Browse entire “40-man, Player by Player” series here.
Previous entry: Brandon League.  Next up, Mark Lowe.

Cliff Lee, as you know, came storming out of mediocrity to become one of the league’s best starting pitchers at the age of 30 back in 2008.  The story was overplayed, but because it was a good one.  Just one year after a disastrous season that saw him get left off the Cleveland Indians’ postseason roster he won the Cy Young award.

His career has been an odd one.  As a minor leaguer and in his first few stints with Cleveland he was a wild strikeout pitcher.  Then sometime between 2004 and 2005 he took the first steps to becoming the pitcher he is today as he was instructed to use the same release point for all of his pitches.  This cut his walk rate in half, but also cut down on his strikeout rate, which didn’t do him any favors considering he was an extreme flyball pitcher at this point in his career.  He gave up a ton of home runs, including 30 in 2004 and 29 in 2006.  In his first few years with the Indians he was very much a back of the rotation arm who could get blown out at any time.

2007 was an even rougher year for him.  He had an abdominal strain early that he attempted to pitch through with poor results.  His walks were creeping back up and he was getting absolutely smoked.  The Indians finally optioned the 28 year old down to the minor leagues and left him there until rosters expanded in September.  Even then they didn’t start him, and he didn’t join his teammates in the postseason.

Lee had solved one problem, the walks, but at expense to one of his best traits, the strikeouts.  Without the strikeouts, he was unable to survive as a fly ball pitcher.  So he decided not to be a fly ball pitcher anymore.  Simple, right?

Lee showed up in 2008 with a two seamer and a higher arm slot that produced more downward plane on his pitches.  Suddenly Lee became the stud pitcher the Montreal Expos and Cleveland Indians thought he would after pairing the new lower walk totals with a groundball rate that skyrocketed from 32.7% in 2006 to 45.9% in 2008.

2008 was an incredible year for Lee.  223.1 innings, 170 strikeouts, 34 walks, 2.54 ERA (2.83 FIP), and 7.2 WAR on his way to a Cy Young win over Roy Halladay.  He kept it up in 2009, especially after being traded from the out of contention Indians to the World Series contender Philadelphia Phillies, and he was nearly unhittable in the postseason.

And now he’s a Seattle Mariner.

GM Jack Zduriencik wanted Halladay.  Halladay didn’t want Seattle however, and put them on his block list.  But things worked out for okay for Seattle as Phillies GM Ruben Amaro was able to get Halladay, but needed somewhere to dump Lee.  Enter Seattle.

The Mariners sent three prospects to the Phillies for one year of Lee.  They were good prospects for Seattle, but certainly not untouchables.  JC Ramirez was Seattle’s best starting pitching prospect, but that said more about Seattle’s starting pitching depth than it did about Ramirez.  He had a projectable body, a big fastball and a smooth delivery, but he was wild and his secondary pitches are a long ways away.  There is no guarantee that he’ll be a starter, and if he does it will likely take 3 more years at least.  Phillippe Aumont had already been sent to the bullpen, limiting his value to the Mariners (though Philly is going to try him as a starter, degenerative hip be damned).  Tyson Gillies is fun to watch and the fact that he’s legally deaf makes him a nice story, but at the end of the day he’s going to have to overcome some things he may not be able to overcome if he wants to be be anything more than a fourth outfielder.

Would I like to have these guys in the system?  Of course.  But I’ll take one year of Cliff Lee and the compensation draft picks over them without hesitation.

Lee pairs up with Felix Hernandez to form the best lefty-righty 1-2 combination in baseball, and arguably the best 1-2 outright.  Seattle is going to need them to perform like the aces they are given the uncertainty in the back of the rotation.  As has been said elsewhere, the blueprint may be for Seattle to try and win a high percentage of those Hernandez and Lee starts and then just hold on for dear life and hope to play .500 baseball for rotation spots 3, 4 and 5.  Hopefully the team can get a little more out of Ryan Rowland-Smith and Ian Snell than is expected, and a healthy Erik Bedard at some point could be a nice boost, but none of those guys can really be counted on in 2010.

Lee could have a really nice year with Seattle.  Considering that we was only a National Leaguer for about 80 innings pitched, I wouldn’t worry about any big drop in production moving back to the big bad American League.  So that’s a plus.  And he’ll have a better defense behind him than he had in Cleveland or Philadelphia.  That can’t hurt.  And he gave up 14 of his 17 homers to right handed hitters last year and 10 of 12 the year before, so given Safeco Field’s spacious left-center and the wind blowing towards right field, it wouldn’t be surprising to see those numbers come down.  As long as Lee maintains his great command, I don’t really see any reason why he wouldn’t continue to be among the league’s best as a Mariner.

Felix and Cliff.  Let’s start a winning streak.