23 starts), so he
wasn’t much of a factor in the playoffs (1 inning pitched, 1 run given up). But
the next three seasons were typical Clancy: Lots of decisions, leading to both
double digit wins and losses, high ERAs (for the time), and lots of innings
pitched.
The Astros signed him as a starter for the 1988
season, but he was very hittable (9.5 hits per nine innings), before being
demoted to the bullpen. The same thing happened the following season, where his
bloated 6.51 ERA got him exiled for a time to Tuscon.
By 1991, he was no longer a starter. Traded midway
through the season to Atlanta, after he posted a 2.78 ERA in 55 innings (with 5
saves) with the Astros, he pitched poorly down the stretch, but was kept on the
post-season roster. He ended his career by pitching 4+ innings in the World
Series.
Rear guard: Clancy's first win came against the Brewers and it was a complete game. By giving up just 2 runs in 9 innings, he lowered his ERA from his ghastly major league debut (22.50) where he gave up 5 runs in 2 innings.
2 comments:
I always found Clancy a frustrating player as a kid, for the same reasons you listed above!
HA! My dad got to the point in 84 that he wouldn't watch a Clancy game. Great blog, man.
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