SI.com - SI Writers - Tom Verducci - Inside Baseball - Tom Verducci: Clemens' feats in late stage of career are remarkable - Tuesday May 27, 2003 01:18 PM
when former Red Sox GM Dan Duquette allowed Clemens to leave Boston after the 1996 season because the hurler, Duquette said, was in "the twilight" of his career,
Clemens had just come off a season in which he struck out more batters per nine innings than in every season of his career to that point, except 1988.
"Forget his won-loss record," current Red Sox GM
Theo Epstein said, referring to Clemens' 10-13 mark in 1996. "His strikeout rate was still right up there and always has been. That tells you what kind of stuff he has."
Clemens struck out 20 batters in the last game he won for Boston. He had a 28-inning scoreless streak in August of '96, the longest in the majors that year. He also led the league in strikeouts. Does that sound like a pitcher losing his stuff?
Duquette, in an e-mail response to a query about Clemens, called the future Hall of Famer "a determined, durable, terrifically talented pitcher who has long been one of the best at what he does."
In addressing Clemens' departure, Duquette wrote, "During the last part of Roger's tenure with the Sox, I got the feeling that the intense pressure of being the most high-profile player for so many years in the boiling cauldron that is baseball in Boston was weighing heavily on Roger and he wanted to move along."
Not so, said Clemens, who stated that he would have preferred to remain in Boston but that Duquette made his decision to leave easy.
"It's no different than one corporation asking you to work for them, saying we want you, and the other corporation lets you go," Clemens said. "It's pretty easy. If [the Red Sox] had gotten anywhere close in the ballpark it would have been an easy decision [to stay]."
Perhaps what damns Duquette's "twilight" evaluation the most -- and seems wholly at odds with Clemens' work ethic throughout his career -- is Duquette's insinuation that Clemens was not in proper shape.
"For a number of reasons -- such as his health and conditioning, poor run support and minimal support from the bullpen -- his record and performance had slipped in his last few years with the Red Sox," Duquette wrote.
He added that Clemens "completely re-dedicated himself to his career, got himself in great shape and had two terrific years for the Blue Jays."
The numbers clearly do not suggest that Clemens let himself go physically. In fact, he averaged a whopping 125 pitches per start in '96, a career high. And if somehow you
did think Clemens wasn't in proper condition while posting the second-best strikeout rate of his career and throwing his career high in pitches per start, wouldn't you keep him to find out what he could do by "getting into shape?"
When told of Duquette's comments, Clemens rolled his eyes and said, "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I dogged it. I mailed it in ... Like [agents
Randy and
Alan]
Hendricks said, he's just trying to save face. The manager [
Kevin Kennedy] knew it at the time. [Duquette] wanted his team and he wanted some other guys he brought in for
Mo [
Vaughn] and everybody. It was an easy decision. It wasn't a hard decision at all for me."
As it happened, what Duquette called "the twilight" of Clemens' career has catapulted the Rocket from a great pitcher to one of the best ever. Look at it another way: When Clemens left Boston he was 34 years old and had a career record of 192-111. By way of comparison, right now
Mike Mussina is 34 years old and has a career record of 189-105.
Now look at Clemens in "twilight." He is 107-43. How good is that? Consider that
Pedro Martinez is 108-34 in that same period, which happens to begin with Martinez's Cy Young Award breakout season of 1997, when Pedro was 25 years old. That means by won-lost record, Clemens at the end of his career has been virtually as reliable and as big a winner as Martinez has been in the youthful prime of his career. Amazing. Here's one more comparison just for the fun of it. Take every pitcher in history with 100 career decisions since the distance between home plate and the pitchers'
mound was set at 60 feet, six inches a century ago. Now take Twilight Clemens -- that is, Clemens only since he left Boston. Now rank all of them according to career winning percentage. Here's what you get:
