It’s Time For The Tigers To Insert Joba Chamberlain As Closer

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When the Detroit Tigers signed Joe Nathan to a 2-year, $20 million contract this offseason, many fans were put at ease thinking that the solution to their end-of-game woes had finally arrived. After years of Jose Valverde, the bad version of Fernando Rodney, Todd Jones, Troy Percival and a variety of other pitchers that were comparable to riding a roller coaster, Nathan was supposed to be the answer.

Through just around one-third of the season, it’s becoming more and more clear that that may not be the case. In 21 innings pitched this year, Nathan’s ERA sits at a bloated 6.86, which is completely unacceptable for any reliever, let alone the closer on a team with championship aspirations.

This inflated ERA is due to a variety of issues, unfortunately. At the start of the season, it was “dead arm” that caused him trouble, but he seemed to get over that for awhile. His problems have stemmed from his tendency to walk batters, which he’s doing at an alarming rate compared to the rest of his career. In 2012, he walked just 13 batters in over 64 innings, but this year he’s already reached 11 in under a third of the time.

Along with giving free bases way too often, he’s not missing bats like he once did. His K/9 is the lowest it’s been since he was a starter for the San Francisco Giants back in 2000, which certainly can be partially attributed to the drop in velocity that he’s experienced this year. His inability to control the game has also led to hitters laying off of stuff outside of the zone, too, which has allowed them to sit back and wait for their pitch.

This season, hitters are making contact with 90% of Nathan’s pitches that are inside the strike zone, which is significantly higher than his career rate of 82%. These hittable pitches are unfortunately being hit hard, too, as evidenced by the career high 1.71 HR/9 rate that he’s currently working with.

Unfortunately for him and the Tigers, there’s really not a whole lot of optimism that can be drawn from looking at his peripherals. His BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) is at a reasonable .281, so hitters aren’t merely getting lucky, and his FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching, a supposedly more accurate form of ERA) of 5.21 shows that he’s simply not looking good at all this year.

Luckily for the team, they may actually have a replacement in-house who could fill the void that Nathan has created: Joba Chamberlain. After drawing a few questionable reactions when the team signed him to a $2.5 million this offseason, it’s safe to say that Joba has been a blessing for the Tigers this year as one of their lone bright spots in a shaky bullpen.

While Nathan has struggled, Chamberlain has shined and reminded us of the days that he was supposed to be the heir apparent to the Rivera throne in New York. In fact, his numbers are actually quite similar to those of his phenomenal rookie season, aside from his sparkling 0.38 ERA that year.

His key to success this year has been inducing ground balls, in which he has done 50% of the time. While the Tigers defense may not be the best suited for a ground ball-heavy pitcher, you can at least be assured that none of those hits will be leaving the park. He’s allowed 0 home runs to this point, and it probably can go without saying that home runs are absolutely deadly in late-game situations.

Contrary to Nathan, too, Joba has bumped up his strikeouts while limiting the walks that he’s given up. He’s done this by shying away from his fastball (which is a league-average pitch statistically) and moving more towards his curveball and wipeout slider, which are both well above league-average.

His peripherals actually indicate that he could be a candidate to improve as the year goes on, with his FIP being nearly 1 run less than his ERA and his BABIP is sky high at .355. Both of these suggest that he’s pitching better than his current numbers, which should excite Tiger fans.

After years of being the butt-end of jokes in New York, perhaps this change of scenery was just what Joba Chamberlain needed to turn his career around. His years of moving between the bullpen and starting rotation were certainly rough, but in the end it may have taught him how to be a better pitcher, rather than just a thrower like he was early on in his career.

With the Tigers currently in the midst of a 4-13 slide and the White Sox now right on their tails, it’s time for Brad Ausmus to make a change at the back end. Joe Nathan clearly has not been working out, and the Tigers don’t have the time to let him figure out what’s wrong. He needs to be moved back into middle relief to sort these issues out so that he wouldn’t costing the team games in the process.

We’ve already seen the league-leading Oakland Athletics pull off a similar move to success, so the time is now for the Tigers to follow suit. Joba Chamberlain has proven that he’s more than ready to take over the closer role this year and with the state of the team currently, it’s time to give him that chance.

Thanks for reading.