Manny Corpas

I thought I would take sometime too look at some players who have been struggling, and see if I can find a reason to why they are having such a hard time.   I will start with Corpas.

Last year Corpas was amazing for us down the strech and finish the season with a 2.08 ERA, 19 saves, 58 Strikeouts to 20 BB's.  He was easily on his way to becoming one of the leagues top young relief pitchers.  However going into this year he has imploded, blowing 4 saves, and eventually loosing his closer role to Fuentes, while not look like the same pitcher on the mound that we saw last year.

Lets take a closer look shall we.  Here are Corpas's BB/9, K/9, WHIP, and Batting Average for Balls in play for 2007:

2.31/6.69/1.06/.260

In 2008 his line looks like this:

6.32/3.45/1.98/.320

As you can see his Walk rates have more then doubled, while his strike out rates has declined.  Also he has been rather unlucky with ball in play going from .260 to .320.  A .320 BABIP is a little higher then his career normal of .290 so that should normalize in time.  The greater concern has been his walks and strikeout rates.  It seems to me that he is scared to attack the hitters this year, and is pitching around them more.  This is supported by the fact that he is only throwing strikes 55% of the time as opposed to last year when he was throwing strikes 64% of the time. 

My guess is that he's been a bit shaken up this year, as batters have been a bit more luck against him.  I think that once he starts to attack hitters like he did last year he will be fine, right now though he needs to clear his head though.  If there is any good news its that his Linedrive, flyball and groundball percentages are within 2% of what they were last year. 

I think it might be interesting if we had him start a game or two, give him a few innings to work on his command a little bit and have him re-trust his stuff.  Maybe then we can get our old Manny Corpas back.