I don't want to speak for everyone here, but I'm not saying there's not more than one way to be a successful pitcher. You can excel with a lot of plus skills WITHOUT much of a fastball, and simply HAVING high velocity most certainly doesn't mean you will be successful.

However, most right-handed pitchers must throw FAST ENOUGH if they are ever to have major league success. Generally speaking, this means throwing above 90 for your fastball. Clippard really maxes out at 90, and reports put him anywhere in the range of 85-90 consistently.

The history of pitchers like this is: 1) their age/success-in-minors is irrelevant, and 2) they fail when they reach the big leagues. I still haven't heard an example of a non-knuckleballing right-handed starter who has broken into the big leagues sitting at 88. Joe Blanton is the closest I've heard, though it bears mentioning that: 1) Joe Blanton threw harder in 2005 -- despite the similarly bad K/9 rate, and 2) a 4.82 ERA in the Coliseum isn't much better than a number 5 starter. Meanwhile, I can think of plenty more similar "prospects" who had success in the low minors and were never heard of again after they hit the wall scouts predicted (and I forget many more, since most of these guys never receive the community's attention, given that they ARE NOT prospects).

So, if everything goes right with Tyler Clippard, he's Joe Blanton -- a guy who's regressing into a number 5 starter in his second year in the bigs?

Also -- "There have been HOF's with worse stuff than Clippard. Many of them." That's the most absurdly unsubstantiated comment I've ever read. There have been NO HOFers with worse stuff than Tyler Clippard, unless you mean the hitters (though Ruth and Musial probably had better stuff, too). Name ONE. And you certainly DON'T mean Greg Maddux, because: 1) as I already explained, when Greg Maddux was successful (i.e., building his HOF credentials), he threw much harder, and 2) I'm pretty sure Greg Maddux's stuff BESIDES velocity grades out much, much higher than Clippard's. So, go ahead -- tell me one of the "many" Hall of Famers. Any day now.

Anyway, I'm pretty unconvinced by Clippard. I think the stats are pretty deceptive, and he'll be exposed by more mature hitters at a higher level. Regardless, I am positive the K-rate is down the drain.

My projection (percent chances of being each:

ace: <<<1%

2. <1%
   
3. 4%
   
4. 8%
   

I realize those numbers look especially bad, because I'm pretty conservative in my estimates for everybody. On the other hand, I think Clippard has an especially high risk of being nothing since: 1) he doesn't really have the arsenal to make it as a reliever, and 2) every player who is at all like him has flamed out at higher levels, regardless of how sparkling their numbers were against younger, more inexperienced hitters. To me, it doesn't matter whether Clippard is 21 or 25 -- the point is, he doesn't have the stuff to get good hitters out, and he's pretty unlikely to enjoy any success at the next level.