This isn’t exactly news at this point, but last night at midnight was the deadline for teams to tender contracts to their arbitration eligible players, and the Pirates declined to do so with their closer for the past 2+ seasons, Matt Capps.  Capps made about $2.5 Million last season and likely would have received somewhere in the $3-4 Million range for 2010.  Honestly, I still don’t know exactly what to make of this.  Capps had an absolutely horrendous 2009, posting a 5.80 ERA in 57 appearances with 27 saves in 32 chances.  His walk rate was up to a career high 2.82 per nine innings, and just about all of his peripherals were heading in the wrong direction.  As bad as he looked last season though, you have to believe it was at least partially due to some bad luck and he was due to rebound some in 2010.  Assuming a bit of a rebound in 2010, a closer with Capps proven abilities to get batters out in the 9th inning is a valuable commodity.  Even at the high end of what he would have received via arbitration, lets say $4.5 million, you would think it would be worthwhile to tender him a contract, let him re-establish his value int he early going in 2010, then trade him.  The fact that that didn’t happen leads me to the conclustion that the Pirates internal evaluation on Capps is that 2007-08 was the fluke and that 2009 is the real Matt Capps.

So let’s analyze that a bit, does 2009 represent what we can expect from Capps in 2010 and beyond?  When Capps is effective, he throws in the low 90’s with pinpoint control.  He flashes a slider and a change-up, but he relies heavily on his fastball, and when his control is on, its really the only pitch he needs.  As I’ve said before on this blog, I don’t mind that mix for an 8th inning set up guy, but I would greatly prefer to have a closer who has an out pitch and Capps doesn’t have one.  With no out pitch, Capps has to rely on his ability to hit the catchers mitt, and he would have to regain that ability in 2010 to be an effective closer for the Bucs.  The real question, I guess, is where did that ability go in 2009?  Certainly he had some injury issues, but its hard to blame that for all his issues last season.  From what I can gather, I think we can garner 2 things from the data available.  First, I think Capps was over throwing his pitches.  In 2008, Capps average fastball velocity was 91.5, in 2009, it was up to 93.6.  The same thing holds for his other pitches, with his slider up to 84.7 from 82.9 and his changeup showing a similar jump.  Its possible that this is just in issue with the gun at pnc park, but looking at data for other Pirates pitchers like Zach Duke and Paul Maholm you don’t see this jump, so its safe to assume the increased velocity is real.  Second, and maybe more importantly, I think Capps lost confidence in his fastball last season and tried to use his secondary pitches more often.  In 2007 and 2008 Capps threw his fastball more than %78 of the time.  In 2009, that number was %68.7.  There’s all sorts of possible explanations for this drop.  He could ahve been coached to do so.  He could have worked hard in the off season on his slider and wanted to utilize it more.  But the numbers show (according to fangraphs.com pitch values) that both his slider and change up have negative run values for his career while his fastball is many runs above average.

It would seem to me that both of those issues could be corrected with some coaching and some work.  With all that being said, I’ll close this way.  I can envision all kinds of scenarios where Capps rebounds for another team and ends up being a very effective bullpen guy for a team next year.  Conversely, I can envision very few scenarios where Capps repeats his 2009 numbers in 2010 and isn’t a useful bullpen arm.  The Pirates aren’t in a position where they can afford to give up on potentially effective relievers, even if it means overpaying them by a million dollars or so, the have the payroll room to do so on a 1 year basis.  Unless this move is just a precursor to something else coming shortly down the line, I really fail to see the logic in this move.