Welcome To The Show: Zach Clark, RHP

Wow. Let’s hear it for the UMBC baseball program. A public embarrassment to the sport of college baseball for many years, consistently finishing in the the bottom 20 of the 300 division 1 schools in RPI, they have little to hang their hat on. Today, it was announced that Zach Clark, former UMBC pitcher, was called up to the Orioles. He joins Jay Witasick and Wayne Franklin as the third former UMBC pitcher to make it to the big leagues. Up until last year, I never thought anything of him. Why should I? He was undrafted out of UMBC in 2006 and spent the next 6 seasons toiling in the minors as a mediocre organizational pitcher type, that they yo-yo from one level to another as a short term fill in. That perception changed with his breakout 2012 season that led the O’s to place him on the 40 man roster.

Zach Clark is now an Oriole. He beat the odds

Background Check

– DOB: 7/11/83. He’s a 29 year old rookie who will turn 30 in July.

– He’s a Newark, Delaware native and graduated from Newark High School back in 2001.

– According to Roch Kubatko, he signed his free agent contract with the Orioles in UMBC’s parking lot in 2006.

– Thanks to sticking with a more consistent routine and working with Rick Peterson, saw a velocity boost last season. Big reason why he’s considered a prospect now.

Scouting Report

Sum him up in two words: Groundball specialist.

None of his pitches are particularly good but the all have movement and can induce a high percentage of groundballs when he keeps them down in the zone.

Height: 6’0″ Weight: 200

Four Seam Fastball: 90-92 MPH. Major league average for a right hander.

Two Seam/ Sinker: 89-91 MPH. His bread and butter pitch. Has good late tail and can be effective when he keeps it low in the zone.

Cutter: 86-88. Change of pace offering mainly deployed to keep lefty hitters off balance.

Curveball: 75-77. Average offering with decent break that he typically throws when ahead in the count.

Naturally, the Miguel Gonzalez comparisons are going to be made because both reached the majors late and feature similar styles of mixing and spotting their pitches well despite having an overall average arsenal. However, Gonzalez has an outpitch in his changeup, and on occasion, the slider. Unlike Gonzalez who is a flyball pitcher, Clark pitches to contact more and uses his two seam and curveball to induce weak groundballs when he gets ahead in the count.

I’m assuming he’s hear to work as a long reliever but it’s possible they could have him make a spot start too against the Angels this weekend. I wouldn’t expect his stay to be long.

To me he profiles best as a strike throwing long reliever type in the bullpen who can make a spot start in a pinch. He’s just not overpowering enough for me to see sustained success as a starter in the big leagues although I wouldn’t be surprised if he exceeds expectations at first until the league makes adjustments.

He’s posted a 4.54 ERA in his first five starts with Norfolk this year. But everyone should know, I dig deeper than that. His FIP is a much more impressive 3.09 (thanks Fan Graphs) with the reason for middling ERA being a high BABIP (not uncommon for groundball pitchers with questionable infield defense behind him) and a well lower than average strand rate (meaning a lot of his inherited runners have scored and/or extra outs thanks to sub par defense have allowed for big innings). More importantly, he was brilliant in his most recent start (7 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 7  K, 5.00 GO/AO).

Why He’s Here

Zach Britton faltered after not belonging up this early in the season to begin with. Clark will likely be used as a long reliever and there’s a decent chance he may not even appear in a game and get optioned back to AAA in favor of an old man Fred Garcia or Jair Jurrjens for the weekend start in Anaheim. (Update: Yep, Old Man Garcia is coming up)

What to Expect

Not much. He’s here to provide extra depth in the bullpen before being sent back down when Freddy Garcia gets the call on Saturday. Still, a nice story and he could be back with O’s again at some point.